All the angry white women
by digby
No, they're not all lining up behind the unpalatable harpy. (Well, not the one you think anyway.) Juan Williams looks at the numbers:
[A]ngry white Republican women seem indifferent to the political storms stirred by Trump’s comments about women, ranging from his “blood coming out of her wherever” comment about my Fox News colleague Megyn Kelly to insulting Carly Fiorina, the only women running for the GOP nomination, by telling a reporter: “Look at that face – would anyone vote for that?”
Of course, Trump has also skewered the white woman fighting for the Democratic nomination. He belittled former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as a woman who got “schlonged” in the 2008 primaries and described her bathroom break during a recent debate as “disgusting.”
None of that has hurt Trump with white Republican women.
Polls consistently show that Trump's support is strongest among older people. A third of his backers in most polls are over age 65 and about another half are aged between 45 and 64. Among women in those age-groups, it seems plausible that anger about larger political issues, from high rates of immigration to concern about their retirement income, outweighs any concern about Trump’s slights aimed at other white women.
Overall, whites feel a far deeper concern about those issues.
Why any of them feel Trump is going to help with their retirement income is beyond me. Yes, I know he's now channeling Bernie Sanders on the stump but anyone who's looked at this "economic plan" will see that his prescription is actually for everyone to work harder for less money so we can "compete" with garment workers in Bangladesh on an even playing field. Oh, and we must reward the hard working heirs to fortunes and "branding" experts like him with billions. Because: winning!
The fuel feeding the fire of rage among whites, according to the poll, has three sources: concern that the U.S. is no longer the world’s most powerful nation; the belief that the American dream is dying for their children; and the realization that it is harder for their middle-class families to keep up than they expected it to be.
The first is not true. But they insist all of that is allegedly happening because blacks and Mexicans are stealing the country blind and giving nothing back when hard working white people are sacrificing everything. Pay no attention to how the rapacious billionaire buffoon with the pompadour got his fortune.
But it's not economics at all, is it? It's spoiled petulance:
Even as the nation remains mostly white, with most of its wealth and political power securely in white hands, the pollsters concluded whites today are feeling “the anger of perceived disenfranchisement — a sense that the majority has become a persecuted minority, the bitterness of promise that didn’t pan out — rather than actual hardship.”
Oh, boo hoo hoo. I'm so tired of this nonsense. This isn't a zero sum game. Racial and ethnic minorities (and yes, women) getting more opportunities and being allowed to exercise their rights does not automatically translate into a loss for white people. Sure, white working class men have gotten a very raw deal over the past few decades but it's not the fault of minorities and women --- it's the fault of avaricious greedheads like Trump.
But they can't blame him, can they? He's the BMOC, the Captain of the football team, the man. It must be somebody else's fault that they feel so insecure.
Esquire’s report on the polling noted that while non-white Americans report they have a tougher time paying bills, blacks are “more likely than whites to believe that the American dream is still alive; that America is still the most powerful country in the world; that race relations have improved over the past eight years; and most important in the context of expectations, that their financial situation is better than they thought it would be when they were younger.”
Sadly, the fact that non-whites feel optimistic about America and believe that old fashioned can-do spirit is making their lives better just reinforces the sour, withered white worldview.
So where is the white Republican anger, especially the growing female white anger, heading? It is fracturing the GOP, leaving the party at war with itself.
I hate to inform all my old, white female sisters but if you think they believe you're an equal, think again. When push comes shove, and all the "others" are put in their place, you'll be ground under the white guy's boot too. They'll just have you make them a sandwich (just the way they like it) before they do it.
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