Who voted for Donald Trump?

In the wake of the Donald Trump election, many people have said that his support came from working class whites that are economically struggling or desperate. This article from Cracked seems to make that case. However, the exit polls don't seem to support this: Clinton won a majority of voters earning less than $50,000 per year and a majority of voters saying the economy was the biggest problem facing the country. However, Trump voters were more likely to say that the economy was in bad shape and are more likely to be affected in the future, even if they aren't suffering yet.

This is something I've been intrigued by for the past year as a political junkie. And as a Bernie supporter, it was convenient to attribute the rise of Trump to dissatisfaction with the neoliberal agreement of establishment Republicans and Democrats, as many liberals have. But I'm also a data junkie, and what I've found is that the data doesn't support this narrative. 

There's a really good rundown from a high level at Vox on what drives Trump supporters (it's essentially a meta-analysis of several different analyses) here.

But I want to break down the data a bit more. Firstly, we go to a study by FiveThirtyEight on Trump primary voters. In particular, Nate Silver finds that Trump supporters aren't disproportionately poor when compared to Cruz voters, GOP voters, or white voters overall (only compared to Kasich and Rubio voters), and in fact, are better off than most Americans and most white Democrats. Per his analysis: 

Class in America is a complicated concept, and it may be that Trump supporters see themselves as having been left behind in other respects. Since almost all of Trump’s voters so far in the primaries have been non-Hispanic whites, we can ask whether they make lower incomes than other white Americans, for instance. The answer is “no.” The median household income for non-Hispanic whites is about $62,000, still a fair bit lower than the $72,000 median for Trump voters.

Likewise, although about 44 percent of Trump supporters have college degrees, according to exit polls — lower than the 50 percent for Cruz supporters or 64 percent for Kasich supporters — that’s still higher than the 33 percent of non-Hispanic white adults, or the 29 percent of American adults overall, who have at least a bachelor’s degree.

This is not to say that Trump voters are happy about the condition of the economy. Substantial majorities of Republicans in every state so far have said they’re “very worried” about the condition of the U.S. economy, according to exit polls, and these voters have been more likely to vote for Trump. But that anxiety doesn’t necessarily reflect their personal economic circumstances, which for many Trump voters, at least in a relative sense, are reasonably good."

A more detailed analysis by Gallup shows similar trends, or in fact higher levels of income for Trump primary supporters. But this study does point out something interesting: that there is a trend of people supporting Trump living in areas with slowing opportunity for their children; so while they're well off, they don't see that as being the case for their children. Interestingly, however, among people younger than 29 (that is the people actually being harmed by this reduced opportunity), Trump polls in fourth place, sometimes in the single digits.

Further, we can look at what's happening across the pond as more evidence for what is really driving the rise of Trump. As the Vox article points out, the countries in Europe that are doing well - Germany, Sweden, Austria, the UK - are all experiencing right wing political parties rising. On the other hand, countries experiencing severe economic issues like Greece and Spain (both over 20% unemployment, worse than the US in the throes of the Great Depression), it is left-wing parties that are ascendent (Syriza in Greece, Podemos in Spain). That's similar to what happened with Democrats sweeping office during the 2008 crash here. 

Similarly, in the UK, there was an attempt to attribute the shocking "Leave" vote to economic distress of working class whites. But as we now know, it wasn't about the economy at all. Class only accounted for 1-2% of variation in the Leave vote, and knowing a voters Income+Class only allowed about a 54% chance of guessing their vote - i.e. a tossup. Further, most Leave voters were in the more affluent South, rather than the North. But what was a good predictor of a Leave vote? As the article describes:

For me, what really stands out about figure 2 is the importance of support for the death penalty. Nobody has been out campaigning on this issue, yet it strongly correlates with Brexit voting intention. This speaks to a deeper personality dimension which social psychologists like Bob Altemeyer – unfortunately in my view – dub Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA). A less judgmental way of thinking about RWA is order versus openness. The order-openness divide is emerging as the key political cleavage, overshadowing the left-right economic dimension. This was noticed as early as the mid-1970s by Daniel Bell, but has become more pronounced as the aging West’s ethnic transformation has accelerated.

