Family Values: Greed, Blind Faith, Social Control, Intolerance, McMansion with Escalade in Driveway, Chemically Verdant Lawn...
28
No, it is not class that makes the difference. It is the amazing ability of some people to ignore reality and facts. A father who proclaims that he find his daughter so attractive that he wants to date her and tries to talk her into cosmetic surgery to meet his ideal of beauty when she is 15 comes perilously close to grooming his teenage daughter.
New York Times, I realize that this is an opinion piece. but this is a very poor one and does not reflect well on your publication.
58
Every day my decision to stop paying for this kind of rubbish is freshly justified.
6
This whole argument is a bit too contrived. Trump appeals to big business that think they can control him through donations to that famous inauguration fund. Trump and big business want to subvert public education because they want their workers not to think for themselves and they want to undermine family planning because they want their women barefoot ,pregnant, and subservient.
This fits nicely into some evangelical thinking.
Trump will viciously attack and belittle anyone he thinks will shake up his small and simplistic world. This whole thing runs on ignorance and fear.
But it needs to be countered with some real honest work to try to bring needed life back into nearly deserted towns in the heartland, and to revive dying economies.
11
Your friends in New York Knew the man for all his business failures, broken promises and deals and self promoting behavior. They knew him as a boastful, philandering liar.
The Nebraska people knew him from his television show where he was portrayed as the nations most succesful businessman.
It had little to do with red/blue moral values or forgiveness
33
This column is an outlandish stretch of even the silliest kind of pseudo-social analysis.
Trump is not a decent man with a flawed personal life. He is an indecent man, utterly self-serving, with a vile gift for drawing from parts of the electorate their most tenacious tribal fears.
I know people from Nebraska and they are as savvy about hypocrisy as people anywhere else, and they would roll their eyes at the parsing and color-coding of their values.
Those who voted for Trump heard the dog whistles -- it was not the color of their values that mattered. It was the color of their skin.
44
Is this satire? That's the ONLY possible explanation.
38
Mr. Schmitz, were you unaware that Donald Trump had no part in parenting his children? That he divorced their mothers and did not make acquaintance with his offspring until they were college age? Or that his sons would not even speak to him for many years?
A "good father" he is not and never has been. Good fathers do not muse about "dating" their daughters.
59
If Barack Obama had done even a small portion of the documented things DJT has done, he would never have been president. His family values (one wife he's still married to, children with only that wife, a loving family bond, etc.), were never enough for the evangelical community. And we know why; he wasn't white. For me, this debunks the red, blue, and purple families thesis. Furthermore, as an African-American woman who has been married for 40 years with three adult children, I resent the generalization of "unstable relationships" within the black and Hispanic communities. Unstable relationships exist across all cultures and races.
100
He's a good father who's close to his children? Excuse me. Are these folks kidding?
The only one he shows any interest in is Ivanka, and the interest he shows is unnatural and unsettling. If she were less pretty or less willing to tolerate her father's making lewd comments about her in public, in her presence, he would have no use for her.
He has little apparent use for Eric or Don Jr., who desperately vie for his attention. According to Ivana's book, Trump was reluctant to have their first son named after him, in case the boy turned out to "be a loser".
He did not see the three oldest much while he was married to Marla Maples and appears to spend no time with Tiffany now. When she was an infant, he told a reporter that he hoped she got her mother's boobs. He spent no time with his youngest son during the first six months of the presidency, while Melania and the boy remained in New York. I have not seen one official photograph of him with Barron in the 18 months of his administration. There were constant pictures of Obama, Clinton, both Bushes, and Carter with their children when they were in the White House. Same for JFK and LBJ. Heck, even tricky Dick was frequently seen in the company of his daughters. Not so for Trump.
The only part of fatherhood that has ever interested him is the impregnation part. And, of course, staring at his daughters' boobs.
29
The author's premise seems to be: People who grew up in purple-value families, or currently are in one, supported Trump because he seemed like one of them. In other words....
- He went through three spouses, so he's just like me. (But never mind that he's rich, and I'm not.)
- He cheated on his spouses, so he's just like me. (But never mind that he went to an elitist Ivy-League college, but I started working right after high school.)
- He was a distant father, just like my family. (But never mind that he's from NY, a socialist Blue state.)
- His wives did their duty, and silently put up with his faults, just like my family. (But never mind that he earns more through just tax write-offs and loopholes than I do by actually working my job.)
- In fact, he's just like my Prosperity Gospel preacher that I've been giving 15% of my income to to invest for me. (But never mind that they've both declare bankruptcy numerous times, to shake off their debt.)
OK, now it all makes sense to me....
21
The commonality is simple.
Prosperity preachers are con-men.
Trump is a con-man.
52
What a profound waste of space. Why not write a 3-page vanity profile of Kanye West, who proclaimed that slavery was a choice. Oh wait! You already did that.
20
It also helps when your family values come with white supremacy and xenophobia
Let's stop dancing around the real appeal
45
"Even those from red families were more likely than my acquaintances in New York to know someone who has had a child out of wedlock or is subject to a restraining order."
Huh?
Red states, and thus, one would presume, red families, are statistically far more dysfunctional than blue. Is this news to you, Mr Schmitz?
If you are really a student of these issues, that should have been one of the first thing you learned.
16
I am mystified by what values Trump has that qualify him as a family man in anyones eyes. Yes, he has lots of families, but there is no evidence of being a good father. There is plrnty to say he's not, no matter if you are a red, blue or purple family. Character matters a lot, he' a srial liar, cheats on wives and in business, has contempt for moral and institutional codes. And then there is the blatant racism, misogyny, and narcissim. As for his adult relationship with his children? It seems more like predators feasting on daddy's kill. No, your people in Nebraska are blind to the vacuum where his family values and integrity should be. They vote for him because he's mean and crass. They are the townies in Shirley Jacksons The Lottery.
32
The author clearly knows nothing about Donald Trump. Everything in the Trump clan is transactional and therefore negotiable. The only common thread is the single-minded goal of extracting profit from everything they do, and having no regard for who gets hurt in the process. They have no moral center. Trying to compare the Trumps to any other family structure ignores that singular fact.
25
I assumed I would be reading satire when I clicked the headline. Good grief.
13
A provocative essay, but the conclusions are wrong.
People who vote for Trump realize that politicians have been lying since 1986, when we passed the last Immigration Reform Act, which was supposed to end illegal immigration.
