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posted by janrinok on Thursday December 07 2017, @01:05AM   Printer-friendly
from the and-a-polite-discussion-ensued... dept.

Recently published in Journal of Social and Political Psychology by Thomas F. Pettigrew seeks to understand the psychological profile of Trump supporters:

The Trump movement is not singular within the United States (the Know Nothing movement in the 1850s, the Wallace movement in the 1960s, and the more recent Tea Party Movement). Moreover, other democracies have seen similar movements (e.g., Austria's Freedom Party, Belgium's Vlaams Blok, France's National Front, Germany's Alternative for Germany Party (AfD), and Britain's U.K. Independence Party (UKIP).

In virtually all these cases, the tinder especially involved male nativists and populists who were less educated than the general population. But this core was joined by other types of voters as well. Five highly interrelated characteristics stand out that are central to a social psychological analysis – authoritarianism, social dominance orientation, outgroup prejudice, the absence of intergroup contact and relative deprivation.No one factor describes Trump's supporters. But an array of factors – many of them reflecting five major social psychological phenomena can help to account for this extraordinary political event: authoritarianism, social dominance orientation, prejudice, relative deprivation, and intergroup contact.


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Thursday December 07 2017, @02:26PM (4 children)

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Thursday December 07 2017, @02:26PM (#606794) Journal

    That was how the game was played, and we got Trump because of it – now we have to dig out of the incredible mess he's made, and we will, when we're rid of him.

    What actual terrible mess has he made? The guy hasn't even gotten a single piece of legislation passed yet, because he's at war with the Republican establishment as much as he is with the Democratic establishment. If he gets this tax bill done and dusted, then that's something, but let's cut the crap and acknowledge that Hillary would have slit everyone's throats with this same damn package months earlier because she is the Establishment's creature.

    And look at the positive things that have happened with Trump's presence in the office. He did actually kill the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the horrendous trade agreement that would have put the last nail in the coffin of the American middle class, the agreement that Hillary and Obama cheerleaded for for years. His mere presence in the Oval Office has catalyzed this current wave of catharsis over institutionalized sexual abuse that has been a fact of life in America for decades. His prevarications against globalism have at least given pause to the Establishment which has been selling out Americans for decades. Thanks to Trump's victory, we now know exactly how utterly corrupt the opposition party the Democrats are and how rigged that institution is against real progressives and progressive policies.

    To me, the reality of Trump's coarse persona, his moronic incompetence, has spurred a quite long overdue and incredibly necessary cut-the-crap moment across the board that is shaking up the entrenched corruption of the status quo light years more than Obama's "Hope and Change" BS ever did (and I voted for that guy, hoping for that change). I couldn't be happier. Trump is the molotov cocktail so many have been dying to hurl at the masters of the universe in Washington and Wall Street for untold years, and is the last hope to forestall actual molotov cocktails being hurled at DC and Wall Street.

    Trump is an asshole. Totally unfit to be president. Delusional. He is a trainwreck of epoch proportions. But consider that that was still considered preferable to the best the Establishment had to offer.

    --
    Washington DC delenda est.
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 07 2017, @09:33PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 07 2017, @09:33PM (#607004)

    Most folks say "epic proportions".
    I think I like yours better.

    -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by fyngyrz on Thursday December 07 2017, @11:16PM (2 children)

    by fyngyrz (6567) on Thursday December 07 2017, @11:16PM (#607035) Journal

    I voted for [Obama], hoping for that change

    As did I. I saw some of it happen, too. Some of it didn't, but that's presidential politics – particularly when the president is facing an effective opposing power bloc in congress. I saw medical care made available to many who previously had no notable access. I saw the LGBT community move forward a little bit. I saw credit providers restricted from some of their more egregious behaviors. I saw the economy recover somewhat from that idiot Bush's blundering. I saw the war in Iraq finally brought to (mostly) an end. I saw over a thousand unjust drug sentences commuted. I saw relations normalized with Cuba. I saw embryonic stem cell research supported. I saw a sober, compassionate president come forward in times of national grief.

    Sure, I saw lots I didn't like too – but that's inevitable, because I think our government has the wrong idea about a lot of things, particularly with regard to constitutional law. But I was still very glad to see some notable progress in the above areas, I can tell you that.

    What actual terrible mess has [Trump] made?

    He's undermined relations with the UK. He's doing his level best to screw up our just-somewhat-repaired relations with Cuba. He's interfered with the ACA. He's engaged in a hugely dangerous war of (clueless) words with nuclear-weapon-armed North Korea, basically a contest between two head-of-state morons vying tirelessly for who can say the most stupid/inflammatory thing. He's spawned quite a few idiotic executive orders, from increasing pollution to amplifying the drug war. He's interfered, cluelessly and idiotically, with immigration into the USA and travel in general, taking the "war on travel" (AKA the "war on terror") to new lows. He enabled the pollution pipeline (AKA Keystone Pipeline.) He has attacked the FBI and the CIA, not for their actual failings, of which there are plenty, but because they were doing their actual jobs. He lies, obviously and continuously and naively, thereby undermining the office of the presidency far more than any one of his predecessors in living memory. Whatever credibility it previously had is long gone. He's severely injured the state department. And then there's salting the supreme court and the attorney general's office and many other posts with pure idiots. That's just off the top of my head. There's plenty more harm already done where that came from, and I doubt he's done, either.

    Trump is an asshole. Totally unfit to be president. Delusional. He is a trainwreck of epoch[sic] proportions. But consider that that was still considered preferable to the best the Establishment had to offer.

    ...by the Electoral College, and the smaller number of those who voted, yes. It was outright stunning to me at the time – it was truly obvious that Clinton, while a typical politician, would have been orders of magnitude better than Trump ever had a hope of being, but looking back at the propaganda that was being fielded, and now aware of how hard the deluded are trying to keep themselves convinced of those very delusions, it's a lot more obvious how it came about today than it was at the time.

    I am looking forward to seeing the man go, either by natural causes, forced out whenever, voted out / quitting in four years, or at the end of a long and probably just as embarrassing eight years. Whatever day it happens, I expect it will be a truly great day for this country.

    Trump is very much the low-water mark in American presidential officeholders. Could we do worse? I suppose. I find it difficult to imagine, but then, I never, ever thought Trump could get enough votes to even be nominated, much less push the Electoral College over such a dangerous cliff. I definitely learned something this time around: the Gaussian doesn't even do justice to the level of cluelessness in the general population.

    • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 07 2017, @11:47PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 07 2017, @11:47PM (#607046)

      The two options are a second civil war and kill enough of the idiots, on both sides, to being making the changes necessary to have an educated populace.

      Or emigrate. Or become stateless, whether to found a new state (the only way left today), or consider yourself a sovereign citizen and work outside of national boundaries as a loosely knit organization devoted to true liberty. America as that bastion of freedom never existed, and the winds globally, as well as within NATO, the EU, and the United Nations are all blowing against it, even if individual programs seem to care about it at some level.

      Do your part today, before it is too late. The end of freedom is approaching and if you don't take the reins of your fate now, you will yourself and your descendants in shackles forever more.

    • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday December 08 2017, @09:28AM

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Friday December 08 2017, @09:28AM (#607140) Journal

      As did I. I saw some of it happen, too. Some of it didn't,

      Politics is the art of the possible
      (said a German who made a lot of what he intended possible)

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford