What does Trump’s dominance tell us about Massachusetts Republicans? – The Boston Globe
Yet a poll from Emerson College, released last weekend, shows Trump dominating in Massachusetts, with 50 percent of the vote in a five-person field. His nearest competitor, Senator Marco Rubio, was 34 points behind, at 16 percent. When Trump came here in January, thousands packed an arena in Lowell to hear him tick off the key planks in his platform — a border wall, stronger military, defeating ISIS, and fair trade.
Massachusetts is known for Northeast Republicanism, a practical, nonthreatening, pro-business model of politics that produced governors like William Weld, Paul Cellucci, Romney, and Charlie Baker, and swept Scott Brown into the Senate in 2010. Republican success depends on finding the middle of the road, not only for the votes of independents who can determine the outcome of an election, but also in the act of governing itself. Nothing an elected Republican gets done happens without the permission of a Democratic legislature.
From: What does Trump’s dominance tell us about Massachusetts Republicans? – The Boston Globe
It’s surprising Kasich isn’t doing better there, but its also clear he is cold toast. Rubio really fits the Mass R frame, Cruz is very much a nope. But the NE has a lot of very rough brash talking nativist peeps so it shouldn’t be a complete surprise.Report
“nativist” is a nonsense term.Report
Just saying that doesn’t actually make it so.Report
Come up with a definition that would (1) define a distinct notion and (2) apply to any contemporary controversy without making a grotesque caricature of the opposition.Report
I don’t need to come up with a definition: it already exists.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nativism_(politics)Report
Rubio really fits the Mass R frame,
3d rate lawyer who has never run anything and who talks out of both sides of his mouth ‘fits the Mass R frame’? You said that, not me.Report
oops…meant to say Rubio doesn’t really fit either, but i’m sure you would have made the same comment regardless.Report
You say the opposite of what you mean, and you fancy that if you’d said what you mean, I’d answer with a non sequitur. That’s good, sound thinking.Report
“No True Moderate Republican”Report
Trump is the most moderate Republican in the field, hands down. He came out against the Iraq War early and doubled down two debates ago. During that same debate he praised planned parenthood.
The other Republicans fall over themselves to represent their own (social) conservatism. That kind of nonsense doesn’t play well in Massachusetts.Report
Chris and Greg have it right. The Northeast likes brashness. People thought that Trump’s New Yawkerness would damn him. Turns out the Northeast is dominating this election. Trump in his own ways is moderate despite the tone. He doesn’t talk about privatizing Social Security or Medicare.Report
Sure, he wants to bar Muslims from the country and get Mexico to pay for a giant wall along the southern border, but he’s not advocating anything crazy, like letting people take the money they earned and save it for retirement.Report
For the record, I used the word “moderate”. I wasn’t talking about kindness or sanity. Trump support in Massachusetts makes sense because even the most extreme conservatives live in a state that is more or less a bastion of democratic socialism. Massachusetts has had universal health insurance coverage 4 years. It was the first state to legalize gay marriage. Those sorts of cultural beliefs are set. Any Republican candidate who’s going to stake his campaign on opposition to gay marriage or universal health insurance coverage is not going to win Massachusetts. On the other hand, Republican voters know the government gets in the way of successful businesses. This, first and foremost is what motivates their selection of candidates.
Furthetmore, It may appear at first glance that something like baring Muslims from the country wouldn’t fly in state like Massachusetts. However, Massachusetts is a self-righteous State, and its solutions to problems historically have tended to be Swift, decisive, and authoritarian, with little regard for collateral damage. For instance, Massachusetts once decided to violently antagonize the British, and this ultimately led to the American Revolution. This tendency is also responsible for the way the Irish took over the city of politically. The fact that Massachusetts is better than all of your States in pretty much every metric is also due to a tendency to strong, pragmatic solutions that have little regard for whiners, people’s feelings, and anyone else. Massachusetts wins. Trump wins, like the Patriots. There’s no hesitation, there’s no weakness, there’s no vacillation, there’s no asking for permission. This is what a leader should be. You could, for instance , as a thought experiment, imagine who Bill the Butcher from Gangs of New York would support for President, and your answer would be Donald Trump.
To illustrate this further, because it is a subtle point, when I ask my friends back home who they’re planning on voting for, I get answers such as: 1. Write-in illegal Obama 3rd term; 2. Bernie; 3. Trump; 4. I hate them all; 5. Vermin Supreme; … ; n. H-bomb. They hate that her wishy-washy values and methods are the antithesis to what is valued in Massachusetts. This is also why Kerry had lukewarm support his own state).
And as for the Mexican wall, that’s pretty far down the list of problems for northeastern voters. But if it works, why not? You won’t catch any Massachusetts conservatives feeling bad for cheaters.
Ted Cruz is the last person in the world that Massachusetts Republican voters would vote for. I imagine that if he went to Massachusetts he would get his ass kicked swiftly by drunken Red Sox hooligans.
Some of my analysis here is generalizable to the northeast as a region, but some of it is unique to Massachusetts. New Hampshire as a state share similar values with Massachusetts conservatives. New Hampshire has no state tax, and its state motto is live free or die.
Here, I definitely want to put a disclaimer that these are not my personal beliefs. But, I mean, of course the Northeast supports Trump.Report
It was the first state to legalize gay marriage.
With a judicial ass-pull, pretty much the same way it was ‘legalized’ just about everywhere else.Report
I rest my case.Report
Why not try stating it first?Report
I don’t need to convince anyone. I just do what I want. That’s the whole point.Report
Massachusetts is a self-righteous State, and its solutions to problems historically have tended to be Swift, decisive, and authoritarian, with little regard for collateral damage. For instance, Massachusetts once decided to violently antagonize the British, and this ultimately led to the American Revolution.
About 3/4 of Massachusettts’ population is derived from ethnic groups which were not there in appreciable numbers in the late 18th century.Report
About 99% of the south are descended from people who did not own slaves. Does that make the South any less racist and ignorant?Report
I haven’t noticed that Southerners are peculiarly ignorant. You could make the argument that white Southerners are more dismissive of or hostile to blacks than, say, people from Wisconsin (not people from Chicago). The argument that they’re less charitable across the board is dubious. People substitute one kind of hostility for another and fancy they’re better people for it. Only a fool falls for that.
That aside, it’s a pretty irrelevant point. Cross-cultural antagonisms in Mississippi are part of the here and now. Modes of political conflict in Boston in 1776 are not. You posit that there are abiding features of Massachusetts politics which derive from the colonial period and distinguish Massachusetts from any place else. I’m pointing out that about 3/4 of the population of Massachusetts has little colonial heritage. So, what’s the transmission belt?Report
You really don’t think that Massachusetts colonial heritage has played a role in the development of its culture as a state? That seems silly.Report
Bubble bubble toil and trouble.
Build an economy on bubbles, and what happens next?
Bubbles burst.Report
It was tragic the day it became illegal to save money for retirement…..Weep for the days we could have 401k’s.
Yeah i’m sure that is a rant about social security, but it does make more clear to me how Trump is winning.Report