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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.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 07 2017, @05:41PM (1 child)
I'm not sure that the Tea Party hijacked the republicans, so much as gave notice to the party bosses that they couldn't just arbitrarily ignore their constituency.
In a way, it was a populist democratic wave in the republican base. They demanded purity, not a total policy base change. Their slogan was that they were going RINO-hunting.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 07 2017, @09:08PM
Disagree strongly.
The Tea Party was a bunch of White suckers, funded by the Koch brothers.
They put the Republican mantra Increase inequality via tax cuts for the rich on steroids, i.e. working against their own best interest.
(The main GOP mechanism doesn't do Joe Average a bit of good, BTW.
The latest scam is big tax cuts for billionaires and corporations that are permanent and tiny tax cuts for a small number of folks--with the latter expiring quickly, after which Joe Average's share of costs goes up while programs that benefit him have been cut.)
their constituency
Last count I saw said that 29 percent of USAians say they approve of the #GOPTaxScam.
(...and the poll was taken while the Repugs were still scribbling things into the margins of the bill).
That number doesn't seem to indicate to me that they're serving their base in an acceptable way.
It certainly doesn't sound "populist".
Republicanism[1] only works if your goal is to further empower The Ownership Class (The Oligarchy).
If you're looking to shift power to Joe Average, you bet on the wrong horse.
[1] ...and voting Democrat wasn't significantly better last time around--and for a lot of elections before that.
Neoliberals of all stripes suck.
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