The unholy alliance of Trump voters

It wasn’t a homogeneous block—whether the white working-class or anti-immigrant nativists or the victims of globalization—that put Donald Trump into the White House. That’s the kind of reductionist narrative that has proliferated both before and after the fateful 2016 presidential election, all in an attempt to make sense of Trump’s “base.”

Instead, it was a complex coalition of voters, with different resentments and desires, that combined, at least via the electoral college (but not, of course, in the popular vote), to defeat Hillary Clinton and elect Trump.

That’s the conclusion arrived at by Emily Ekins [ht: db] of the Cato Institute and the Democracy Fund Voter Study Group.

According to Ekins, there were five unique clusters of Trump voters—American Preservationists (20 percent), Staunch Conservatives (31 percent), Anti-Elites (19 percent), Free Marketeers (25 percent), and the Disengaged (5 percent)—who hold very different views on a wide variety of issues, including immigration, race, American identity, moral traditionalism, international trade, and economics.

Here’s how Ekins describes these different clusters:

Staunch Conservatives are steadfast fiscal conservatives, embrace moral traditionalism, and have a moderately nativist conception of American identity and approach to immigration.

Free Marketeers are small government fiscal conservatives, free traders, with moderate to liberal positions on immigration and race. (Their vote was a vote primarily against Clinton and not a vote for Trump.)

American Preservationists lean economically progressive, believe the economic and political systems are rigged, have nativist immigration views, and a nativist and ethnocultural conception of American identity.

Anti-Elites lean economically progressive, believe the economic and political systems are rigged, and take relatively more moderate positions on immigration, race, and American identity than American Preservationists. They are also the most likely group to favor political compromise.

The Disengaged do not know much about politics, but what they do know is they feel detached from institutions and elites and are skeptical of immigration.

Call it the “unholy alliance” of Trump voters—clusters of people who had different motivations in mind when they went to the voting booth.

A good example of their diversity is their response to the question, do you have favor raising taxes on families with incomes over $200,000 a year? Overwhelming majorities of American Preservationists and Anti-Elites (and a plurality of the Disengaged) favor raising taxes, while Staunch Conservatives and Free Marketeers are opposed.

Much the same differences arise when asked if the economic system in the United States is biased in favor of the wealthiest Americans.

In fact, Ekins found only four issues that clearly distinguish Trump voters from non-Trump voters: an intense dislike of Clinton, a more dismal view of their personal financial situations, support for a temporary ban on Muslim immigration, and opposition to illegal immigration. Otherwise, as Ekins explains, Trump voters diverge on a wide variety of salient issues, including taxes, entitlements, immigration, race, pluralism, traditionalism, and social conservatism.

As I see it, Ekins’s analysis of Trump voters is significant for two reasons: First, it reveals how complex—and shaky or unstable—the coalition is. It’s going to make it difficult for Trump and the Republican Congress to govern in any kind of unified fashion. Second, it creates real opportunities for the political opposition, depending on how it reorganizes itself in the months and years ahead and whether or not it is able to move beyond the Clinton-dominated wing of the Democratic Party, to peal off significant numbers of Trump voters.

That’s only possible if, as Ekins writes, we acknowledge that “different types of people came to vote for Trump and not all for the same reasons.”