R
rdean
Guest
There Will Be Blood
The first time I heard someone yell “Hang that bitch!” was during a speech by Trump policy advisor Stephen Miller. I heard “hang that bitch” at least twice more during Trump’s speech, remarks that led to the crowd’s calls for Comey to be fired. Trump alleged that former President Bill Clinton had tampered with the FBI’s investigation, and that Hillary had used her position as secretary of state to line her pockets and singlehandedly destabilize the Middle East.
While Trump made the latter case, a man stood up and yelled, “Hang Hillary!”
“Yeah!” another shouted.
Nearly six years have passed since I last heard, in person, somebody call for the death of a politician. I was at a Tea Party informational meeting at the Greene County Fairgrounds outside Bloomfield, Indiana, back when Obamacare was still a dirty word. Speakers equated President Barack Obama with Mao Zedong and Joseph Stalin. They alluded to the Great Famine and the Great Purge. If Obama had his way, they argued, we should all be ready to report to work camps. After the presentation, I listened to farmers and factory workers alike wonder whether to take up arms and march on Washington. If the time had come, as one speaker put it, to “refresh the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants.”
Meanwhile, a man with a copy of The Art of the Deal in his back pocket was ranting to a local TV reporter about Clinton’s private email server. He said Clinton should be “shot, executed” for “high treason.”
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So who exactly are these Trump "supporters"?
Today, commentators who try to make sense of Trump’s mass appeal often fall back on “white trash” signifiers, even if the term itself never rises above the level of subtext. A recent New York Times article announced that counties most likely to contain Trump supporters were also likely to be populated by mobile home residents who had no high school diplomas, worked “old economy” jobs, and listed their ancestry as “American” on the U.S. census. Trump’s public persona is the kind of brash, ball-busting bully you want on your side when you have become convinced that no one else will stand up for you. His campaign strategy may be unfamiliar to the democratic process—or at least to its public face—but he comes from a long and well-established tradition of heavies, henchmen, and block bosses. He is, in other words, the kind of leader who might well be called on by a population demographer William Frey described to the Times as “nonurban, blue-collar and now apparently quite angry.” Or, to put it in the kind of blunt terms we associate with the candidate: White trash.
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What do Trump supporters want? I've been saying it for months. They want non skilled, easy to do and easy to learn high paying jobs.
Only they don't exist. Trump is promising them a waterfall. All they have to do it catch it and hold on to it. Then it's theirs.
The first time I heard someone yell “Hang that bitch!” was during a speech by Trump policy advisor Stephen Miller. I heard “hang that bitch” at least twice more during Trump’s speech, remarks that led to the crowd’s calls for Comey to be fired. Trump alleged that former President Bill Clinton had tampered with the FBI’s investigation, and that Hillary had used her position as secretary of state to line her pockets and singlehandedly destabilize the Middle East.
While Trump made the latter case, a man stood up and yelled, “Hang Hillary!”
“Yeah!” another shouted.
Nearly six years have passed since I last heard, in person, somebody call for the death of a politician. I was at a Tea Party informational meeting at the Greene County Fairgrounds outside Bloomfield, Indiana, back when Obamacare was still a dirty word. Speakers equated President Barack Obama with Mao Zedong and Joseph Stalin. They alluded to the Great Famine and the Great Purge. If Obama had his way, they argued, we should all be ready to report to work camps. After the presentation, I listened to farmers and factory workers alike wonder whether to take up arms and march on Washington. If the time had come, as one speaker put it, to “refresh the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants.”
Meanwhile, a man with a copy of The Art of the Deal in his back pocket was ranting to a local TV reporter about Clinton’s private email server. He said Clinton should be “shot, executed” for “high treason.”
------------------------------
So who exactly are these Trump "supporters"?
Today, commentators who try to make sense of Trump’s mass appeal often fall back on “white trash” signifiers, even if the term itself never rises above the level of subtext. A recent New York Times article announced that counties most likely to contain Trump supporters were also likely to be populated by mobile home residents who had no high school diplomas, worked “old economy” jobs, and listed their ancestry as “American” on the U.S. census. Trump’s public persona is the kind of brash, ball-busting bully you want on your side when you have become convinced that no one else will stand up for you. His campaign strategy may be unfamiliar to the democratic process—or at least to its public face—but he comes from a long and well-established tradition of heavies, henchmen, and block bosses. He is, in other words, the kind of leader who might well be called on by a population demographer William Frey described to the Times as “nonurban, blue-collar and now apparently quite angry.” Or, to put it in the kind of blunt terms we associate with the candidate: White trash.
----------------------------
What do Trump supporters want? I've been saying it for months. They want non skilled, easy to do and easy to learn high paying jobs.
Only they don't exist. Trump is promising them a waterfall. All they have to do it catch it and hold on to it. Then it's theirs.
