So why do people like trump??

[Bucees]

I can clearly see why people don't like trump but why on earth do people actually like him?

Can't even work it out?

You are not god to even be asking this question, everyone has a free vote, a free choice and using it does not make them idiots just because few other people on the same road have chosen another candidate.

There are tens of millions of Americans who has voted for him and will vote for him. Is that not good enough starting point for you to use some thinking before even asking a very blind question

Why don’t you believe she voted Remain? I agree with her post and I most certainly voted Remain, in fact 3 generations of my family were out canvassing for it.

The willingness of so many on the left to cede ground to the opposition by insulting and openly despising their voters is so depressing.

It’s true. I grew up in an area that was heavily settled by Nordic/Scandinavian immigrants, and though many are Trump voters now (it’s the Midwest after all 🙄) there are some ideas & ways of life that are much more socialist than anyone would admit.

insulting and openly despising their voters
So true, and such a lot of that on here. Not helpful to debate.

The mainstream media poisoned their own well.

This. People increasingly don't know who to believe, because the mainstream media are frequently shown up to be lying to them.

He was circling her like a great white (or in his case, orange) shark!

It's fascinating to see DNA profiles of Americans from the coasts versus the mid west, the likes of Alabama, utah and then the south near the mexican border. It highlights migration and isolation patterns. I had no idea about how salt lake city is very English and Scandinavian in Ancestry. Or how Scottish and Irish other parts of the US and Canada are. Or how mixed the coasts are by comparison.

Have you seen research about this @RedToothBrush? I would love to read it.

Read JD Vance's book Hillbilly Elegy and understand Trump's appeal to the left-behind.

The US is much more into philanthropy and helping those who are deserving through the church. But the role of the state is viewed differently to the UK. We see it as the state responsibility to look after others whereas it's viewed as the role of other sources and the responsibility of the community in a different way. It's not viewed as something the state should provide in the same way.

Why don’t you believe she voted Remain? I agree with her post and I most certainly voted Remain

Me too.

Yes, @RedToothBrush that's the neo-liberal way, roll back the state, let people look after themselves or use the church or charities or whatever, if in need.

@Meowzabubz I think you’ve put it very well. It’s not that Trump is amazing (because he’s not) but because the Democrats haven’t been addressing the difficulties faced by their traditional voting base. Poverty, lack of education and opportunity, towns devastated by drugs are very real issues for millions of people.

That’s why JD Vance was an inspired VP pick, because he grew up in one of those communities -his background has much in common with Angela Rayner’s- and he found a way out. He “ought” to be a Democrat, but I presume that he gave up on the party at some point.

I hope the Dems get the message and stop ignoring these issues. Then they’ll get their traditional voting base back.

Demon Copperhead is also good at communicating how wide the gulf is between city and country. It’s fiction and doesn’t talk explicitly about politics but there’s a lot of insight into why people feel left behind.

I am not American but from the view point of so many here there is a real fear that Trump is pro Putin. That is the terrifying aspect of a Trump win.

@Papyrophile I went on a long car journey recently and thought I’d better listen to the audiobook as I knew nothing about him except that he’d written a memoir that was made into a film.

Not an easy listen, especially the
intergenerational violence and addiction. As I said upthread, ironically, he has far more in common with Angela Rayner’s underprivileged background than with Trump’s.

People love celebrities, Trump was a tv personality. Boris Johnson was also a tv celebrity - he probably felt familiar to people.

JD Vance is divisive and has little in common with most Appalachians. Demon Copperhead is a much more realistic read than Hillbilly Elegy.

Let's just say I am not , ahem, unacquainted with the subject myself. And certainly not the only one to spot it.

@Chinotto I haven’t read that one yet. My middle class self was just shocked at times and sad for him and his sister. I’m sure that many people have different experiences, because a memoir is just one person’s perspective . It doesn’t mean that their interpretation of why such problems occur is correct either.

Yes. Even people who aren’t affiliated with any religion here have a very “we look after our own” attitude. It’s one of the few things I can say seems to be in our National culture across the board, along with believing if you work really hard you can do well in life. And being completely insufferable when our sports teams do well on the world stage.

Indeed, @CheerfulYank ! It's a sort of Victorian pull yourself up, meritocracy mentality. Then along came Keynes and kind of socialism we got in the post war UK. Perhaps it's the pioneering spirit? Every person for themselves?.

JD Vance may be divisive but he lived through it, and credits the Marine Corps with acting as a responsible interim parent/mentor between a chaotic adolescence and successful adult. It's the shortest section of the book, but it makes clear that the Marine Corps taught him how to navigate basics like eg buying a sensible car and not getting ripped off by dealer finance charges. The Corps was his passport to university and a stepping stone to Yale Law School. It's not an accident that US recruiting offices are mostly in low income neighbourhoods, and Veterans' programmes are usually helpul in the transition back to civilian life.

I've not read Demon Copperhead, but I think my mum has lent me her copy.

I think so. Everyone here (except the Native Americans, and God knows they haven’t had an easy time of it) is either the descendant of someone who turned their back on a country to come here, live as they chose/do better for themselves, or else the descendent of an enslaved person who fought to survive and carve out a culture and place of their own.

Even the most progressive among us (and I don’t know that I’m entirely on that end of the spectrum, but near enough when you consider Trump loving conservatives on the other end) is a little leery when you start talking about anything that could take away from someone’s individuality. It’s baked into all of us, for good or evil.

I think that's what most British (and also Europeans) don't quite get.

@tuvamoodyson

Exactly, he says what the red necks want to hear. Despicable man I truly can’t understand why women, especially, would want to vote for him.

His messaging has been the same from the beginning. He wanted to appeal to a certain type of disenfranchised person, so her centres his messages around phrases like this: "They're not coming for me, they're coming for you!" "I'm not fighting for me, I'm fighting for you!" "Remember, when they try to pin crimes on me, they're really doing it to you - tomorrow, it could be you."

He attempts to make himself out to be the quintessential Everyman, when he couldn't be further from it. He cannot relate to how his voter base lives on a day-to-day basis. They would never step on any of his golf courses or be guests at his clubs. If profiled, they should never vote for someone like Donald Trump. But somehow, they believe he is not a politician, but just one of them - a regular American.