This is how Bernie Sanders wins: The appeal to Donald Trump voters that would turn 2016 upside down

[Playinghardball]

Blinkered by bigotries, white working-class voters flock to Trump. The real economic populist is Bernie Sanders

Donald Trump has carved out an interesting niche for himself in the Republican Party. In recent years, the GOP has been dominated by conservative evangelicals and what you might call the establishment wing of the party – think Mike Huckabee or Ben Carson versus Mitt Romney or Jeb Bush.

But Trump is a bit of an enigma – he doesn’t fit neatly into either of these boxes.

Thanks to a new survey released by the Brookings Institution and the Public Religion Research Institute, we now have some clarity on the Trump demographic. The average Trumpite is old, white, disaffected, without a college education, and part of the working-class. Unsurprisingly, he is also likely to project his economic discontent on immigrants, the default boogeyman for confused Jingoists.

William Galston summed up the results of the survey in a column for the Wall Street Journal:

“Among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, 39% of the white working class backs Mr. Trump, twice his share of white college-educated voters. Fifty-five percent of his supporters are white working class, compared with 35% for the rest of the Republican field and only 32% for Mr. Carson. Among Mr. Trump’s white working-class supporters, the demographic group most likely to back him is composed of men ages 50-64, with no more than a high-school education. Compared with other groups in the PRRI-Brookings survey, these men are the least likely to believe that immigrants strengthen the U.S. and the most likely to believe that illegal immigrants are taking jobs away from American citizens. More than other voters, they are disturbed by the rising prevalence of non-English speakers in the U.S. And many blame Chinese imports and corporate outsourcing for U.S. job losses.”

These findings confirm what has been obvious for months now: Trump is a faux-populist whose singular appeal is rooted in racism and identity politics. Frustratingly, the Trump voter correctly diagnoses the problem, which is that the power structure doesn’t serve the working or middle class in this country, but he also misidentifies the enemy.

It’s not Mexicans or Muslims or some other minority group outsourcing jobs or buying elections or rigging the tax code in favor of special interests – corporations and their deregulating cronies in office (on both sides) are responsible for that, as are the broader forces of globalization and neoliberalism. And yet the ire of the typical Trumpite is directed at foreigners and black people. For instance, only 30 percent of white Republicans and Republican-leaning independents supporting Trump think immigrants strengthen the country; 60 percent believe discrimination against white people is as prevalent as discrimination against black people; and “72 percent believe that the Confederate flag symbolizes Southern pride rather than racism.”

More here: http://www.salon.com/2015/12/07/this_is_how_bernie_sanders_wins_the_appeal_to_donald_trump_voters_that_would_turn_2016_upside_down/