I want to vote for these Best Buddies for president and vice-president of the United States.
[from Ranger Rick--I used to get that magazine when I was a kid!]
But I'm voting for Hillary Clinton.
My decision is based not so much on the candidates as on their supporters.*
I thought about a write-in vote for the Best Buddies––(here's a fun Wikipedia article, "Non-Human electoral candidates")–– but satisfying as that might be, I don't want to contribute to Trump supporters gaining massive political power.
Too many of them are "the kind of whites who tell pollsters that blacks are lazy and overindulged."
(If you support Trump, I'm not assuming you are among this group, but plenty are.)
That's from a poll by YouGov aimed at measuring "racial resentment"--not outright racism, but "the idea that blacks are undeserving and clamorous for special assistance."
Yes, I know it's more complicated than that,
but the poll (and what you can see for yourself) shows that "racial resentment was tightly linked to Mr Trump's supporters. These results held true when we controlled for region, race, and religion, among other factors: 59% of Trump supporters in the Republican primary scored in the top quartile on racial resentment, compared with …29% of voters overall."
--reported in the Economist, "Trump and the Academy," September 3, 2016.
This article also debunks the theory that Trump supporters are more authoritarian: though racial resentment is a strong predictor of Trump support, authoritarianism is only a weak predictor.
So, that's sorta reassuring? but I still don't want to do anything that could empower this group of my fellow citizens.
They're probably perfectly nice people on their own, but history (and my own life) demonstrates that resentment builds bad policy.
YouGov is an international Internet-based market research firm, headquartered in the UK, with operations in Europe, North America, the Middle East and Asia-Pacific.
* not to be disingenuous by saying I didn't choose between the candidates: I would never vote for Trump. My choice was between Clinton and a third-party or write-in candidate.
But I'm voting for Hillary Clinton.
My decision is based not so much on the candidates as on their supporters.*
I thought about a write-in vote for the Best Buddies––(here's a fun Wikipedia article, "Non-Human electoral candidates")–– but satisfying as that might be, I don't want to contribute to Trump supporters gaining massive political power.
Too many of them are "the kind of whites who tell pollsters that blacks are lazy and overindulged."
(If you support Trump, I'm not assuming you are among this group, but plenty are.)
That's from a poll by YouGov aimed at measuring "racial resentment"--not outright racism, but "the idea that blacks are undeserving and clamorous for special assistance."
Yes, I know it's more complicated than that,
but the poll (and what you can see for yourself) shows that "racial resentment was tightly linked to Mr Trump's supporters. These results held true when we controlled for region, race, and religion, among other factors: 59% of Trump supporters in the Republican primary scored in the top quartile on racial resentment, compared with …29% of voters overall."
--reported in the Economist, "Trump and the Academy," September 3, 2016.
This article also debunks the theory that Trump supporters are more authoritarian: though racial resentment is a strong predictor of Trump support, authoritarianism is only a weak predictor.
So, that's sorta reassuring? but I still don't want to do anything that could empower this group of my fellow citizens.
They're probably perfectly nice people on their own, but history (and my own life) demonstrates that resentment builds bad policy.
YouGov is an international Internet-based market research firm, headquartered in the UK, with operations in Europe, North America, the Middle East and Asia-Pacific.
* not to be disingenuous by saying I didn't choose between the candidates: I would never vote for Trump. My choice was between Clinton and a third-party or write-in candidate.
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