Sanders-Trump Voters & the Duties of Citizenship

Craig Frizzell
Aug 24, 2017 · 3 min read

The Political Wire analysis suggesting that the number of Sanders voters who voted for Trump in the election were numerous enough to cost Clinton the election in key swing states raises a number of interesting issues about disaffected voters. While discussing this piece, I suggested to a friend that you have to account for the fact that some of these voters weren’t necessarily Democrats (see The Monkey Cage piece arguing the same) and were really disaffected, low information voters; my friend suggested that these low information voters could be found among the supporters of most campaigns and that Sanders is not unique in this regard.

But I disagree. I think campaigns like Bernie’s and Trump’s draw a very particular type of voter. I think there was a strong contingent of disinterested and disaffected people drawn to Bernie’s (and Trump’s) rhetoric. More than other candidates. These are people who bury their head in the sand and think politics are awful, never paying attention to the system and claiming that it’s all awful because they don’t get it. A Sanders or Trump candidate is a draw for them. So I could easily see them being more prevalent for Sanders than most candidates.

These are the people who get drawn in by the both-sides nonsense. They heard Obama was revolutionary and then he didn’t deliver a miracle, but they don’t understand government or what the Republicans did for 8 years.

And so they think it’s all corrupt and awful, and they like the populist rhetoric from Sanders, and barring that will take the hand grenade to the political system that is Trump.

And I loathe these people because of it.

Society and community are the most important things we have. It is one of the truly defining characteristics of humanity. To quote Eisenhower, politics ought to be the part time profession of every citizen.

But, my friend suggested, to be fair politics can be quite confusing and complicated.

Sure it can be confusing. But so is the plot of any decent TV drama. People just don’t care enough to even try.

To use a favorite comparison of mine, look at the world of pro wrestling. It’s a fairly intricate fake universe with its own logic and rules and story-lines, some of which are completely unlike anything in the real world. The only true link to the real world are the emotions — comedy and drama, good and evil, etc. Plenty of people, across the entire intelligence spectrum, with an emphasis on the lower end given the societal judgment of the medium, are able to figure it out. And if people can follow WWE they can sure as hell follow politics.

Maybe fiction is more interesting than real-life politics. I’ll still judge them for not finding the topic interesting. If you can’t find your fellow human interesting then you are a pretty worthless drain on society. My apologies for that bluntness; I know it’s harsh.

We are a community. Everyone belongs. Everyone has to chip in. We can have disagreements on the role of government vs. the private sector, or the fine points of how we are going to craft a policy. That’s what is supposed to happen. That’s what makes for good governance. But if you don’t even want to get in the game? What are you even doing here?

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    Craig Frizzell

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    Elections and Political Behavior expert. Political Science PhD. Data Analyst/Scientist. Former Pollster. Former American Politics instructor.