In Wisconsin and other states where Donald Trump outperformed expectations in the 2016 election, racism was the driving force, accumulating social scientific data shows.
Put another way: Trump voters hate blacks, immigrants and Muslims. Not as obvious as the reader may believe. Few wish to acknowledge this truism.
Notes Hasen:
Other surveys and polls of Trump voters found "a strong relationship between anti-black attitudes and support for Trump"; Trump supporters being 'more likely to describe African Americans as "criminal," "unintelligent," "lazy" and "violent"'; more likely to believe "people of color are taking white jobs"; and a "majority" of them rating blacks "as less evolved than whites." Sorry, but how can any of these prejudices be blamed on free trade or low wages? ...
Always remember: You have to identify the disease before you can begin work on a cure. In the case of support for Donald Trump, the results are in: It isn’t the economy. It’s the racism, stupid.
Hasan's work is spot-on, his piece is a must-read.
Made me think of Trump last August appearing in east-central Wisconsin in the white homeland of West Bend in Washington County, (Mal Contends), (Alcindor, NYT). [Used to drive to West Bend with my mom from Fond du Lac to buy new cooking utensils in the summers. She loved it, never could comprehend why.]
Reported Yamiche Alcindor in the Times last year:
Jack Beck, 65, a retired bricklayer who lives in West Bend, said he planned to vote for Mr. Trump and did not blame him for making a low-key stop in Milwaukee, given the city’s racial tensions.
'Every night in Milwaukee, there is someone being shot, and they make nothing of that until a cop is involved, and then all of a sudden it’s always blamed on the cop,' said Mr. Beck, who added that he hoped West Bend’s black population would not increase. He tied much of the unrest in Milwaukee to his belief that black residents do not want to work hard and instead want to use police killings to get handouts from the government.
Imbeciles like Jack Black propelled Trump to a win in Wisconsin, though the depressed Milwaukee vote, that urban vote, helped as well, courtesy of Republican statewide voter-suppression efforts that transformed Wisconsin election law in six years since 2011
In Wisconsin, a Republican cannot wring more white votes out of the white WOW counties next to Milwaukee County. WOW is an acronym for Waukesha, Ozaukee and Washington counties or White-on-White as we say at Mal Contends, (New Republic), (Jackson, Boston Globe).
Trump carried Washington County by 30,875 votes in 2016. In 2012, Romney won Washington County by 31,573 votes.
But if West Bend's Jack Black and his ilk had their way a Trump victory is not enough, we'd segregate blacks and then lock 'em up. Oh, that's right, we already do that.