Many of us have been waiting for a rational discussion of immigration and population growth. But such a discussion is shut off before it even starts with cries of racism from the left.
Some of us just don't believe that concern over population growth is the same as racism.
Since 1986, the US population has grown by 86 million or 36%.
You can see the results in the congestion of LA, in the fact that California has run out of water. You can see condos sprouting like mushrooms in the desert.
Some see their own quality of life going down. Many are dying because they cannot afford cancer screenings.
And liberals seem to be saying, you, the American poor, are worthless. We want to give away your birthright to an unending stream of illegal immigrants.
Around the world you can see the results pf growth.
China adopted a one-child policy and its GDP will soon surpass that of the US. India did not, and the poverty in India is bone-crushing.
Travel to Delhi and you can see for yourself. Or read Behind the Beautiful Forevers, by Katherine Boo, to learn about life in the Mumbai slums.
Liberals are dooming poor Americans to that kind of future, a life that is brutal and short, by refusing to EVEN DISCUSS the limits on resources that the US confronts.
5
Thank you, Mr Wagner for your perfectly worded letter that explains the rise of Trump.
People support him, because they have no idea what is going on, or why the world looks the way it does. It is the result of woeful education.
I really do not think you have extended yourself to understand any of the issues you are discussing. Immigrants are not using up your resources or exhausting your water supply.
I think with a little digging you will discover that "liberals" are the only ones willing to grapple with the difficult environmental problems waiting in our collective future. Conservatives, on the other hand, and especially Trump's administration, are hell bent on maintaining our dependence on the environmentally destructive fossil fuel resources that they control.
Your observations regarding China and India could hardly be more simplistic or misguided.
I suggest you read more.
31
Interseting in that Democrats are the one supporting family planning, contraception, choice and pritecting our environment. All things Republicans are against. Democrats are not against limiting immigration but deporting people who have lives here for decades and separating children from their parents. Our current birth rate is now at 1.8 below the replacement of 2.1.
25
our problem is by no means a lack of resources problem, it's a distribution problem.
CA running out of water is an environmental and engineering problem exacerbated by climate change and poor distribution of water rights.
you don't think liberals care about Americans? which party advocates for unions, public schools, cheaper college tuition and expanded medicare? who advocates for residents of flint and Puerto Rico? who is pushing for a higher minimum wage in an era where wage stagnation has reduced the buying power of the working class while the rich are raking in a greater shares of our economy than ever before?
meanwhile, the right is trying to eviscerate SNAP when when 1 in 6 children live in poverty, gut healthcare while opioids devastate rural communities and suck funds out of public programs that provide support to working families. which party tried to eliminate a tax credit for teachers who buy their own classroom supplies? and which side says nothing when children and innocent civilians are summarily executed by the state while holding toys and cellphones? so you have an issue with immigration--would you like to say something about Spanish-speaking citizens and residents who are targeted by police, ICE and, more recently, random people who decide they can harrass anyone they please?
gop is not for working people. that's a lie they are, to their credit, excellent at selling.
22
"About 35 percent of Episcopalians and 25 percent of Presbyterians have a family income above $100,000. Only 16 percent of Southern Baptists and 10 percent of the pentecostal Assemblies of God can say the same. An Episcopalian is more likely to have an advanced degree than a Southern Baptist is to have a college diploma."
In other words, nowadays there are "elitist" religions that should be disregarded, and other, "real" religions that should be given preferential treatment?
9
Perhaps the only thing more unrelenting and exhausting than Trump himself is the Times' near daily insistence on publishing accounts of why the MAGAs think like they think.
23
Hopefully all of those Women for Trump won’t mind losing access to birth control for themselves and their daughters. Hopefully they won’t mind when their sons have their paychecks garnished for not wearing a condom.
You really do get what you vote for. You got your big mouthed, racist hater and you may get your wall. You will also get higher prices for everything, less regulation(safe guards/protections) more pollution, higher interest rates, higher fees, higher health costs, we could go on and on. How do you like him now? And those poor people on the border? They are going to keep coming and ice will let them in because Trump donors are employers and they like their cheap labor..because while Trump harasses the people he does not harass the companies that hire the undocumented or house the undocumented or those that sell services to the undocumented.
25
You’re joking, right?
7
Deplorable people, deplorable values. Scum.
10
A new low for the NYTimes, utter nonsense.
16
NYT reporters, editors and journalists stop normalizing Trump, his regime and supporters. He has no morals and neither does his regime or supporters. One of my in-laws is a brain washed Fox soaked supporter. She has no morals just selfishness and narcissistic illness like him. We have a president whose interest is to only make life better for him. He keeps his racist non moral base by throwing them a bone every now and then. As long As he appears to be hurting people that do not look like them or Dems they are happy. You will lose my subscription if you keep trying to normalize a narcissist monster.
21
Trump doesn't know the meaning of "family values". Monitory worth, profit, cash value is all he knows and cares about. He has cheated on his three spouses, tells Ivanka she needs a boob job. He values money, sex, white supremacy, and that lunatic wall.
13
“People familiar with the purple family model tend to view his alienation from his children’s mother as normal and his closeness to his children as exceptional and admirable.“
He wants to have sex with his daughter, he’s raped & beaten his wives, he hates his sons and didn’t want Jr to be named after him, he has literally abandoned his 2nd daughter and I don’t think he really knows he has a 3rd son and he’s had affairs with prostitution and porn stars shortly after the birth of 3rd son. If that is what constitutes family values to these people, keep me the hell away from them and their so called Christian bible. I would know more want to have anything to do with those “values” than I would with Nazis or fascists or dictatorships. Obama’s has an exemplary family life but those morons only saw his black skin. They have yelled and warned about the coming of the antichrist and when he shows, what do they do but vote for him!
24
The Russians apparently didn't think family values were the key point in the 2016 election. A BBC story last week described the analysis of over 10,000 Russian social media posts. Only about 10% mentioned a candidate or a party. The vast majority of the remaining 90% were racial in nature. They appealed to those who see the traditional white America being replaced and trying to hold on tightly. As Charles Blow so succinctly pointed out last week, even as their numbers diminish, their control of the Court will have things as they like for at least another generation.
Think of how the Native Americans felt about the 'paling' of their land beginning 400 years ago. They certainly got a far worse deal than anything the right wing will have to deal with.
7
Stop. Just stop.
