Former President Donald Trump’s supporters say they hold him as a source of true information over their family, friends, and religious leaders, according to a new CBS News/YouGov poll out on Sunday.

  • PhilB@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    The part that is fascinating to this Canadian, is that a lot of his supporters’ hardships are increased by the policies of the GOP. The demographic that is the largest recipient of federal social aid in the US is poor white people in the South and Midwest. Yet they continually vote for the party that has a clear policy of eliminating these programs.

    Just before 2016, I saw this video that I wish I could find again. This journalist went somewhere in the Rust Belt to talk to these (overwhelmingly white) people. Of course, she got the usual “We believe in God, Guns and Country, and active trying to change that… Yada yada” stuff. But the interesting part was when she had an exchange with some fellow that went sort of like this (from memory):

    “So, you’ve voted Republican all your life?” “Yep.” “And in your lifetime, have things gotten better, of worse for you?” “Oh, way worse.” “So… You keep voting for the same party, and your situation never get better?” “Yeah. But it could…” “Right, but it hasn’t. So why not try voting for the other party and seeing?” “Yeah, but it could!”

    I’m not sure how you fix this type of “logic”.

    I tried finding that video a few times the last few years, and couldn’t. Maybe it’s time to try again.

    • Hazdaz@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      It is all about messaging.

      Republicans are masters are connecting with people and selling them a cart full of lies. These people could sell icecubes to eskimoes.

      On the flip side, Democrats couldn’t sell a starving person a free meal. It is infuriating to watch. Democrats can make big wins and they are afraid to celebrate them because of asinine “liberal guilt”… because god forbid someone somewhere might not be doing so good, so we shouldn’t celebrate our successes. It is exhausting dealing with these people. They will suck the fun and excitement out of a room.

      The Democratic party should be acting as the “hype man” right now for Biden’s successes as President. Reminding people where we were and how much we have accomplished. They should have been doing this for the last year, but even if they started now, it wouldn’t be terrible. Will it happen? I doubt it. They should also go on the offensive and attacking Trump and the entire GOP but Dems tend to be too spineless to ever do that.

    • logen@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Policies of Trump… I don’t know. About year two into his presidency, wages went up quite a bit in areas I lived in. Jobs became more available. General craziness was down, except for all those spouting hate at Trump the entire time.

      I’m not saying I particularly paid much attention or attribute community growth due to his presidency, but things were getting better while he was president and dramatically tanked a year or two after Biden took over.

      Just the general feel of places I’ve lived over the past 8 years or so.

      For reference, I lived in low density suburban/rural areas during this time. May be way different in proper cities.

      • BigNote@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Wages have gone up much more under Biden who after all, inherited a badly crippled economy in the 1st place. Trump talks a lot, makes big promises, tells lots of lies, but meanwhile his only legislative accomplishment was to sign a giant tax cut for the rich that was completely written by congressional Republicans rather than his own administration.

        And that’s not even mentioning all his foreign policy blunders and the fact that he was an international laughing stock among all our major allies.

        I could go on but I won’t.

        • logen@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          On the low end I haven’t seen wages increase, if anything they’ve fallen, but they may be more to do with the whole of 2020 craziness that resulted in even greater worker shortages amongst the laborers, and the system comming back to equilibrium.

          Foreign policy blunders? Pretty sure that’s the first thing Biden did. Jump out of Afghanistan so fast we abandoned Europe and trampled some of our own.

          Then there’s the whole, cripple the European economy thing. I know there’s more to it than that, but with the Ukraine thing, America really pressured Europe into crippling itself.

          But I digress. I’m not trying to defend trump, nor attack Biden. Just note my casual observinces of my local economy.