No. of Recommendations: 9
Can't get past the paywall and I'd like to read this:
Mike Young❤ @micyoung75.16h
The Johns Hopkins Agora Institute embedded researchers in super-red counties in Wyoming, Michigan, and South Carolina for an ethnographic study of Trump voters. Fourteen of 21 participants had an immediate negative reaction when asked about democracy. The reasons they gave were consistent.
These voters do not believe they are a silent majority. They believe they are a minority under threat from a wicked cultural majority. They do not want majority rule. They want minority rule - specifically, the ability for their group to exercise power over a majority they find morally repugnant.
...
Patricia, 50s, South Carolina: "Democracy is two wolves and one sheep deciding who's for dinner." Kyle, mid-20s, Wyoming, a delivery driver: "Every single small town would be outvoted by every single city. We wouldn't be able to feed people cows. We'd all be eating seaweed." Clint, 70s, Michigan: "If we do have a democracy, it'll be a problem."
JVL is scrupulous about the limits of a 21-person sample. He notes Sarah Longwell's counter-thesis - that millions of Trump voters are genuinely motivated by affordability and economic hardship - is also correct. But the study documents something specific: a coherent worldview in which democratic processes are only legitimate when they produce outcomes the participant approves. That is not a
misunderstanding of democracy. It is a rejection of it.
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/what-cletus-thinks-ab... 