Every single solitary word of this article screams white privilege. Don’t believe me? Try swapping Trump for Obama and see how absurd its premises sound. This simply illustrates the ability of pundits to accept without judgement and to normalize anything an old rich white guy does, without the least hint of introspection or empathy or realization of the damage that kind of thing has done over the centuries.
Please stop.
24
I say it.
I have no intention of finding "common ground" with people who think intellectual is a slur, who disguise their bigotry as a religion, thus a "family value" and whose political agenda is really just a way to express their hate.
No intention at all. In fact n0t only do I not find their viewpoint tolerable, I think it has no place in this country.
Trump is trying to destroy American to enrich hsi family of grifters.
28
I am working class, I am not trump, I am not a trump follower.
13
A very interesting, intriguing piece. It should spark some, urgently needed, research.
Yet, yet, yet... one must not forget that Trumpies have so heavily invested psychological energy, so much identified with him, that they will, as he boasts, forgive him everything.
But the reason why they identified with him may have something to do with this interesting concept of the Purple families...
6
This is why we are in so much trouble: the tragic rationalization of a man who anyone with an iota of brains, taste or values that are based on more than religious hypocrisy would, in a country with any discrimination, simply ignore.
My friend Thomas here in Germany, where I am currently travelling, pointed out that RUMP has a “catalog wife,” not a “trophy wife.” The former is one you just pick out of a catalog and, basically, BUY. Her “I DONT CARE DO U?” coat is ample proof of what a peasant she (and he) is.
Maybe I’m NOT coming home; after reading this frightening piece, I’m completely disgusted at those with whom I share citizenship.
19
Evangelicals and other so-called religious types support Trump because he promised that, if elected, Roe v Wade would overturned. Simple as that. Of course, for good measure, he's a racist, which appeals to whites who believe people of color are taking over.
11
this is offensive and ignorant to its core, and ignores the hate and misogyny and corruption the trump administration generates every day
also, the only people interviewed seem to be white people -- not a word about the racism the trump administration depends on and incites
14
I don’t care what color you choose to explain why people suport tRump, what this article really does is reinforce the hypocrisy of the Republicans and their so-called family values.
15
Poppycock.
Those people in Nebraska were not nearly so forgiving of Bill Clinton for doing some of the exact same things they accept in Trump.
26
How much does anybody really know about what the Trump family relationships are? If you don't see someones private life you're only able to assume (guess) what really happens between parents and children or spouses. No paparazzi get near the first family.
Think of all the seemingly happy and loving marriages of politicians, religious leaders and "celebrities"; the smiling families standing alongside for photo ops. Then it turns out father is a wife or child beater or a pederast. You never know until the spouse speaks out (and wants a divorce) or a victim of molestation comes forward or someone gets caught in the act. You really don't!
2
"let’s call it purple. In these families, bonds between mothers and children are prized above those between couples. Unstable relationships are the norm, and fathers quickly end up out of the picture"... Matthew Schmitz, WOW... The justification of Drumpf love,with a smattering of bigotry! Good Christians, and indeed all families have problems, but it's good you fixed everything by labeling people by colors. What color are the ones who lock immigrant kids up?
11
The author of this editorial is grossly mistaken in his assumption that anyone who finds Trump's behavior must be an 'elitiist'. I am middle class, from the Midwest, with no college education and I think Trump is devoid of any family values.
This entire editorial is a misdirected attempt to deflect from the fact that Trump's supporters understand he is devoid of family values. They simply overlook his immorality because he feeds into their deep sense of resentment.
It's sad that the NYT editors feel a need to publish this stupidity in the name of balance.
16
Love the twisted logic. Only a conservative at First Things or Fox could do this. Impressive feat.
7
Then: The great silent majority.
Now: Purple.
Both: Nonsense.
Hungry, angry, lonely, tired? Yes. Susceptible to inflammatory rhetoric from thuggish demigogues? Yes.
But only temporarily.
5
This is satire, correct?
13
I don’t know why you have to a self-avowed “Christian” of some flavour in order to think Trump’s family values are admirable, but apparently you do. Or a political grifter. To millions of others who don’t share his questionable values, he’s pretty much a self-centred pig. Nothing to do with family.
12
Hmm..."elite Evangelical institution." I don't believe I've ever encountered this phrase before, and I don't expect I will again...
Note to the editors: Many of us are wondering why you felt the need to publish this article. Was you aim to provide a better understanding of the less than 30% of Americans who support Trump?
14
meant to write "your aim"
I agree with this article as I do believe the defining issue in politics these days is class. I think America can very easily be divided by class and politics, where the more traditional and moderate of both left and right generally would be found on the top half of the class and income scale, and the far left and far right more strongly represented by the bottom.
Raising the issue of class puts the anger of far populous movements in a different light, as then they seem more about class spite, resentment, and covetousness than any real politic point or issue. They wanted to lock Hillary up because she represented the elite class: educated, liberated and involved in public life, not because of her emails. Its disturbing this is rarely addressed.
7
Another element besides racism, etc, is that Trump is undeniably entertaining. The last 20 years of television has celebrated the powerful, moneyed anti-hero in Tony Soprano, Walter White, Don Draper, Frank Underwood, etc. We loved to hate them (and apparently loved to love them) because they were flawed leaders who broke the rules--a fantasy many must have. What made them interesting was clearly seeing their moral failings in the face of power/money, and how those failings would inevitably lead to their downfalls. I never thought people were looking to them as models for who should actually run our country.
8
Voters with purple values —“working-class whites, blacks and Hispanics"—contrary to what this article might lead you to think, vote for both Democrats and Republicans. (The division falls largely along racial and ethnic lines). In this sense, the term “purple” is apt, as these families represent a mix between blue and red voters. Yet, bizarrely, the article decides to focus solely on the Republican side of the picture, which I think is emblematic of how this article misses the mark as a whole.
Think about where using the word purple falls short. Purple values are not an intermediate of blue and red ones, but rather an entirely separate model of family. The characteristics the article cites as typical of a purple family (emphasis on maternal relations, unstable relationships) are totally absent in red and blue ones—nor do they align with either party. They instead represent another crucial aspect of the disconnect between elite and working-class America, a divide that is related to but distinctly separate from party politics.