Similarly, data has shown that Trump also benefits from this order-openness divide. As a study by Matthew MacWilliams of University of Massachusetts found, "authoritarian" or "orderly" tendencies was a very good predictor of support for Trump: 

For some time, I have studied authoritarian attitudes among Americans. This December, under the auspices of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, I conducted a national poll measuring authoritarianism, along with more typical demographic and political factors. It found that, nationally, only authoritarian attitudes and fear of terrorism — not income, age, education, or even race — predict with statistical significance whether someone will support Trump.

And, of course, the other statistically significant predictor for someone that supports Trump? Racial resentment. Note that this is not racism outright, but rather a strong belief that the problems of racial minorities are due to their own inadequacies. Or, as the questions in the study were worded:

Irish, Italian, Jewish, and many other minorities overcame prejudice and worked their way up. Black people should do the same without any special favors.

It's really a matter of some people not trying hard enough; if black people would only try harder they could be just as well off as white people.

And the result:

Furthermore, the impact of these variables is generally greater than that of the economic variables. For example, moving from the least to the most resentful view of African Americans increases support for Trump by 44 points, those who think Obama is a Muslim (54 percent of all Republicans) are 24 points more favorable to Trump, and those who think the word "violent" describes Muslims extremely well are about 13 points more pro-Trump than those who think it doesn’t describe them well at all.

This compares with an 11-point difference between those who are most opposed to free trade deals and those who are most in favor, and a 23-point gap between those who think the economy had gotten much better and those who think it had gotten much worse in the previous year.

So it is important to understand the motivations of Trump supporters. But chalking it up to the economy isn't helping anyone understand what is happening, because the data simply doesn't support it. Trump is a by-product of increasing right-wing tendencies across the West, dominated by a desire for order and cultural hegemony compared to cultural progressivism. As globalism continues to advance, we will have to deal with this sooner rather than later. 

Here I'm reminded of the Cracked article, which proclaimed "To them, it seems like the plight of poor minorities is only used as a club to bat away white cries for help." Based on this data, it would appear, instead, that Trump supporters use white cries for help (i.e. declining opportunity for their children or poor outlook for the economy) to bat away claims of racial resentment or to dismiss systemic inequalities. The real whites crying out for help - the desperately poor and the young - aren't voting for Trump; they're voting Democrat or not at all.

The War on Planned Parenthood

Rand Paul and Bobby Jindal should expand Planned Parenthood funding, not eliminate it

Kentucky Senator and Presidential Candidate Rand Paul

A series of videos surreptitiously recorded of Planned Parenthood executives have sparked a national controversy and debate on ending the funding for said organization. Among the leaders of this movement are Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), Governor and Presidential candidate Bobby Jindal (R-LA), and Governor Mike Pence (R-IN). But based on statistical data, these three men may be wise to increase funding for Planned Parenthood, rather than eliminate it.

The videos themselves are relatively easy to debunk. In the first video, published by the Center for Medical Progress – headed by anti-abortion activist David Daleiden– the Planned Parenthood official, Deborah Nucatola, specifically mentions multiple times that the $30-$100 fees are specifically to cover storage and transportation costs.

“This is not something with any revenue stream that affiliates are looking at,” she says.

The second video released thus far – Daleiden says that he has much more video content and will be releasing more videos over the next few months – reiterates the Planned Parenthood position that they are not selling fetal tissue and organs for profit. The Center for Medical Progress insists that the video shows Dr. Mary Gatter, the President of Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s Medical Directors’ Council, “haggling” over the price, but Gatter never appears to actually negotiate prices, despite provocation by Daleiden. Further, Daleiden asserts that Gatter admits to surreptitiously altering the abortion procedure without consent of the patient to maximize the usable tissue/organs, but in fact, Gatter specifically says in the video that the decision of how to proceed is left to the patient and the doctor, and the she would have to consult with her doctor advisors on whether they can legally ask for certain procedures as long as there is no risk to the patient.

