As the primary season has unfolded, there have been an increasing number of analyses concerning "who is the Trump Voter?" We think
this piece by Digby answers that question as well as anything we've seen. Here's a key point that goes a long way in explaining what we've been witnessing at the
Nuremberg Trump rallies:
This the profile of Republicans who used to be called Reagan Democrats. They've been part of the GOP coalition or more than 30 years. And their views have always been the same. Nativism/racism, authoritarian/law and order, nationalist/militarist, economic populists. These are blue collar white people who used to vote for Democrats until Democrats became the party of civil rights, civil liberties and anti-war protests. In other words, the party of black and brown people, gays, and feminists, globalists and critics of authoritarian police agencies and military adventurism. (our emphasis)
They're not
new voters that Trump is all of a sudden bringing into the process. They're the same old cohort that consistently votes against their economic self- interest in order to stick it to those people enumerated above. The (liberal) "economic populism" that Trump adds to the mix is not, as Digby points out, the reason Stormtrumpers are following him, but is just the "populist icing on the cake."