In the end, purple values are just another way the white working-class rationalizes their support for Trump despite his sexist remarks—elite Republicans have justifications of their own. At the beginning of the article, Schmitz sets up a juxtaposition between Republicans in New York and Nebraska prior to the election as if they ultimately took different actions. But it would be wise to remember that in the end, they both voted for Trump all the same.
3
Divorces, infidelities, children by multiple partners: so what? These things happen to all kinds of people, all kinds of politicians. What sets Trump apart is his unapologetic cruelty. I am committed to listening to and trying to understand my fellow citizens but I’m not going to rationalize cruelty, and I’m tired of takes that don’t mention it. From everything we know, Trump mostly ignored his children until they were adults, and in some cases was cruel to them. Please don’t imply that’s what most Americans are about. I’m not buying it. PS I’m taking back the color purple, too.
8
This piece of analysis misses the mark on so many levels, I'm not sure I will be able to pull them all together.
1. You didn't even mention the probable main commonality amongst Trump supporters: racism/xenophobia. Just as Reagan played these folks in 1980 by announcing his candidacy at the fairgrounds near Philadelphia, Mississippi, where 3 civil rights workers had been murdered in 1964. Reagan's speech was in support of "state's rights"--southern code for anti-black action. Trump repeatedly indicated he saw no problem with racist groups and even advocated violence against immigrants.
2. Trump LOST the popular vote. Years of Republican gerrymandering and election rigging (dumping names, especially those in heavily Democratic districts, from voter roles), shortening of voting hours and days polls were open which hampered people with multiple jobs from voting, and the proliferation over decades of right-wing radio and television (which occurred because Reagan dropped the Fairness Doctrine) all came together in the perfect storm to elect a racist, xenophobic, misogynistic demagogue to the highest office in the land, despite the fact that the majority of voters voted AGAINST him. The Republicans have been playing the long game to achieve this.
3. What you're describing as cultural acceptance of Trump's hatred and disdain toward women and his dysfunctional relationship with his children, I see as the unbridled hypocrisy.
14
Trump controls the family purse strings. If it were not for the money he inherited, his appeal to the women who married him, their children and gullible voters would be less than zero.
9
I'm curious if the Nebraska cohort ever mentioned the sexualized attraction of Trump for his elder daughter or his attraction to Melania based upon her getting back into shape after her pregnancy. Do his remarks about her body and about what they have in common in sex bother ANY of them? I think the antipathy toward Hillary can be explained partly by the disdain some of these female voters have for professional women like her.
9
Statistics may support the assertions of this column, but it seems too facile.
Most spouses, regardless of political bent, expect fidelity. Many blue collar families expect both parents to work because they need the money to make ends meet or to live a (near) middle class life.
Religious or not, most people don't like the insults Mr. Trump throws at those who are different from him.
The real difference seems to be related to what people are willing to overlook. The "yes, but..." approach. At least that is my finding among my neighbors who are far more conservative than I am.
One says he'll "never vote for a Democrat." His wife says that "women oughta know better than to bring babies to the border with them," regardless of why they are trying to come to America.
These are not bad people; by many standards they are wonderful neighbors. However, they are uneducated and watch only Fox News. Therein lies the rub.
5
"Baffling as it may be to elites, Mr. Trump embodies a real if imperfect model of family values. People familiar with the purple family model tend to view his alienation from his children’s mother as normal and his closeness to his children as exceptional and admirable."
Nice try, Mr. Schmitz. I can understand your desire, like Trump, to pit working class people who have been screwed against "elites," but it won't work. It seems to me all you have done is to insult the morals of working class people, your family included apparently.
Does a "real if imperfect model of family values" include serial groping, serial affairs, sleeping with a porn star when your wife has just given birth? Is this how your family and friends in Nebraska behave?
And is it "elitist" (read, "egghead," "out of touch," "holier than thou") to be repulsed by Trump's history of mistreatment of women?
I'd wager that only an infinitesimal percentage of Americans are on board with Trump's family values (an oxymoron). The 40+% who support him do so for other reasons (e.g., racism, ignorance, displaced rage, etc.) and overlook behavior that only a sociopath would admire.
13
I'm sure blue-collar Nebraskans and other people who are from similar backgrounds as the author are just as repulsed by Trump's behaviour towards women as so-called "elites." It's just that they are overlooking such flaws (don't ask me why they are. I'm not from that kind of a background) due to his promises/proposals to bring prosperity back to their lives.
5
There is another explanation for why this author doesn't know Trump supporters in New York - almost everyone who has lived there knows someone who has had a personal, negative experience with DJT. He's been in the papers for decades. They know who he is and despise him.
10
Why does the Times insist on wasting column inches on a never ending series of articles on why Trump voters still support him? I am sure these people have voted for Republican candidates regardless of their personal faults for most of their lives. They are Republicans. That's why they vote for Republicans. It's not really that complicated. I voted for Bill Clinton in 1996 in spite of his personal behavior because I am a Democrat and believed he would be a better president than Bob Doles who might have been a "better" person.
Mr. Schmitz does engage in some world class false eqivalency when he compares a Catholic priest who considers a parishoner's use of contraception a matter of conscience to an Evangelical minister who characterizes Trumps relationship with Stormy Daniel's as a Mulligan.
Also the next time you want to present someone to lecture elites on how out of touch they are with "real Americans" try to find someone who didn't go to an Ivy League College. These articles got old months ago. There are many more important things for you to publish. Stop being lazy and go find them.
7
I don't understand how being a boor who lacks respect for women and cheated on each of his first two wives with the subsequent wife is seen as a positive by the 'purple' voters--are purple voters so enamored with "dysfunctional" lifestyles that betraying his wives and being disrespectful towards women, generally, are okay?
It's not that I think the author has everything wrong, I just don't think purple voters' comfort with dysfunctional relationships excuses their lack of concern about Trump's race-baiting, lies, dangerous volatility and ignorance.
6
They're overlooking his boorishness, just like a Catholic priest might overlook his parishioners' use of birth control (as noted in the article). They support him because they believe that his changes and policies would help them become successful once again.
3
Mr. Schmitz, You said it yourself, right up front. Your friends in Nebraska "glossed over" what they knew to be the truth.
I was going to say that Mr. Trump is the hypocrite...not his supporters...but this point, their willingness to "gloss over"...well, it begs the question that you, and they, should be asking is, "why are they willing to ignore truth?"
