'Old Man with a Sign' is sign of growing resistance to Trump

[TexasTowelie]

After being escorted from his initial perch amid Waco traffic at Valley Mills Drive and Waco Drive, Gale McCray finishes his protest in a nearby lot.
Photo courtesy of Gale McCray

WACO -- About this time a year ago, I sat down with five middle-aged and older white guys who voted to make Donald Trump president of the United States. I wanted to better understand what motivated them to cast their lot with this wildly unconventional candidate. Two things impressed me about this group, drawn from those who wrote articulate letters to the editor for Trump: None took a cheap shot at Hillary Clinton during a ricocheting 90-minute interview and most offered surprisingly nuanced views on illegal immigrants.

Since that rollicking Q&A, others have similarly sought to understand this long-overlooked segment of society, generally credited with catapulting Trump to power. For instance, a Gallup study of 125,000 adults found that many older whites were less motivated by good-paying jobs than a sinking feeling of displacement in society, one accented by fast-changing demographics. Some key research at Baylor University details this profile of older, white Americans.

As Baylor sociology researcher Paul Froese told me of one of the university’s nationwide surveys, “With white men, there is this kind of expectation that if you work hard and you’re a good guy, things should come your way. And when we have a change in the economy, a change in the culture, where the same advantages are no longer granted to white men, that’s seen as a terrible, upsetting and unexpected consequence.”

Yet when a transformative political force clinches power in a robust democracy, it often energizes long-complacent opposition, just as with the rise of the tea party a few months after Barack Obama took office in 2009. So meet one more old white guy who actually defies survey profiles: 75-year-old Gale McCray, known in appreciative liberal circles and among astonished motorists far and near as “The Old Man with a Sign.” I first saw him Dec. 2 at hectic Valley Mills Drive and Waco Drive holding — what else? — a sign.

Read more: http://www.wacotrib.com/opinion/columns/bill_whitaker/bill-whitaker-old-man-with-a-sign-is-sign-of/article_2777a855-8c9c-5dd6-ae9f-df6d6f2719a5.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=user-share

[janterry]

1. 3 Cop cars for one old man with a sign?

Must be Texas

[marble falls]

2. Waco is a conservative place. Home of Baylor and the Twin Peaks shoot out, Branch Davidians.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

3. This is great !!! "I'm old..don't have time" to talk

To opposition views.

[MyOwnPeace]

4. Interesting perspective......

in the article - looking at middle age/older white folks and finding out what they're thinking 1 year later in this national crisis. Continues to show lack of support for IQ45 and his "base" - which appears to be shrinking with each passing day and new tweet.

[yellowdogintexas]

5. he lives in Fort Worth, and started with the sign right

after the inauguration, on Hulen Street not far from my house. He takes it lots of places. He was at the March 15 tax rally in downtown Fort Worth. I've met him; he hangs out near the favorite restaurant of our Democratic WOman's CLub