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Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Maybe if the NYT sends some more reporters to diners to talk to Trump voters -- then we'll understand.
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There's definitely a good bit of that among the lower class populist GOP folks. At the higher tiers, that fades away. And given the Latino GOP vote, sentiment of GOP voters generally is clearly not "white vs. everyone else," as Ayres seems to suggest.
Among GOP business owners and professionals, at least as far as I've seen, there's definitely a sentiment that the Democratic Party caters to people who never took chances, who never took a stab at business. It's the party of teachers' unions, people who work for the govt. You hear this statement a lot: "Democrats care more because they need govt more." (That's not generally true, of course, as these same GOP business owners are happy to feast on govt money via contracts with municipal, state, and fed agencies and entities.)
Hear in the State With No Personality, a common refrain from GOP leaders is that the Democrats are talentless cronyists. And here it's true. This state is quite corrupt and nepotistic, and the old Democratic Party machines remain powerful. There are loads of families who for a couple generations have worked in govt and found ways to get their extended relatives hired into all sorts of positions. (These people are actually contributing to systemic racism in govt by keeping out a lot of better qualified candidates.)
I think Ayres is right that the grubby and sweaty populist GOP is xenophobic. But that only explains part of the effort at voter suppression. A lot of the moderate GOP would welcome minorities. They resent the classes who can't be measured by metrics and are protected, most of whom here are white - the public sector union folk, the bureaucrats who attempt to regulate them (I say attempt because muni and state regulators here are often crooked, or hopelessly incompetent and more irritating than scary, or both).*
Ayres is right that the Democrats are perceived to be the party that gives things to the undeserving. But the different groups within the GOP define undeserving very differently. A lot of the moderate old school GOP views Trump Nation as undeserving. But they're happy to have those useful idiots.
ETA: YMMV. This state has the second biggest legislature behind CA, to cover a fraction of the population. So the perception of govt as a cash trough for losers is more likely to be ubiquitous here than many other places.
ETA2: * More political than overtly crooked. Like, take our Courts. The Superior is run by the GOP. And it delivers for business interests quite predictably. The Supreme is run by the Democrats, and it rules strictly in accordance with the desires of those who butter its justices' bread. In one county, you have to hire a D local counsel to get a project approved smoothly. In another, you have to hire an R. Few people have their actual hands out, but none are shy about who they expect people to donate to in elections in exchange for favorable treatment.