When you talk to Trump supporters they all say that they want someone who will tell it like it is...doesn't sound like it to me. In fact, to me, it sounds like what they really want is a leader who will STOP telling them the truth, someone who take care of business and not bother them with reality. Their fantasy rallies and fantasy "news" are yet more example of their desire to live as perpetual children.
8
This is not simply wrongheaded. It is dangerous, and a familiar sign on the road to authoritarianism.
Trump’s repulsive behavior — which during any previous administration would have justifiably earned public disgust — should now be seen as just another normal.
Hogwash!
11
Jeez, NYT op-ed staff. What is it with you guys, lately? I'm concerned about this notion of "values" as being equivalent to morally correct. Our country used to value slave-holding as a "value", and yet today it's as abhorrent a notion as child brides. Our country used to "value" the idea that a college education was only meant for men, because why on earth would a woman need one if the only thing in store for her future was that of baby-making and helpmeet?
Please, please, please, let's not go backwards and hold up regressive "values" as perfectly legitimate. They aren't. They never were. Equality is a basic tenet of American life, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, or race. Shoring up the patriarchy is not the job of the NY Times. But if that's the new mission, perhaps I need to reconsider my subscription.
4
It is not difficult to understand Trump supporters. White supremacists support other white supremacists. You really don't have to look any further than that.
11
Mr Schmitz: This is an excellent article. You open new categories of people who may not be on "our" (the NY Times' readership's) radar. The "purple family" numbers are mushy and there are probably a lot of "leanings" as opposed to "difference-makers", but it's another element in understanding how these folks can support Trump and his congress when it's often to their economic detriment. Some questions are begged: What do elite single mothers think? How do purple values jibe with declining populations? Or are the populations in decline like the Catholic users of contraception? Many questions!
3
My personal experience tells me this is correct.
I am an atheist/agnostic with an advanced degree that grew up in the Lutheran church/establishment protestant tradition. I am still unable to understand how anyone of any Christian-based tradition could trust or admire Trump on any level, including family values, business or personal philosophy. I see nothing to cling to in his willingness to change his views, cheat his business associates and wives, or flit from one conviction to the next at a drop of the hat. I don't understand, and never will, how someone could vote for a man who seems to stand for nothing at the end of the day.
The rest of my family is either evangelical, or adjacent to that tradition, and are desperately trying to hold their families and financial lives together. Their reasons for voting for Trump included their feelings about Benghazi, and..I quote, "Trump's wonderful relationship with his family."
To me, it doesn't seem that hard to NOT cheat on your wives. It doesn't seem difficult to form and stick to your principles. It seems like a given that one will live up to their financial and moral commitments if at all possible. But maybe I shouldn't be so rigid. Maybe a little understanding about ho difficult it could be to live up to high standards is what Trump supporters find refreshing.
It's going to take me a long time to be OK with that. It may never happen. And I think that's a problem all of America will have to reconcile at some point.
5
I am also an agnostic with an advanced degree—this is not my personal experience at all. Maybe it’s evangelicals getting fed pabulum at church, but my Trump voting family, mostly Catholic, some Lutheran, couldn’t care less about Benghazi and they knew full well Trump’s family life is messy and should not serve as a role model for anyone. They shrugged it all off because they all just hate liberals and believe too many people are getting handouts from the government. Too many of those darker skinned people. I’m saddened to find that evangelicals are so prone to self-delusion. At least Catholics hate with their eyes wide open.
5
Other posters have hit the nail on the head with Trump supporters and the "purple' families. The problem is they don't judge Trump for his many questionable actions where women are concerned, and see in him a reflection of their lives but they judge everyone else for many of the same things. These same people are quick to judge blacks for the rate of out of wedlock births, they will categorize minorities as "welfare queens living off the government" (kind of ironic given the red state giveaway that Trump has only made worse with the current tax law disaster he and the GOP put through). They see the problems with others and attribute it to 'lack of character', while blaming their fate on 'others', the liberals/elites/well educated who 'look down on them and their culture/values'. The irony of course is that Trump and the GOP look at the purple families as schnooks they can manipulate into believing they are 'one of them'. History has a strong parallel, the planter class of the antebellum south convinced the white yeomanry, despite the fact that the south was an aristocracy of startling inequality, that they, the ordinary guys, were 'one and the same with them' (they often claimed that southern whites were the descendants of Norman French, while the north were anglo-saxon brutes), so the white everyman fought for the people who basically treated them like dirt, fought for the very system that kept them poor.
5
I reject this hypothesis.
First Things has an almost monomaniacal goal to undo Roe v Wade. Trump voters are white and many many many are incredibly wealthy and well educated. Their commonality is self-enrichment.
There are many throughout the country. Workers and less well off who see clearly that an administration willing to put babies, children and families into internment camps is nothing close to resembling ‘family values’
Entire reject Mr. Schmitz premise and deeply flawed logic.
1
Curious as to the writer's position on Bill Clinton. The only difference between the former president and current president is that Trump does this with a direct, in your face denial, Clinton was more subtle but still played the denying act and ended up being shown to have done it. Did the writer have the same issues with former president Clinton? Should have. Or is it explained off because he came off as a likeable person with high popularity for his charisma? Just keep in mind the acts are the same except that former president Clinton did some of his right in the White House. At least Trump has yet to do that.
Huh? I've known market segmentation in business, but this flawed analysis takes the cake!
How many of Trump's voters even know that European leaders don't have children? Reading Schmitz' description of those he claims are in a category aligned with Trump should remind us of how apt Hilary's label "despicables" really was.
There are many persuasive explanations, but this is not one of them.
5
I am a 68-year-old gay white male from San Francisco and I voted for Trump. Imagine that. I am a college graduate and I voted for Trump. Imagine that. My parents had five children and remained married their entire life and were considered to be among the working poor. We were never considered to be lower class. I resent the implication of the writer that poor people are lower class - the audacity.
So I reject the notion that everyone who likes Trump must be an absolute looney case. I may be in the minority here in California but I am not lonely here either. So save your judgements to yourself.
2
I am done being told that I need to understand hateful people because they are uneducated & have financial problems. Instead of understanding their motives, they need to understand why their behavior is unacceptable.
8
To the author: try again with a bigger shovel. It won't make the argument less specious, but it might be more entertaining.
1
Nice that you think there's a "more nuanced" view of sexism.
However, I'm very sick of this stuff about "elites" being the cones against him while the average joe, with a tougher life, is OK with him.
