Thread: Trump’s voters were ‘hidden’ in plain sight

Trump’s voters were ‘hidden’ in plain sight

November 9, 2016 | 9:26pm



PITTSBURGH — Dr. Anthony Ripepi wants the cosmopolitan class — who so misread everything about this election cycle — to know the first thing they might want to shed is their constant mocking of those who live in flyover country.

He also wants them to know that despite the gnashing of teeth over the mere thought of a Donald Trump presidency or the rise of his supporters as an electoral force, he holds no malice.

“The Trump presidency will never be a threat to their way of life the way progressive policies were to the values Trump supporters hold dear,” he said.

Ripepi, the father of four, grandson of immigrants and highly sought-after chief of surgery at a suburban Pittsburgh hospital, is one of the nearly 3 million voters in Western Pennsylvania who helped put Trump over the top in a state that hasn’t gone Republican since 1988.

He doesn’t fit coastal America’s idea of a Trump supporter, and that’s part of the reason the media missed what was happening right under their noses.

Ripepi, 53, and his wife, Michele, take their kids to hockey and soccer practice just like their suburban New York counterparts do. They enjoy going out to dinner, or to an NHL hockey game or to a movie.

They even know how to talk to a Manhattanite or Washingtonian.

The problem is, Manhattanites and Washingtonians don’t know how to talk to them.

They don’t know anyone like Ripepi, who, when he isn’t scurrying around the neighborhood with the kids, can be found hunting and fishing with family and friends. The elites’ picture of a typical Trump voter is right out of “The Beverly Hillbillies” — male, white, uneducated and lacking common pleasantries, let alone the skills to better themselves.

The fundamental truth is that the Trump voter was still predominantly white, but both male and female, with a salary ranging from middle- to upper-middle-class to well-off and college-educated.

They may not have gone to Harvard or Yale (though surely some did), but, like Ripepi, they were tired of their values and principles being the butt of everyone’s jokes — including the president’s.

In the end, their support for Trump was non-ideological and not solely a revolt by poorer whites left behind by globalization. These voters turned out for Trump, too, but it was the Ripepis of the world who put this race over the top for Trump.

Voters keep sending Washington a message, and Washington — and the reporters who cover it — keep missing the signal. On Wednesday, pundits kept trying to calculate why progressivism was rejected, and they kept looking past what was right in front of them.

Voters are rejecting big government, big banks, big corporations and big technology. They said no to establishment Republican primary candidates and Wall Street, and they hid from the political statheads trying to track their mood.

Sorry, but when it comes to populism, there’s no app for that.

Republican media strategist Bruce Haynes challenges his Republican and Democratic DC-based peers who are knee-deep in their drinks over Trump’s win to take a step back and look at the map of what Clinton won Tuesday night. “She won the biggest metropolitan areas in the country and a couple of Southwestern states that have seen a huge influx of Mexican immigrants,” he said.

“And that is all she won and not a damn thing else.”

That is, she won the top 10 populations centers where most of the wealth, commerce and power is located — and lost the bulk of America.

This great populist election was all a big pushback against elitism on both sides of the aisle.

Ripepi didn’t start out as a Trump supporter — he favored Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, and then Ohio Gov. John Kasich. His support for Trump, he says, was never about Trump.

“He essentially served as a voice for economic and social unrest, but also change,” said Haynes.

“Look, elites don’t understand why America needs to be great again because for them America is great,” said Haynes. Their economy is strong, their lifestyle is comfortable and the communities they live in, in and around New York and Washington, are the wealthiest and most influential in the country.

When Trump voters turn on cable TV, they see their lives and livelihoods disrespected. They don’t want to keep up with the Kardashians; they just want to watch football without a political statement thrown in their faces.

On election night, the experts kept insisting the election was a rejection of Clinton. But it wasn’t — at least not just Clinton. It was also of the Bush dynasty and every other symbol of establishmentarianism.

And until the experts start hearing it, voters will keep sending them that message.

http://nypost.com/2016/11/09/trumps-...n-plain-sight/

Yep. But lets be careful lest someone think we're stereotyping.