Life-long Democrat Turned Trump Supporter

Last night @petersagal tweeted out an interview from @WBUR about a life-long democrat who had become a Trump supporter (link).  He was  touched (I think) by the story of economic hardship at the end.  What he didn't have is the benefit of listening to the same Democrat-turned-Trump-Supporter a month earlier (link).  If he had, he would have understood that, like a lot of people, she and her family are worried about their economic well-being.  This did not drive her to Trump.  What drove her to Trump was a nativism.  Listen to the first interview in full and help me understand why I might be wrong.  She grew up in Cambridge.  When she was growing up it was white and working-class.  Walk around Cambridge today, and you will find that white and working-class is a minority in many, many areas (outside of the universities and the tech company clusters).

I think @petersagal is like a lot of liberals (maybe more than just liberals) in trying to rationalize Trump's win away from a nativist fear-of-the-other and towards a more palatable solely-economic bent.  The economy DOES have something to do with it.  Most of the U.S. has been under constant economic stress for more than a decade.  This stress has made us mean, and this meanness is bringing out our base fear-of-the-other.  Look different, talk different, dress different, pray different then you are a danger.  This is a survival instinct that becomes harder squelch when we are under stress.  It's deep and ugly, but it's there.

What's needed is a sustained improvement in economic security to relieve the stress and allow for people to listen more to their better angels.  What we are going to get with President Small Hands and the House and Senate Republicans is the opposite.  I am not sure that this isn't by design.  Keep people hateful and angry, manipulate that anger to win elections, rinse and repeat.