So, why do I sympathize with Trump supporters? I myself am adamantly not a Trump supporter, but I find much of the discussion and coverage of Trump and his followers to be somewhat paternalistic and misleading.
Here's the thing: you simply can't abuse people for decades and expect there to be no backlash. People on the bottom of the economic ladder know they're getting screwed, and they resent being told that they're not. I was shocked that the president had the audacity to say, at last year's Business Roundtable, that "America is winning right now. America is great right now." (1) It's patently false, and people know it's false, and they know he's lying to their faces. The remark was immediately, and justifiably pounced upon by the republican contenders. I used to like President Obama. I voted for him twice (more enthusiastically the 1st time), but I've never liked is rhetorical style. He often takes a condescending tone, and his his bland, faux populism is similar to that of his ignominious predecessor. It only seems more palatable to us because he's a better speaker and has better speech writers. But most people, however uneducated, can tell when they're being patronized, and it only adds to their resolve to support somebody like Trump, who allegedly "tells it like it is."
Things aren't great in education, and we're demonstrably not winning. The Program for International Student Assessment ranks us 35th out of 64 developed countries overall, and 27th in math and science. (2) Our own data, from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, presents and even bleaker picture. (3) No more than 42% of American students are competent or better in any subject, at any grade level, and in most cases are far below. Things seemed to be improving during the 1990s and early 2000s, but have now been stagnant for about a decade. My own experience, while obviously limited and subjective, confirms these numbers. Incoming college freshmen are almost completely ignorant of basic historical facts, and their verbal and written communication skills are, to be polite, meager. Speaking of college, tuition continues to outpace inflation like the tortoise to the hare, thanks to bloated bureaucracies and presidents that are paid like CEO's.
Things aren't great in the realm of health. Children today have shorter life expediencies than their parents' generation, largely due to obesity. (4) Yet, when the World Health Organization tried to revise its dietary guidelines to reflect healthier choices, the sugar industry flexed its financial muscle to convince the government to threaten a financial boycott of WHO. (5) That was during the Bush administration, but the same groups did a similar hatchet job on Michelle Obama's well-intentioned "MyPlate" campaign. Furthermore, despite the United States spending an almost unbelievable amount on healthcare, much more by far than any other developed country, we do not enjoy comparably greater advantages (6). Nor did we before the affordable care act, for those who might be tempted to pin all the blame there. Whether you support free-market insurance, single-payer, or the Obamacare compromise, there is no debate that American healthcare costs are obscene, and that we have almost nothing to show for it. That's losing, not winning.
Perhaps most pertinently, things aren't great in the economy. The ongoing "recovery" may be swelling the Dow Jones average and lining the pockets of America's CEO's, but low and middle-income workers are hardly benefiting at all, nor have they been for almost 40 years. (7) An investigation into the demographics of Trump's supporters reveals that they are, by and large, blue collar workers who did not go to college: precisely the people who bear the brunt of each economic downturn and never seem to experience much during the upturns. (8) They can see how the Clintons' free trade agenda cost the country good manufacturing jobs. They can see that their wages never seem to rise, despite generally higher productivity. (7) They see big political donors in both parties getting ahead while they get ignored. They don't like being told that he blue car sitting right in front of them is actually red, but that they're too simple-minded to understand it.
It's futile to continue to characterize Trump supporters as racist, ignorant yokels who don't have a firm grip on reality. Actually, they have a far better grasp of what's actually happening to the majority of Americans than those in the media. There is real, palpable anger among the underclasses in the middle part of the country and, when misdirected, that anger can be extremely dangerous. Trump has succeeded in channeling it toward immigrants, when the real target should be the corporate and political oligarchy for whom the public/private division is completely permeable, and who are all too often called upon to regulate themselves and their friends. This is what Sanders's supporters understand, and they, too, are generally angry about it.
In order to deflate Trump's campaign, it's necessary to empathize with his supporters, and show them the real sources of their frustrations. It's not "the Mexicans" or "the Muslims," or any other vague stereotype. It's an immensely complex and interrelated political and economic complex that is designed to maintain power and wealth for those who have it, and keep them from those who don't. Telling people they have no reason to be angry is wrong, callous, and frankly, just what Trump is counting on. We need to focus on fixing, rather than whitewashing, the systemic problems that prevent too many people from their pursuit of happiness.
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(1) http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2015/09/16/obama_america_is_winning_right_now_americas_great_right_now.html
(2) http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/02/02/u-s-students-improving-slowly-in-math-and-science-but-still-lagging-internationally/
(3) http://www.nationsreportcard.gov/
(4) http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/17/health/childrens-life-expectancy-being-cut-short-by-obesity.html
(5) http://www.theguardian.com/society/2003/apr/21/usnews.food
(8) http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/03/who-are-donald-trumps-supporters-really/471714/
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