No, it’s all too well-informed
It was all too easy – and electorally fatal – for Hillary Clinton in 2016 to bemoan the “basket of deplorables” that she said accounted for half of Donald J. Trump’s supporters. She branded them “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic.”
The reaction she got was predictable. Trumpers began wearing T-shirts proudly sporting the “deplorables” moniker. And Trump went on to beat Hillary in the Electoral College vote, albeit falling behind her in the popular vote.
Certainly, that bit of middle finger-giving – that dose of philistine class resentment of Hillary – wasn’t the only thing that did her in. But it didn’t help.
As we think about who supports Trump now, eight years and one chaotic Trump presidency later, it’s all too easy to denigrate his supporters as sharing all those “ists” and “ics.” And, indeed, it’s likely many do.
It’s all too easy to cast them as underschooled and ignorant. We know that in 2016 white voters who had not completed college (44% of all voters) cast their votes for Trump by more than two-to-one (64% to 28%), according to the Pew Research Center.
But what then are we to make of those among well-schooled folks that Trump seems to appeal to? What are we to make of the 36% of college-educated voters who voted red back in 2020? Of 60% of Republican voters with a college degree, per a pollster cited by The New York Times, who still back Trump? In fact, the former president’s support among white, college-educated Republicans doubled to 60% over the course of last year, according to Fox News polling.
What are we to make of Kevin D. Roberts, who has bachelor’s, masters and doctoral degrees in history, and heads The Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank that would help staff a Trump Administration and set its policies? What of the many Harvard grads, such as Steve Bannon, Wilbur L. Ross Jr. and Michael Pompeo, who served in or otherwise advised the previous Trump Administration?
Indeed, what are we to make of JD Vance, educated at Ohio State and Yale Law and now Trump’s vice presidential choice? Or of the likes of Elon Musk and the many venture capitalists, such as Stanford lawyer Peter Thiel, who back the pair?
While many of the folks who back Trump are ill-schooled, it’s clear that such folks — and many others — are not among them. They know exactly what they would get in a second Trump Administration and, presumably, they know it would serve their interests with tax breaks, anti-immigrant and isolationist policies, right-wing judicial appointments and the broad array of conservative aims that make up documents such as Project 2025.
It’s all too easy to contend that ignorance and poor education predominate among Trump supporters. With such a view, liberals and middle-of-the-roaders can feel superior, can look down their noses at the “deplorables.” They can pat themselves on the back for supporting Kamala Harris, a well-schooled Black-Indian woman (Howard University and University of California, Berkeley) who makes most of the right wingers literally pale in comparison.
But it’s wrong and dangerous to do so. Such a view underestimates the real threat that the Trumpers pose.
Reproductive rights, LGBTQ equality, the rights to a fair shake for Blacks and other minorities, the U.S. position in NATO and the world, enlightened educational systems, the ability to read books that discomfit us, the separation of theology from governance – all such things are at stake. Trump supporters would erode them all. And that’s not out of ignorance, but out of intentional, thought-out views (even if they repulse many of us).
Boston College historian Heather Cox Richardson suggests that the coming election will be as consequential as choices Americans made in the late 1700s, the Civil War era and the New Deal period. These were times when Americans resisted impulses toward dictatorship and disrespect for the principles of equality.
“It is up to us to decide whether we want a country based on fear or on facts, on reaction or on reality, on hatred or on hope,” Richard contends. “It is up to us whether it will be fascism or democracy that, in the end, moves swiftly, and up to us whether we will choose to follow in the footsteps of those Americans who came before us in our noblest moments, and launch a brand new era in American history.”
Indeed, there have been many ignoble moments in our history, times when the right came close to defeating the principles of democracy and equality. Many Tories opposed the American Revolution, preferring the rule of a monarch to an elected legislature. Enslavers and Klansmen long fought for dominance in the country. More recently, in the 1920s, antisemitic and theocratic figures such as Father Charles Coughlin, powered by radio, amassed followings. In 1939, American Nazis rallied in Madison Square Garden.
The lure of the strongman, of religious nationalism and of isolationism, has been potent in the United States for as long as we’ve been a country. And rarely have leaders acted like George Washington and Joe Biden in relinquishing power voluntarily.
Certainly, some of the folks behind Trump want to give into that lure again. They would launch us further down the path toward a narrow and intolerant Christian nationalism. Some would so out of class resentments and ignorance, but many — especially since we have ample experience with Trump — would do so knowingly, with clear intent and deliberation.
Trump’s flaws are legion and well-known, from his lack of morality and narcissism to his very real ignorance. But to the better-schooled among his supporters, he is a useful idiot. He is the one who will deliver for the self-interests of billionaires such as Thiel, for opportunistic hypocritical politicians such as Vance, Nikki Haley, Marco Rubio, etc., for policymakers such as those at The Heritage Foundation. To the evangelicals, he remains a sinner whom they see, nonetheless, as G-d’s weapon against sin.
After four shambolic and norm-shattering years of Trump, most Americans turned away from him in 2020. Will they do so again? There is a real risk that the anything-but-ignorant folks who see him as their water carrier will prevail a second time.
Most Americans turned away from racism and the other ugly isms to elect Barack Obama in 2008 and in 2012. They believed in democracy, the rule of law and the importance of American governmental institutions. This election will be another test of just what values they hold dearest. For them, too, it will be anything but a matter of ignorance.