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Deplorable, But Not Dismissable

Credit: Gage Skidmore, Flikr,https://www.flickr.com/photos/gageskidmore/24949524510/sizes/c/

What will happen to Trump after the election, or, more importantly, what will happen to his supporters after the election if he loses?

I believe it’s simplistic to think that Trump supporters are going to just disappear after the election or that they won’t matter in the future if Trump loses.

To begin with, Trump has, with many believing his talk about rigged elections and media conspiracy, managed to get his supporters so riled up that they won’t go quietly. They want to get the representation in the White House of which they feel they’ll be deprived during a Clinton presidency. The talk about changing demographics minimizing their power in the future, although true to a certain extent, is a simplification of who his supporters are and why they will vote for Trump.

Furthermore, although Trump’s supporters may be deplorable in the sense that many have racist, Islamophobic, and sexist views, they are not dismissible… at least not if you plan on winning a presidential election any time soon. Even though they may not be able to elect a candidate alone, they will still be a force to reckon with in the future. Considering the fact that Trump supporters make up a significant part of the Republican electoral college, they could take on the role of tie-breaker. Deciding, for example, which Republican presidential candidate gets elected much like they did in this election cycle. Candidates in the future, especially Republicans, will still have to get basically all of the the white male votes to win, not to say that all Trump supporters will stick together and form a unified group that votes exactly the same, but if Trump manages to unite them enough and the right candidate comes along, they could still be a political power in the future. Even if it’s not politically viable for the Republican party to completely adopt Trump’s policies, they will still have to figure out a way to incorporate some of it or risk losing the support of Trump’s base.

If you take Trump out of the equation and just look at how many people have racist or Islamophobic views, you can see that these mindsets exist in the democratic party as well, meaning that a fear-based rhetoric like that of Trump could potentially appeal to more people than we realize. The success of fear-based rhetoric is something that has been seen in Sweden (and other places in Europe, where xenophobic parties have grown lately). For example, the Sweden Democrats, who have similar views to Trump have evolved from mostly appealing to non-college graduate, white men to a party with a much broader base. So the possibility of Trump’s core support expanding isn’t something that you can completely take out of the equation.

The point is that not only Trump’s more outspoken supporters have these dangerous, isolationist views. Others may come out of the woodwork in the future.

One  Gallup poll shows that Trump supporters are more likely to feel as if they were better off before, or that their parents were better off. Even though they might not earn less than the average American, they still feel like they have less possibility of achieving prosperity, so Trump’s message that the government has betrayed them, that immigrants or China are stealing their jobs sounds appealing to people with the kind of worries that I just mentioned. These feeling probably won’t go away quickly, since economic growth takes time, and with college still being incredibly expensive, that isn’t an option for a lot of people.

It is interesting to note that, according to a poll from the PPP, sixty-one percent of Trump supporters believe that Barack Obama was born in the United States. Sixty-three percent of his supporters would like to amend the Constitution in order to eliminate birthright citizenship. Sixty-six percent of Trump supporters believe that Barack Obama is a Muslim. In fact, only twelve percent believe that he is actually a Christian! When Hillary Clinton called half of Donald Trump supporters “deplorable” she was wrong, because all of those statistics show that more than half of his supporters are, in fact, deplorable.

The issues and worries that are driving people to vote for Trump aren’t going to be fixed on their own. The deplorable views of Trump supporters can be found in other demographics as well. Therefore, the notion that Trump and his views will disappear after the election is probably false. Changing demographics aren’t enough either. I believe it is necessary to look at this in a more nuanced way: America could learn from the development of the xenophobic parties in Europe that caused Brexit. Trump has managed to tap into an anxiety that currently exists in America, and it is important to deal with this, so his hateful messages don’t spread.

The Republican party has, because of this election, experienced chaos and has become a more divided party than before. They will now face the task of trying to create a platform that doesn’t isolate the kind of Republicans that vote for Trump, while simultaneously attempting to appeal to a broader base. Trump’s deplorable, but not dismissible base, will continue to play a role in American politics in the future. Only time will tell what that role will be. I hope this will make America’s politicians work hard to fight the racism, sexism, and Islamophobia that is growing in the United States, so it stops being such a significant and prominent part of American politics. It’s 2016, and the kind of things that Donald Trump is saying aren’t okay. To deal with Trump, we must address the issues that face the Americans who vote for him. By letting their anger fester, we only allow the problem to grow.

In conclusion, Trump’s supporters aren’t dismissible simply because they will still hold political power in the future and because they are an indicator of serious issues in America that should be dealt with, not ignored.

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