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Comment by hn_throwaway_99 | Hacker News Reader

But that's my point - a huge percentage of Trump supporters (not all, but probably a majority) don't support Trump for his policy positions. Indeed, there are large numbers of people who voted Republican in the past who love Trump despite the fact that Trump has done a complete 180 on policy items that used to be core Republican positions: support of free trade and being against protectionism and tariffs, support for foreign wars, containment of Russia, etc.

Most support for Trump is at a deep, emotional level (to be fair, strong support for leadership usually is).

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There was certainly an "anyone but Hillary" contingent, but I think you'll find by actually talking to these people that the venn diagram overlap between that circle and the "actually likes Trump's policies" circle is about 99%.

A lot of the points you mentioned are points that people who were not Left, have come to move past on the Right. The Right has changed. Trump does support free trade - if the US is not taken advantage of. Foreign wars are something everyone's tired of. Russia as a major threat is not something people take seriously, unless it's used to influence people against Trump. Etc.

Many on the right would classify the points you mentioned as "neocon" or "neoliberal," something they've always been uncomfortable with and seen as an infection of the party and had to grudgingly accept without alternative, until Trump.

Support for Trump is at a deep, emotional level for many. But certainly not in spite of his policy positions. If anything, his policy positions reinforce that emotion for most of his supporters.

The people most in need of good policy, at the price of an acceptable nonchalance regarding a president's mere presentability - minorities - made their voices heard by voting for Trump. Every single minority demographic voted in higher numbers for Trump this election over last. The only demographic to vote for him less? White men. And that made the difference.

The privileged have the benefit of being able to vote based on presentability. The rest of the population cannot afford to in the same way.

Thank you for your thoughtful response.

> The people most in need of good policy, at the price of an acceptable nonchalance regarding a president's mere presentability - minorities - made their voices heard by voting for Trump. Every single minority demographic voted in higher numbers for Trump this election over last. The only demographic to vote for him less? White men. And that made the difference.

Can you share your source for this? (this is not a challenge, I'm genuinely interested in digging deeper into the data myself)

This thread:

https://twitter.com/CharlesMBlow/status/1323975456668979200

Which pulls its insights from this article:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/03/us/elections/...

"The black male vote for trump increased from 13% in 2016 to 18% this year"

"The black female vote for Trump doubled from 4% in 2016 to 8% this year"

"Exit polls show a majority of white women voting for Trump. (Important note: Pew analysis of actual votes in 2016 showed that it wasn’t a majority but was a plurality.)"

"The percentage of LGBT voting for Trump doubled from 2016"

"The percentage of Latinos and Asians voting for Trump increased from 2016"

I feel like you're glossing over the fact that minority groups still voted overwhelmingly against Trump, just slightly less overwhelmingly than before.

It is certainly something to recognize, that minorities generally held up that pattern. But the point I'm trying to make is about how peoples' minds changed after 4 years of experiencing an actual Trump presidency. Minorities moved towards him, and only white men moved away. That seems quite notable to me.

I think it's less notable than the media is making it out to be. In 2016, Trump was an unknown quantity to minorities. It was presumed that as a conservative xenophobe with racially charged rhetoric he was a monstrous individual, and people voted on that mere presumption. In 2020 the majority people of color still believed that he was unsuitable, and hence voted accordingly. But people's lives are not monolithic. Some minorities, regardless of group, prospered on a personal level over the past 4 years. They did better, their families did better, they were not dissatisfied with their lives under Trump. For some of those people, that personal reality took priority over what some call "tribal" politics. So they voted for more of the same.

It's for basically that reason that incumbent politicians are usually favored to win. As long as people's lives go generally okay, they want to stick with the devil they know.

> I think it's less notable than the media is making it out to be.

Really? From my perspective, the media has not noted it at all. I had to notice it in a Twitter stream before it disappeared down my feed forever, to know these statistics. It seems more notable than zero, and therefore to me more notable than the media is making it out to be.

I don't disagree with the rest of your comment. Peoples' lives were determined to be better under Trump, so they voted to keep it. Privileged people with the benefit of discounting quality of life bumps that were significant to others but insignificant to themselves, were more likely to vote based on appearances.

That is fascinating. Could you point me towards some of his policies that benefit minorities? Genuinely interested. I'm also in agreement with you that most people who vote for Trump do so in spite of his character, not because of it.

A good amount of people of color remember that Joe Biden was behind the 1995 three-strikes bill that heavily penalized nuisance crime, that he was behind the 2005 bankruptcy bill that made it impossible to have student loans written off in bankruptcy, and he was vice president in 2008 when Obama let the banks off with taps on the wrist after wrecking the economy. Oh, yes, the War On Drugs, too. Lots of people with a prison sentence over some marijuana.

It's not that Trump had a track record of doing things that benefitted non-white people, it's that Biden has a sustained track record of actually causing serious harm and people have not forgotten.

This makes more sense to me than beaner's argument that minorities think they will directly benefit from Trump's policies. Also bear in mind that Trump previously fought against a Clinton, and the Clintons are supposed to be specifically popular among some ethnic minorities.

You can start with these two:

- First Step Act [0]

- Platinum Plan for Black America [1]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Step_Act

[1] https://cdn.donaldjtrump.com/public-files/press_assets/presi...

The massive turnout efforts likely had something to do with this.

For instance if black men who support Republicans very grudgingly (enough not to vote say) are swept up in a broader wash of getting all black men to vote more, you’d see that pattern.

Another reading of the data is that these were votes against Biden/Harris or protest votes against the Democratic party for their lack of more aggressive action on racial justice.

Or it’s all of these things. One of the thing about every 4 year elections is it’s hard to interpret trend data. Especially not 5 days later.

> For instance if black men who support Republicans very grudgingly (enough not to vote say) are swept up in a broader wash of getting all black men to vote more, you’d see that pattern

Why? There is no reason for this assertion. There are equally likely begrudging black democrats, and higher turnout doesn't necessarily lean towards a side. You'd expect higher numbers in equal proportions on both sides, all else being equal.

> Another reading of the data is that these were votes against Biden/Harris or protest votes against the Democratic party for their lack of more aggressive action on racial justice

Yes. Away from Biden is functionally equivalent to towards Trump if that's how the votes were placed. That's saying what I'm saying, in part

It is probably to mistake to lump together different minority groups as I imagine the issues that move them are very diverse.

I am not sure that the increases say much about Trump's actual policies outside of his stance on shutdowns and Covid which has had a tremendous negative effect on the Economy.

I think a certain segment of the population probably saw Biden as too much of an insider who will deliver more of the same.

I am not lumping them together at all. The statistic is more specifically interesting about white men than about other demographics. That the other groups moved in unison speaks to a deeper, more fundamental and more universally-applicable quality of life analysis for all Americans under Trump. The situation shows that things like low unemployment have broad appeal, and can overcome identity politics. Strangely, however, that overcoming is more true for the minorities themselves than for the supposed systemic promulgators of oppression!

The whites are having identity shouting matches with each other while the minorities they supposedly are trying to be considerate of, move in the opposite direction.

> core Republican positions: support of free trade and being against protectionism and tariffs

This is not the case, as (or at least has not been since Reagan) there have been 2 main tools of regulating/restricting foreign imports by Republicans: Tariffs and Quotas. Both have different tradeoffs.

Reagan was heavily in favor of quotas instead of tariffs: https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/10/i-am-a-tariff-man-com...

Reagan CEA economist Steve Hanke added:

“the share of American imports covered by some sort of trade restriction soared under ‘free-trader’ Reagan, moving from only 8 percent in 1975 to 21 percent by 1984.”

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