| Ok I understand the rural/urban divide. I recognise the inherent value differences separating farm country and the major metropolitan areas. What I can't wrap my mind around is that the champion of these folksy rural farmers and former factory workers, the hero of the common bud light swilling, chevy driving, fox news watching red blooded, god fearing American turned out to be Donald Trump! Here is the epitome of big city, tax dodging, 80's tastless excess in the mold of Gordon Gecko. A pompous and self absorbed celebrity from New York city. A former Democrat and friend of the enemy with ties to wall street and the sell out of the American worker. Reading through some of the recent HN comments concerning this election is disconcerting, as it shows that this divide is deep and has poisoned even this normally reserved and cordial community. However, tell me hacker news, why is Donald Trump the savior of traditional American values? |
My favorite is of some guy with essentially no money in his pocket, with just a package of hot dogs on a Martha's Vineyard beach. This random guy offered to cook them next to the steaks he was grilling, and accidentally ruined them, thereby feeding the poor guy a stake. I think sometime later the guy realized it was Trump.
There's also the thesis that at some point Trump took the measure of our establishment, including the GOPe, and decided to do something about it.
There's also a historical pattern of the top and bottom against the middle, and now there's a new lower if not bottom group, ditto a new middle, the professional class, and a great deal of (now?) mutual loathing between them and the working class. So in that respect this is nothing new, this goes back millennia.