The average income of Trump voters is higher than mine in recent years. And given that I have never seen a single article or photo showing him engaged with Barron in any activity or conversation, and that he admits having little to do with his kids while they were growing up, I very much doubt that "good father" is a quality anyone seriously associates with him.
No, they're just giving him another pass on this, along with his ignorance, dishonesty, crudeness, and shady history.
Remind me why this is again?
5
What a stretch of an imagination! Clearly Mr. Schmitz has endeavored to create a fictional family. As a Hispanic, I can tell you that even in "unstable" relationships no Hispanic family upholds infidelity, racism, sexual assault as values to aspire to.
2
Support for Mr. Trump comes down to three things, typically, of course not always.
1. Low level of education
2. High level of racism, not necessarily overt
3. Rage at not being able to support a family like they used to, or think they should be able to (fill in blank why)
Sure, they are purple with rage, gotcha!
14
Two out of three (and to an extent, three out of three) are directly class-related, in my opinion. Very few people who have less than a high school diploma are wealthy (save for actors and musicians).
My well to do neighbors will never admit to being racist but they like how Trump is limiting immigration even as they hire undocumented housekeepers and lawn-care and home improvement workers. They want cheap and they look the other way but then they applaud Trump. Short sighted, a little bit racist and cheap- that pretty much describes todays’s Trump voters.
6
Puzzled- Doesn't Matthew Schmitz know anything about RACISM as a factor in different attitudes about Trump. Trump's life styles doesn't resonate with Red State voters, but his racist attitudes apparently more than make up for this.
5
There's something more going on here than the article acknowledges, which is a reversion to the kind of naked racism, bigotry and misogyny that we haven't seen in quite awhile. There are no "values" in that equation, red, blue, purple or otherwise. Just hated and mob rule.
10
Even in 2018, it is rare to experience self-serving rationalizations this transparent (if admittedly creative), or hypocrisy this all-encompassing.
We so desperately need conservatives who claim to care about values and families *and actually do.*
11
Don't really think so. A cynical calculation and little more.
Being able to dunk on the 'libs' or get certain types of revenge for distorted views of political correctness and picking up a couple of SCOTUS seats along the way is worth sacrificing a lot. It's just never been this much before.
3
I am middle class. Please stop calling me elite. It is a divisive and inaccurate stereotype. Trump and his cronies are the elites.
Yes, I have a Ph.D. and make a six-figure salary. I am also a single mom, and after I pay taxes, out-of-pocket health insurance, and rent in a high-income area, I have very little left over. I am more privileged than many, but I work hard and am certainly not wealthy or well-connected. Working class and middle class people are all experiencing the asset transfer of wealth to the <1%, the true elites in this country.
21
To that point, the new definition of "low income" for a family of four in San Francisco is $117,000. Which means you have to make considerably more than that to stay solidly in the middle class. The government needs new definitions based on geography.
1
The author really means "blue-collar," I believe. It's not just about income, but culture and values as well. Of course, regionalism has a good deal to do with this too.
I might buy this exercise in twisted logic if anyone in the GOP actually had adopted Barbara Bush's expansive definition of family. I think the GOP practice in this area is to do so for themselves, while trying to impose their rigid "morality" on everyone else.
11
Mrs. Bush was broadly popular, and for a lot of reasons, no matter how people felt about her family's politics.
the crowd now in power offers no redeeming qualities except appeal to overwhelming selfishness and greed. no values to respect.
2
Proclaiming purple family values is like saying someone is really honest, but they lie whenever it is convenient.
16
Enough to with the white “economic anxiety” nonsense. Funny how poor minorities didn’t embrace trump and instead overwhelmingly voted for Hillary. Maybe they were immune to it somehow... or maybe it was the bigotry fueled trump’s ascent that put them off.
Besides, trump won whites of all classes and age ranges (including white women).
“Trump won whites making less than $50,000 by 20 points, whites making $50,000 to $99,999 by 28 points, and whites making $100,000 or more by 14 points. This shows that Trump assembled a broad white coalition that ran the gamut from Joe the Dishwasher to Joe the Plumber to Joe the Banker.”
- T. Coates
12
Exactly, and if that is not sufficient evidence, have a look at: Mutz, D.C. (2018) Status threat, not economic hardship, explains the 2016 presidential vote. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. April 23, 2018. 201718155; published ahead of print April 23, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1718155115
1
This article and most of the replies to it are equally fatuous.
Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders, and now Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are different manifestations of the same phenomenon: a grass roots popular rebellion against the political class of both parties.
Nobody in the Republican Establishment or donor class wanted Trump, but they could not stop him. This is partly because of dysfunction and intellectual decrepitude of the Republican Establishment, but mostly due to the simple fact that Trump spoke to the concerns of a disaffected and ignored constituency which responded with their votes.
Likewise, the Democratic Establishment and donor class did not want Sanders or Ocasio-Cortez, but both represent the same type of popular revolt by a disaffected constituency that Trump did. The Democratic Establishment was successful at beating back Sanders, but not Ocasio-Cortez or Trump.
The tortured, convoluted sophistry in this article is just that. The hypocritical, sanctimonious and contemptuous responses are indicative of the Establishment rot that led to the popular revolt that produced Sanders, Trump and now Ms. Ocasio-Cortez.
Donald Trump is rotten? So are the Republican and Democratic Establishments that indirectly caused his election.
5
But then again, there is a bankruptcy to Saunders and Cortez's positions too. Put not your faith in princes or princesses.
1
With all respect, I couldn't disagree more.
Trump and progressive Democratic candidates aren't comparable at all.
Yes, many people who normally vote GOP were fed up with the party. Why? Because they constantly lied, only served the wealthiest citizens, and don't achieve anything in DC. Trump had the guts to call them out on these things (as a candidate; as a president he does the exact same thing), and that, together with his racism, made them believe in politics again. So they voted.
There IS no equivalency with what happened on the left. Obama did NOT lie on a massive scale, and the Democrats under Obama achieved a LOT of what they promised to do.
And progressive candidates such as Sanders don't reject what Democrats do, they share the same ideals, they just want change to happen much faster. They never show, however, HOW Obama could have moved faster, concretely, with the Congress "we the people" gave them.
In other words, on the left a real debate is possible about how to move the country forward faster. On the right, however, NOBODY is trying to make the country move forward into the direction of what candidates campaign on. Everything is based on pure lies and massive corruption. Nothing is achieved, except for increasing the deficit and huge government handouts to the wealthiest donors - the very opposite of what Obama and the Democrats did.
