Bernie Sanders --- Hillary Clinton --- Donald Trump --- Jeb Bush (or any of the other Republican establishment candidates).
But other than the far left and far right of that axis, it's really not that helpful because on trade, immigration, foreign policy and maybe some other issues Trump is actually running to the left of Hillary.
So maybe a better way to think of it would be a matrix (similar to the one above) that would organize today's voters in four boxes. In the upper-left hand (red) corner would be the title "Democrats who have benefited from the last thirty or so years" and in that box would be the name "Hillary Clinton." In the upper-right hand (blue) corner would be the title "Republicans who have benefited from the last thirty or so years" and in that box would contain the name of "Jeb Bush," "Marco Rubio," or some other establishment Republican that ran and lost this year. In the lower-left hand (green) corner would be the title "Democrats who have not benefited from the last thirty or so years" and would contain the name "Bernie Sanders." Finally, in the lower right-hand (purple) corner would be the title "Republicans who have not benefited from the last thirty or so years" and would contain "Donald Trump."
Think about it. If you went to college and had a reasonably good career, invested in the stock market from a young age, were prudent in borrowing, and yet didn't approve of the jingoism, religiosity or social conservatism of the George W. Bush years you're probably a Hillary supporter. If, on the other hand, you went to college and had a reasonably good career, invested in the stock market from a young age, were prudent in borrowing, and yet go to church on a regular basis and think W. was on balance a pretty good president, you're probably a Jeb, Rubio, Christie or Kasich supporter.
Now, if you're young and took out loans to go to college and came out and couldn't find a job that paid enough to pay back those loans you may be a Sandersista. And if you're an older white guy (or woman) who didn't go to college and can't live as well as your father did you may be a Trump supporter.
Make sense?
1 comment:
Makes sense as a model focused on self interest but I think the appeal of a Sanders platform is more collective. Also it seems like presidential campaigns are decided based on personality. While it may seem like an irrational criteria it makes some sense when you consider how divorced the average citizen is from the political process. Most people in a representative democracy aren't going to know how the executive branch functions on a day to day basis but they know how to size people up to see how they would function in a position of power. Kind of a game of who do you trust.
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