alt Hacker News>Donald Trump is the perfect symbol for this group
How a real estate & brand "billionaire" from NYC who wears orange makeup and lifts and speaks in the most basic of generalities became the rallying symbol for disenfranchised rural white working class conservatives speaks to the absolute degeneracy of our society. Awful.
Replies
He's a cartoon character, what someone with no idea thinks their life would be like if they were a billionaire. He feels relatable, doesn't talk like other "elites" and speaks plainly. When an ordinary politician talks you have to wade through layers of BS, misdirection, and "political correctness" where when Trump talks it's an unhinged stream of consciousness but it feels very honest. At least he's full of a very different brand of crap, and people are really growing to hate how most politicians speak.
>absolute degeneracy of our society
And there it is. The people who ended up voting for Trump have been feeling increasing alienation and hatred from the rest of the country, and they finally found their political power. No amount of insulting them is going to stop it.
Or, from another perspective: the "disenfranchised rural white[0] working class" was so abandoned by the Democratic Party, which previously represented that class, that a reality TV start from NYC with all of his flaws came to champion their needs instead[1].
[0]: Trump got a higher share of nonwhite votes of every stripe in 2024 than he did in 2016, so it's clearly more about class than race.
[1]: https://x.com/patrickjfl/status/1854645395856482568