Support for Border Wall Plunges to 38%

Trump. #Winning.

The explanation is simple.

People have different responses to something claimed to be "racist." But let's speak of a few broad groups:

1. Progs/SJWs. For these folks, anything they don't like is "racist."

2. Upper Middle Class "Establishment" Republicans and Many Status-Conscious Moderates. For these status-craving folks, "racism" has a powerful charge to it, and they socialize mainly with liberals, so they are extremely jittery about any possible policy position which could be used to brand them as "racist" and thereby degrade their social status.

3. People Who Are Fucking Sick of Everything Being Called Racist and For Whom the Simple Dropping of the Word Has Little Further Power. This includes many GOPer, particularly Trump voters.

4. People Who Are Actually Racist. Enough said.

Whenever you talk about something like the wall, you have to keep in mind you automatically have group 1 against you.

You probably have group 4 for you.

You probably also have most of group 3 for you, too, for a simple reason: Because the "racism" charge is so toxic, especially among the Establishment-minded social climbers, it's likely that a lot of useful, common-sense measures have Not already been undertaken because Group 1 yells "racist" about everything and thereby shuts down any discussion about a plan.

Thus, obvious things, like building a wall, don't get done. Usually they should be done, and are only being stopped by farcical claims of "racism," so often most of Group 3 will support such measures.

So the only group in play is Group 2. People like Megyn Kelly. People who did well in school and have the psychological bent of wanting to Please Their Teachers, not being natural rebels or contrarians who say "Fuck Teacher."

And this is your swing constituency. And so you have to be careful to explain your support for a proposal in ways that make sense to Group 2, and in particular, with reasons that are sufficient for Group 2 to understand this is not about "racism" or other forbidden urges, but about acceptable political goals like security and economics and budgetary matters (and law and order, and sovereignty, and etc.).

Now, if you talk about these issues in a loose way that sort of suggests that it's simple dislike of Mexicans and other Latin Americans driving your policy position, they will run for the hills, because the defining psychological feature of people in this group is over-valuing of their status vis-a-vis their social class' norms of behavior.

And "being racist" (or even "being associated with things that might be racist") is completely unacceptable to this group -- less acceptable than adultery, alcoholism, and drug abuse.

Probably the only things worse to this group is child abuse or vehicular manslaughter while DUI.

So this is the key swing demographic you have to persuade, and make feel comfortable and even #Safe, on any issue which Group 1 might yell about and controversialize into sounding "racist."

So:

How do you think the chief spokesman for the border wall has done on assuaging the social status anxieties of this group?

Oh Trump's moved the Overton Window, all right. Just in the wrong direction.

You may not be interested in Political Correctness, but believe me amigos, Political Correctness remains very, very interested in you.

posted by Ace at 04:00 PM

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