Guess there weren’t enough angry white men in Iowa to give The Donald a victory in the caucuses. That means The Donald is a loser, a word he abhors. However, the demographic supporting him is also made up of losers, angry white men who life has passed by and are dying off earlier than would be expected.
Several months ago, an analysis by two social scientists from Princeton showed that middle-aged uneducated white men had an increased mortality rate. Those with a high school education or less schooling were dying off faster than any other demographic group. Given the advances in medical diagnostic and therapeutic developments, and prophylaxis for chronic illnesses, mortality rates across the board had been going down aside from this one sector.
One of the interesting facts about this group is that they are basically killing themselves, either quickly or slowly. The leading causes of death in this stratum are suicide, alcoholism and drug usage, and there’s a higher incidence of chronic pain and various illnesses. This is not a happy bunch. They are often unmarried, divorced and single, do not have many relationships, and do not socialize well. There is also a much higher level of unemployment or underemployment in these men.
Under a lot of stress, they do not have much to look forward to as they grow older. And they are angry. Life has not turned out the way they had envisioned it when they were younger. Of course, much of their situation is their own doing as they abandoned education for a variety of reasons, not having the foresight to realize it was a necessity in the new economy. And perhaps they started using drugs or alcohol when they were much younger, making education or decent jobs hard to come by or stick with.
But most of them do not want to blame themselves for the way their lives have unraveled. It is much easier to fault the immigrants who have “flooded the country,” taking the good jobs for themselves. The fact that immigrant jobs are commonly picking fruits and vegetables, working in slaughterhouses, doing landscaping and washing cars, cleaning rooms and toilets in hotels, and working in fast food restaurants, is disregarded by these white men who would never have considered work of that sort in the first place.
And they loathe the government. After all, the government has been supporting all these welfare queens who sit back on their asses and receive money without working. They have six or seven children by different fathers and get more money. However, that story ended during the Clinton administration twenty years ago and was not really true in the first place, though perhaps still believed by these angry white middle-agers.
There’s also China to blame. China has taken all those good manufacturing jobs away from America and Trump says he’s going to bring those jobs back. Good luck to him! There are plenty of jobs anyway going begging in the high-tech industries, but you need education and training for those which uneducated middle-aged white guys don’t have.
Well, now these angry uneducated white men have a savior- The Donald. He is angry too and he is going to do something to make America great again. Just exactly what that is, is not clear, but he is going to do it. And these uneducated angry white men believe him because they want someone who will give them hope. Immigrants are going to be deported and a wall built at the border. Well, more immigrants are already leaving America than coming in. And this is before The Donald gets to do anything. Are these middle-aged white men going to take the jobs that will open up? Not likely when they’re drinking, or doing meth or heroin.
What is Trump really going to do for these poor bastards whom life has passed by if he gets elected president? Not much, you can bet. In fact, he would call them losers if he didn’t want their votes in the election. But they love him anyway because he’s angry and shouts and says things that are politically incorrect, and doesn’t give a f— what anyone else thinks.
And how much of their adoration of The Donald is fantasy for these poor, middle-aged, uneducated white men? Here’s a guy who they think has it all. He’s rich, has a private jet, gets to screw plenty of beautiful women who fawn all over him, can say whatever he wants to anyone, and gets to run for president and maybe win.
Wouldn’t it be nice if just once they could tell off the boss and walk off the job with a beautiful woman on their arm? Wouldn’t it be nice if they could be like The Donald, the loser in Iowa?
Resurrecting Democracy
www.robertlevinebooks.com
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Political junkie, Vietnam vet, neurologist- three books on aging and dementia. Book on health care reform in 2009- Shock Therapy for the American Health Care System. Book on the need for a centrist third party- Resurrecting Democracy- A Citizen’s Call for a Centrist Third Party published in 2011. Aging Wisely, published in August 2014 by Rowman and Littlefield. Latest book- The Uninformed Voter published May 2020