“As best we can tell from the data available in exit polls, the median household income of a Trump supporter is about $72,000 a year. It’s true that this makes Trump voters more downscale than John Kasich voters ($91,000 a year) but it’s essentially equal to the median household income of Ted Cruz voters ($73,000 a year) and well above the $61,000-a-year median household income of Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders supporters.”
"Trump leaped out to a big delegate lead by winning a series of mostly poor Southern states on Super Tuesday. This led to an early equation of Trump with economically struggling regions that was reinforced when Trump’s single best county-level performance came in Buchanan County, Virginia — a hard-hit coal county in the southwestern portion of the state.
But this image of the Trump movement is out of date and largely a consequence of the primary schedule. Trump has now won Maryland, the richest state in America, along with Connecticut (No. 4) and Massachusetts (No. 5). California (No. 3) hasn’t voted yet, but Trump was ahead in the polls there when his opponents dropped out. When New York voted, Buchanan County lost its status as the Trumpiest county in America.
The new No. 1 is Staten Island, an affluent suburban community with a median household income of $72,000 a year."
And from Sean McElwee, who’s written extensively about this for Demos:
(Family income isn’t a predictor of Trump support in any of our models.) More importantly this narrative is difficult to square with the reality that although Blacks and Hispanics have significantly worse economic outcomes than whites, few have rushed to support Trump. In addition, we find that variables connected to economic anxiety do not predict Trump support after other factors are controlled for. (A recent Washington Post analysis finds that racial concerns are stronger predictors of Trump support than economic ones.) Rather, we find that what drives support for Trump is the mistaken belief that the government serves the interests of Blacks, rather than whites.
[quote=“blaeceorcanstan, post:102, topic:82021”]
But that doesn’t mean that they have their shit together.
[/quote]To clarify, when I said that, I meant in terms of the organizing and knowledge necessary to be able to elect who we want.
Thats affluent? Fuck you mean I have been scraping by and shit at just a little more than that and I should be living the good life? That is not fucking affluent. Maybe if I earned that much and lived in east butfuck nowhere Missouri but that sure isn’t goddam affluent in Seattle. $72,000 a year here is making ends meet with a some left over to save for an emergency fund.
$72,000/year is well above median US household income. It is even further above median African-American household income.
You’re no 1%er, but you’re certainly middle class. The fact that the US economy is fucked to the point that middle class Americans are starting to get a tiny hint of what the working class have always lived with doesn’t change that.
And there is where we find the link between Trump and income; your typical Trump supporter isn’t poor, but they’re starting to get afraid that they might become so. And because Trump supporters are fucking idiots (but I repeat myself…), they blame this fear on every racial minority they know of.
Well yeah. I know it isn’t crappy and such but it sure as hell isn’t affluent, doubly so in Seattle. If MrsTobinL and I had not opted for buying a house just before things got crazy we couldn’t even afford a 2 bedroom apartment here as those are now more than our mortgage payment and we do not have anything that I consider affluent. Hell one of the reasons we don’t have cable (besides it is just stuff we wont watch) is we can’t really afford it.
From a working class POV (i.e. the majority of the country), middle class is affluent. Most folks are too busy trying to scrape the rent together to spend much time thinking about mortgage rates.
I hear what you’re saying about the difficulty of living in the current economic conditions on a middle class income. Now think about what it’s like to be living in these conditions on a much lower income…
For me, ‘affluent’ means being able to afford housing, food, psychiatric care, and a couple relatively cheap, frivolous comforts (tea, skiing) with enough left over to stash away for a retirement that won’t resemble Hell.
You don’t have to go very far back in history before such a life was reserved only for royalty. And even then, their dental care was much worse than ours.
Well back when we were DINKs yeah. Which is what partly what got the house and the mortgage was on the whole was a deal over a 2 bedroom rent and we got 3 rooms and a basement at the time.
Now it gets us housing, food and pretty basic food at that, not much in the way of frivolous comforts, and not so much retirement funds but slowly adding to a now dwindling emergency fund as I look for a new job. And even employed god forbid some serious emergency happen of any sort as that would ruin things financially.
Maybe if my previous employer at least gave out COLA raises it wouldn’t have sucked so much but they didn’t even give out those for years. But I could pay the bills and well 4 fucking weeks of vacation was kinda hard to walk away from.
ETA: It just does not nor has not for many years now felt anything like affluent.
Then why do they keep electing officials who RUN on the platform of: I will refuse to do my job, but I still expect the government to pay me and give me a stellar health insurance and pension package?
Here’s a goiod article describing the the overall mentality of Trump’s voter base, and why an estimated 1/5 to 1/4 of Sanders voters might vote for Trump.
“The other big problem I have with Trump is that he has dragged down our entire political conversation. It’s not just that he inflames the tribalism of the Right; it’s that he encourages the worst impulses of the Left. In the past few weeks, I’ve heard from so many of my elite friends some version of, “Trump is the racist leader all of these racist white people deserve.” These comments almost always come from white progressives who know literally zero culturally working class Americans.”