Regardless of the actual content of the videos or the veracity of the claims leveled against Planned Parenthood, the political backlash from the right has been swift. The day the first video was released, Congress canceled a vote on a bill that would mint a breast cancer awareness coin because some of the benefits would go to the Susan G Komen Foundation, which supports Planned Parenthood women’s health programs, namely mammogram assistance.  All of the Republican presidential candidates have come out in support of defunding Planned Parenthood. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), Governor Bobby Jindal (R-LA), and Governor Mike Pence (R-IN) have all called for investigations into Planned Parenthood in their respective states (Indiana’s investigation is already complete and found no violations). House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) is charging an investigation in Congress. But what are they really fighting?

In fact, it is already illegal for Planned Parenthood to use federal funds for abortions, whether that be through Medicaid or the federal government’s Title X Family Planning Program (exceptions are made for cases involving rape, incest, or life endangerment in the Hyde Amendment). Medicaid can cover abortion costs, but the coverage must come from the state portion of the Medicaid funding, and is only provided for elective abortions in 17 states. Another 32 states (plus the District of Columbia) allow using Medicaid to pay for abortions for low income women following the federal government’s Hyde Amendment exceptions (South Dakota provides funding for abortion only for life endangerment situations). Further, Planned Parenthood claims that only 3 percent of the health services they provide are abortions. The majority of Planned Parenthood services are pregnancy prevention, sexual education, sexually transmitted disease testing and treatment, and breast cancer screenings. So what exactly are they attempting to defund, and why?

In vitro fertilization creates a number of unused fertilized embryos as part of the normal process. On average, 24 fertilized embryos are created for each IVF procedure, when only 2-4 will actually be implanted into the patient. This means that more than 20 embryos are unused for every IVF procedure. These embryos can either be frozen and stored for later use, or discarded. Statistics in the United States indicate that hundreds of thousands of these embryos have been destroyed, while several hundred thousand more are still in freezing, unused. In the UK, it is estimated that more than 1.7 million embryos were discarded over a two decade span. And while there are certainly some incredibly sincere pro-life activists – those that ardently believe that life begins at conception – that protest IVF procedures and facilities, there is no national or political movement to defund these operations.

If Republican politicians are worried about child welfare, then they have enough to worry about with children that make it to birth. Child poverty exceeded 21% in 2013, higher than any time over the last several decades. While Paul, Jindal, and Pence are railing against the “evil” practice of abortion, they seem to have far less interest in caring for children currently living in their states; Kentucky’s child poverty rate is higher than the national average, as is Louisiana’s, while Indiana’s is comparable to the national average. Certainly they can’t make the argument that all they care about is the welfare of the child.

And if the goal is to prevent teen pregnancy, then Senator Paul and Governor Jindal also have some work to do. The national teen birth rate dropped to an all-time low of 26.5 per 1,000 females in 2013, but the home states of these politicians reflect an alarming disparity among regions in the country. In that same year, the teen birth rate in Kentucky was an astounding 39.5, while Louisiana experienced an equally disturbing rate of 39.2. Governor Pence’s Indiana is slightly better, but still higher than the national average at 30.3. This reflects the overall trend of southern, conservative states experiencing much higher than average teen birth rates.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

While the teen birth rate exceeds the national average in nearly all southern, conservative states, these same states lag behind in sex education, often teaching abstinence only and not requiring a medically accurate curriculum.

The Huffington Post

And naturally, these states also tend to have higher rates of STDs and STIs.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Given that the majority of services that Planned Parenthood provides are in the areas of sexual education, contraceptives, and STD/STI prevention and detection, it seems clear that Senator Paul and Governors Jindal and Pence could do more good for their states by expanding Planned Parenthood funding, not cutting it.