Last difference: Trump voters don't abide in cynicism, as you're doing here. They vote ...
6
Exactly how high can the NY Times stable of pundits stack and contort their upside down fantasy narrative of hypocrisy in order to attack the political party that defeated them? The reality is that Trump is part of our 1% nobility whose fake 'liberal' and conservative members routinely use their wealth and power to do anything they want, act precisely like Trump has. And that glaring truth is what working class people are fully capable of figuring out.
4
amazing! for the first time, I agree with you.
Part of the difficulty I have with this analysis is that it tries, in a few hundred words, to describe family models that someone like George Lakoff has analyzed and described in great detail in numerous books. His family model of the "authoritative parent" describes Trump and his supporters much more accurately than the "purple family" described here. Men above women; whites above people of color; America above all other countries/cultures; rules are rules and punishment is swift, certain and severe; education as useful only for skills needed to earn a living; people dominant over (and able to exploit) nature for their benefit; and so on down the list. That said, all Trump followers don't completely conform to this list, but Trump, his sycophants in Congress and the autocrats he seems to favor over our traditional allies clearly do. Not a healthy sign for the future of our democracy.
11
IOW, Trump and his supporters and enablers want to return to the Middle Ages,only with reality TV.
1
Donald Trump has no values, family or otherwise.
All he cares about is his image and his money. It's all about HIM.
22
No one that would snatch children from their families at the border should be given credit for having any "family values" whatsoever. This article is out of date, since it discusses the lead up to the election. Now we have seen Trump's policies toward families in action and there is no doubt that they are inhumane and cruel. I don't know how anyone can rationalize supporting this monstrous behavior, but I suppose many will try.
10
The writer attempts to put lipstick on pig, methinks! Let's just gloss over that Trump is a callous, bullying, misanthrope. Evangelicals are OK with that? His behavior is similarly repugnant with regards to political actions, dismissive of allies, and toadying up to the worst autocrats in the world. He's racist, sexist, homophobic, et al....arrogant, beyond words. Educational levels, regardless of residency, informs the electorate, and he wasn't kidding when he said he "loves" the poorly educated, during the 2016 campaign. Now, he brings his megaphone directly to the same audiences, all the while cynically decrying less than sycophantic media, as the "enemy." He wouldn't exist were it not for the media.
9
In terms of family values, I am hoping you don’t mean to imply that Hillary’s were infinitely superior to President Trump’s. Voters were looking for a message in 2016 that resonated for them. Hillary had “the Deplorables” and Trump said “I will be your messenger to fix the mess we are in.” Not a tough choice.
2
"In terms of family values, I am hoping you don’t mean to imply that Hillary’s were infinitely superior to President Trump’s"....Oh good grief. Comparing Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump on family values is like comparing the Queen Mary with a row boat. Yes the queen Mary does have problems; its not perfect, and its out of date.....but it is not a row boat.
15
You could have more children than Genghis Khan, but no child should ever wonder later whether he or she was an “unwanted pregnancy.” However you arrived at planet earth was a good way to travel.
I haven't gotten through this whole article yet but have a problem with it from the start: the difference between NY and NE is that people in NY grew up with Trump. He was in our face, on page 6, or making himself known one way or another for the past 30+ years. NY'ers have history with him and his wives and affairs for much longer than Nebraskans do. It's no big mystery why NY'ers, both red and blue, don't like Trump. He's NOT a good businessman, he's not a good father, and he was never a good husband and we all knew that before Access Hollywood did and long before Nebraska did. Simple as that.
12
This is a kind of standard Republican defense of their base since 1994.
Do either groups, high or low income whites, understand black Americans? I would say pretty clearly, no. Yet discussions of black America will always, always involve someone pontificating about out of wedlock birth or the lack of fathers involved with their children.
Now it’s “elite” versus the common people? And, where they’re white, divorce or absent fathers are described as simply conditions we need to understand, as if its part the landscape and no life choices are involved.
I’ll be a lot more receptive to these arguments when Mr. Schmitz gives us as bloodless and clinical and nonjudgmental a view of black families as he does here of whites. Maybe he can do that at First Things or in his position as a Robert Novak fellow.
4
Interesting.
1. Trump won by losing the popular vote by 3 million voters. At least. Yet, he won states with large swaths of rural voters who showed up in 2016.
2. While the author suspects that people don't really care about his personal flaws - that he brags about grabbing women by the genitals and that he's not connected to his adult children's moms-- he offers up almost no evidence of this (other than his personal family experience from Nebraska).
3. Hillary was a weak candidate at the national level. We don't need to make wholesale changes simply because she didn't win Pennsylvania, Michigan or Wisconsin. We should still expect a decent person to occupy the Oval.
6
Just for the record, in Wisconsin, Romney in 2012 out polled Trump in 2016. Trump did not win because Republicans turned out. Trump won because Democrat voters stayed home or cleverly voted for a third candidate.
4
My first comment, which included verbatim what Mr. Trump said on the radio about his daughter, was not accepted. That in and of itself tells us what kind of father and man Trump is. In any case, all of the family value data cited here is largely irrelevant. Trump's voters were wealthier and thus less "working class" than Clinton's voters. His voters were motivated by racial resentment and the fear of losing their unmerited white entitlements. This is what every credible study has concluded.
11
Before Trump was elected, something like 25% of American evangelicals said you couldn't be a good president if your character was flawed by an immoral personal life ; however, since Trump's election 71% of evangelicals have now embraced the idea that personal and public ethics are not related.
11
The fact that someone is an Evangelical to begin with, strongly suggest they can be easily fooled by a con man.
10
.....Liberal professionals decried his sexism...
Really ? That is not all. What about economics ? In politics, in the immortal words of the Clinton campaign : It is the economy, stupid "
Some , yes, including Mr. Krugman, endorsed his economic plans
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/07/opinion/paul-krugman-trump-is-right-o...
Krugman praised Campaign Trump's "willingness to raise taxes on the rich, his positive words about universal health care."
We see how THOSE promises turned out.
