Appealing to the Base

Like it or not, Donald Trump’s base is deeply committed to this country, willing to work hard within their expectations and is built on a strong rural values of self-reliance and a belief in God. Most of these folks are decent, caring and law-abiding. They may have a vision of the United States that is out of step with modernity, but for most, their feelings are deep and their passion most legitimate. They are not comfortable with multi-ethnicity, with expressions of personal freedom that are at odds with their religious beliefs of their view of why America is so powerful, politically, militarily and economically. And to the extent they have been displaced, their economic promise slammed and their values challenged, they simply look at what has changed since they experienced comfort in their lives… and assess blame accordingly.

They were raised with the notion of an honest day’s wage for an honest day’s work. Since work was pretty much there – if nothing else, doing what your parents did – it did not matter what you did as long as you did it well. There was particular admiration for working with your hands, showing physical strength and/or agility, and the pride that goes with a job well done. That notion of post-WWII predictable sameness gave them comfort. The United States, pretty much unscathed by the ravages of WWII, was able to accomplish massive economic growth with virtually no competition from the rest of the world. Our wages were high, our work benefits generous and retirement predictably comfortable.

Then came global competition, and whether you can blame the economic inequality on trade agreements or simply the progression of mankind, those who had adjusted to a comfortable “permanence” were betrayed by reality. As automation crept forward, working with your hands was replaced with “brain” jobs, often requiring college degrees and beyond. Some folks just wanted to continue to work with their hands. While they might want their children to be better educated, there was an equally powerful and growing “anti-elitism” that challenged scientific methods and findings with “what we were raised with, what we know.”

Ethnic diversity, multi-culturalism were alien forces that just did not fit into any experience that a “meat and potatoes” lifetime could ever prepare them for. Questioning authority, the flag, the decisions of “wise” leaders, expressing “homosexuality” and alternative lifestyles – while experiencing layoffs, lower pay and uncertain futures – blended into one totally unacceptable mess that needed to be fixed. Threats to their companies – under the guise of environmental and financial regulation or coping with global warming despite the coldest winters they had every experience – were unfathomable, anti-religious and deeply unpatriotic. Change.

Higher education was challenged. Working with your hands re-glorified. Globalization was blamed for their ills. Regulation was taking their jobs away. Enter Donald Trump who promised them everything that they wanted, to bring back the America they knew… even though there wasn’t the slightest reality to his pledges. Despite his Ivy education, Donald spoke their language, expressed their anger and promised a future they wanted. He said what was on their minds, even if his words were not politically correct, even if they reflected a notion of white supremacy, which too many of his followers believed defined a successful United States.

To reach that base – most of whom do not have college degrees – Donald Trump became the master of communication to his core constituency. “President Donald Trump connects with the American people by using a language that even a fourth grader could understand, according to a recently published analysis by Factbase on the speech patterns of the last 15 U.S. presidents.

“The analysis looked at the first 30,000 words each president spoke in office and ranked each of the presidents' speech -- going back to Herbert Hoover -- using the Flesch-Kincaid grade level scale and several other tests that commonly analyze English-language difficulty levels.” AOL.com, January 9^th.  

The above chart presents the grade-level of speech of each of our past 15 presidents. Speaking clearly in a way that most Americans can understand you is important… but Trump picked the fourth grade level? This may also explain why disdain for Donald Trump increases with educational levels. People with higher levels of expression feel talked down to, their education denigrated, which in turn makes those educated citizens feel singled out by Donald Trump as un-American.

It’s personal now, and unless you are scion of mega-rich business where you only care about your money, the more you are educated, the more you feel targeted by Trump and the worse you feel about him and his policies. So if it’s polarization you want, Trump does it not only in the policies he embraces, the racial preferences inherent in most everything he does, he also makes sure his words and speech patterns double down on his disdain for educated “elites.”

I’m Peter Dekom, and we have Trump-fired accelerating polarization, tearing this nation apart, at every level.