Vote Your Gut

Advice in judging a presidential candidate I have followed was, “It’s not what they say it’s what they write that counts”. Position papers were the thing to study. The election of 2016 did not revolve around position papers. Hillary had a bunch on her website, Trump not so much. The media did not care.

In the presidential campaign of 2000, it was said that George W. Bush was preferred by many because he was viewed to be someone you would enjoy having a beer with. So it was important to personally identify with the candidate.

In this Fareed Zakaria article, and in his CNN program on December 4, the “personal identity” angle was revealed in more detail in regard to the white working class (WWC):

• WWC folks do not vote based on policy. They vote for someone they identify with and then adopt his or her policies.
• They do not like elites because elites boss them around every day.
• They admire the rich. They would like to have more money but keep their current lifestyle.

Be sure to check out the links to the Harvard Business Review article in the Fareed Zakaria link, above. It is very informative.

In the book “What’s the Matter With Kansas?” Thomas Frank probed the question of why the WWC voted against their own interests. That is, why do they vote Republican? One good reason, I believe, is that since the Republican Party has for years expressed a skepticism about the federal government (‘government is the problem', ‘Washington is broken’, etc.) the WWC more easily identified with them. Some pundits have stated that Hillary likely would have prevailed if she had expressed her working class childhood and time lived in Arkansas. Her husband knew how to do that. Also recall Joe Biden always talking about his origin in Scranton, PA.