Republicans (71%) are more likely than Democrats (63%) to cite the harm from the opposing party’s policies as a major reason to affiliate with their party.
- Hannah Fingerhut, “Why do people belong to a party? Negative views of the opposing party are a major factor” Pew Research Center March 29, 2018
In the first post of this series, I asked why so many Trump supporters see the Democratic Party as a greater threat to the US and the world than a womanizing, vindictive, mean-spirited, petty, and childish bully. What is so bad about Democrats? Here are a few opinions:
When Democrats are in control, cities tend to go soft on crime, reward cronies with public funds, establish hostile business environments, heavily tax the most productive citizens and set up fat pensions for their union friends. Simply put, theirs is a Blue State blueprint for disaster.
- Editorial, “How Decades of Democratic Rule Ruined Some of Our Finest Cities” Investor’s Business Daily March 9, 2016
Business has fled. …you need to bring back that business, create jobs and retool the educational system so that our young people can hold those jobs. The Democratic Party’s obsession with high taxes, burdensome regulation and massive, wasteful government programs does none of that.
- Sam Faddis, “Democrats have failed Baltimore – and Maryland” Baltimore Sun August 9, 2017
There's so many synergies at play here…Democrats are weak on violent crime. Democrat mayors antagonize and restrict their police forces, leading to pissed off cops who fight less crime…Democrats encourage govt dependence which correlates with (and some would say exacerbates or even causes) poverty, which leads to crime. Democrat policy favors criminals at every stop in the justice system, from getting them off on technicalities to "racial profiling", shorter sentences, more commuted sentences, more leniency and faster parole, etc.
- Comment on “23 of the 25 MOST DANGEROUS Cities in USA Have Democrat Mayors”
For the most part, these are longstanding Republican complaints against the Democratic Party*. What's changed over the years is the intensity of feeling that accompanies the complaints:
Trump supporters (close to a fifth of whom used to be Democrats or were leaning that way) have tapped into this anti-Democrat sentiment in a big way. And how have the Democrats responded? By portraying Trump supporters as a bunch of white racists who voted against their own economist interests, because they are so dumb. In other words, not by considering whether Trump supporters have anything important to say**.
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*Of course, the growing animus has been mutual (as would have been shown in the bottom part of the Pew chart, which I cut off to keep the post focused on Trump supporters).
**For the most part, Democratic self-criticism following Trump's election has been more about tactics than policies or political philosophy. For instance, Salon.com argued that Dems lost the election because they had been just too bipartisan and too nice (practicing "respectability politics"). It reminds me of job interviews where, when asked to name a weakness, I'd say, "sometimes I work too hard."