Not trying to gang up on you at all, @TobinL. I know that you’re not arguing otherwise. I’m just compelled to observe that I would kill for 72,000 a year. The most I’ve made in a year is ~$24,000 working full time with regular overtime. 72,000 is enough for me to continue living as I do now AND pay off literally 100% of my student loans to-date in a year. With rent and cost of living in Seattle, assuming everything is doubled, (which is overestimating) I’ll call it two years. Granted that’s without any kind of a safety net or savings.
I’ll grant you 72,000 in Seattle might not be comfortable, but I’ve been living in emergency mode so long it looks like glorious riches to me.
Oh I am more like if this is affluent then there is something seriously wrong about the world. Though I am by no means going to vote for tRump or anyone on that side of the ticket.
I’d say the last three decades of growing economic inequality is the problem. Both parties are to blame for that, and neither seems particularly interested in doing much to change it. Trump claims he will, and though I personally don’t believe a word of it, I expect some of his support is more from desperation than anger and hatred.
For me there was only one exception, though I understand your point. My post was purposefully as non-antagonistic as possible.
As for everyone being the star of their own story, yeah, our world centers around us as individuals perceiving it. We can’t be absolutely sure of any thing beyond our own minds, but for the purposes of living we believe certain things are real, things which usually make our world view stable and predictable in some way.
What I’m getting at is making a world view that is balanced. There are bad things, but there are also good things. Breitbart and the like make it sound like the world is on the verge of collapse, the worst it’s ever been. I’ve tried talking about the past and how it was worse, but people’s views are limited to their own experience. So now I plan to talk about the present and how it isn’t a hellish nightmare. It’s not perfect, but it certainly it’s not so bad to be alive today. The world is connected to our fingertips. For some people that means that can get a constant stream of updates from their favorite celebrities. For others it means they have access to the knowledge requires to invent life saving medical apparatus from scrap. We can do so much that we were too isolated to do in the past.
The counter to the lone hero, is the great society. No one man accomplishes a ‘great’ thing. Kufu did not build the great pyramids, it was the Go’a’uld, just kidding, it was thousands and thousands of workers and architects and Kufu. No billion dollar business was made by one man. In fact no business is successful by the virtue of one man, because for a business to operate, it requires at least two people, a producer and a consumer. We may not like it, but we need each other to survive today, and we should grow to like it. This is the problem for someone who assumes that everyone is out for them self. If everyone is going to cheat me, why should I play fair? Now, I’m not saying that it only happens because people are cynical, in fact a hawk can be much more successful if everyone assumes nobody is underhanded. Which is why we need balance.
I’d say her vote to support Bush’s war in 2002 was considerably less than ideal; it probably fits the definition of a war crime according to the charter of the Nuremberg war crimes trials. (See Article 6(a).) Since then she has exhibited remarkable hawkishness, which suggests that the 2002 vote was not a fluke but evidence of a consistent character trait. I think the time might have come to stop condoning this kind of sociopathic behavior in our elected leaders.
I haven’t seen a lot of raging, possibly because I avoid Twitter, Facebook, and the mainstream media, but I do know that many leftish liberal and radical types are mystified by the level of Black support for Clinton. Voting as a bloc may indeed be effective, but leaders of the bloc have to demand and deliver something of benefit to the bloc as the other part of the deal, and this is not evident in the person of the hawkish, plutocratic Clinton. That is what needs to be examined and explained. If it’s just fear of Trump, Clinton may be in a lot of trouble, because all Trump has to do is be less scary for a couple of months.
The thought occurs to me, from a dark conspiracy ridden part of my mind. What if Donald was hired? What if all this is to drive us towards Hillary as the lesser of two evils? I heard a lot of people say that they voted for Hillary because they didn’t think Sanders could defeat Trump and the need to beat him is so great. I don’t think that’s the overwhelming reason for why Sanders didn’t win, but still…
I’m not sure how possible that is, but the possibility that he wasn’t hired and is a viable threat to the global community, I’d say is larger, and regardless of what he is, what he’s doing is influencing the culture of America. It’s sad really,
Sorry, but that’s not middle class. It’s barely blue collar. As near as I can tell, middle class starts at around double that. The middle class is doing just as well as they ever have- It’s that we have a whole lot of poor and blue collar people who still think they’re middle class just because they earned what was considered a good salary 30 years ago.
Dollar amounts mean nothing. Job titles mean nothing. Class isn’t money, it’s lifestyle. If you can’t pay a mortgage, put your kids through school, buy a new car every 3 or 4 years, take the occasional vacation, and retire comfortably, then you’re not middle class anymore. Being able to do those things is what defines the middle class. If you can’t do them, you’re poor. If you can do them, but it’s a constant struggle working two or three jobs, then you’re working class.
Nobody wants to admit that they’re part of a lower class than they think themselves. The middle class has shrunk to 5% of the population, and 80% of the rest think they’re part of it. That’s just the reality we live in.