7
Woof,
Now that Trump is in office, and Mr. Krugman sees what Trump is actually doing to the economy, he isn't endorsing his policies anymore:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/30/opinion/trumps-potemkin-economy.html
5
I think what is missing is a fundamental belief in the majority of the leadership archetypes found in the Bible. Start with Moses, for one; Murderer. David; Murder and infidelities. Solomon; multiple wives. The list goes on and on. Yet God uses them all. In fact, the great leaders of the Bible are always flawed people that most would not expect to be selected by God. Once you understand this - regardless of demonination, White or Black church - you can understand why Christians forgive and are tolerant of their leaders. This applies for Pres Clinton, Bush(s), Obama to Trump.
We can discuss the hypocrisy of the people ... but that is a different conversation
1
I don't see why this implausible and unsubstantiated explanation is necessary when other factors (working-class white resentment at loss of status, plain racism and misogyny, etc.) are so much more effective as explanations. And why no explanation of how these hypocritical Evangelicals, supposedly "real" Americans, accommodate themselves to Trump's treacherous Russophilia?
10
Democrats invented the single parent multiple children government dependent family.
2
Then why are most of the people on food stamps poor white Republicans?
4
Simply but, Trump supporters agree with his values, and these values go well beyond marital status and other family matters. The larger question is why do poor less educated people primarily constitute his greatest follower? The likely cause is desperation, and the need to feel that someone is looking out for them against all the external forces they fear make their lives miserable. Trump's slogan is put as "Make Americans (poor white people) Great Again."
5
Just because there is a sector of America that fits this 'purple' family value definition doesn't mean that that is the best model and that our leaders shouldn't aspire to something better.
Further, being divorced or having a child out of wedlock has zero to do with the type of denigration of women that Trump has engaged in. I know plenty of divorced men that don't go around bragging about grabbing women by the --, or putting their hands and tongues all over them.
This opinion piece is a poor attempt to explain away the problem that a cad was put in the White House.
3
I just wish that their nuanced "family values" had played a less aggressive part in the persecution of and haranguing like harpies our past Democratic presidents and administration officials. To think that Hilary Clinton was denied the presidency because of issues of "trust" nauseates me given the fact that the Electoral college essentially awarded the office to a man who effectively wishes eliminate the rule of law. A man with utterly no sense of decency. And his supporters have lowered our country's moral standards to the level of a banana republic. There is nothing normal about it.
14
Let's face it, we're not socially conscious liberal animals. We're basically animals who feel loyalty to tribe and clan. And historically, that which became known as "droit de seigneur" arose out of this and is embodied in a POTUS whose wealth and chutzpah constitute his manhood, but that's alright by most people and their ancient instincts.
2
This is one of the most insulting-to-the-intellect pieces I've read in the NYT in decades. If the Times is going to give equal time to conservative opinions; by-golly do not insult your readers: Even Bret Stephens has tightened up his game.
Very few writers have the skill to craft short- profound discourse; this is just an extremely thin piece of strung-together prattle that abruptly ends:
Were there other paragraphs that got lost? I do not recall Matthew Schmitz's writing in the NYT before; as a first effort- this is a bust.
10
Struggling Trump supporters who are low to moderate income will find his policies suffocating.
Health care gone. Harley Davidson motorcycle riders now labeled as treasonous by this president.
Exploding prices of common items due to tariffs. High gas prices. Higher food costs. Items no longer available.
That tax bill has been around long enough for people to know it was a scam that excluded ordinary people.
My opinion is Trump looks terribly unhealthy, winded and clearly overweight. Awful diet. Fast food. Diet cokes. No way can he put in a 2nd term.
Finally, he appeals to racists, from my observation in a city of 16,000 people where I get around a lot. And when I spend 4 months in South Carolina, it's clear he appeals to the racists there.
4
This is an important insight. The Brexit debate in Britain has the same root. Half the population can no longer make itself understood to the other half, and we need to figure out the problem and resume talking rather than condemn, patronize and shout at each other.
People like Trump are the product of this lack of communication. He is a symptom of some desperation on the part of the purple people. Listen and think. Allow for some self-criticism, hold back on the self-righteousness.
Democracy is not a top down phenomenon. We all need to engage. It is not something we can simply hand over to our elected officials to do for us.
2
This is a comedy piece, right? Orange is purple? Trump, wealth propped up by Russian billionaire thugs, is a single mom head of household, struggling to get by, with a suggestion of latent incest on the side? Or Mafia family where the Don only trusts his sons? Hires out the really dirty jobs outside the nuclear family to avoid jail? What family are we talking about? What values? What drivel.
12
If we're looking for an eximplar of "purple" family values, why not Bill Clinton? No rich daddy to pay his way, that's for sure.
5
So hypocrites support a hypocrite. This is unsurprising.
4
Let me get this straight: I'm supposed to understand the family values of restraining orders? That's insane.
Maybe Trump supporters really are like him
10
Pretty much every paragraph in this article is gibberish passing as cogent thought. Really the worst thing I've read in the NYT in ages. "Not even wrong" is an apt description. Trump's family values have been summed up by the man himself: "when you're a star they let you do it." Turns out that also explains his appeal to his voters. They'll accept anything the man does because buying his con makes them feel good in the moment. But it's nothing more than the naked expression of white male privilege. Should we need more explanation for why white males and their enablers love him so much?
12
My grandfather gave up on organized religion two generations ago. In my youth I thought he was being hard on the religious establishment when he denounced them as "a bunch of hypocrites." Now in the age of Trump, I see exactly what he means, and I am becoming just as disgusted.
It is that rank hypocrisy of the "family values" crowd that totally evokes my utter disgust. Ralph Reed of the Faith and Freedom Coalition and James Dobson of Focus on the Family are prime examples. Their smarmy defense of Trump's immorality speaks volumes about their lack of any moral compass.
When they are out of power they use morality as a cudgel to lambast public officials. When someone like Trump gets into office, supporting their passive-aggressive racism, xenophobia, homophobia and misogyny, suddenly they are all rationalization and excuses. "God works in mysterious ways to achieve his plan" is one of their more reprehensible garbage statements they use to justify their support.
The evangelicals are the worst. They are total Pharisees, pontificating about "grace," "forgiveness," and "redemption" to excuse Trump, Pruitt, Sessions and the other Republican officials who directly and completely violate what they advertise to be their religious tenets--the lies, the sexual infidelity, the theft, the cruelty, the lack of any y charity or regard for the poor and disadvantaged. The prophets weep!
19
The commonality is simple.
Prosperity preachers are con-men.
Trump is a con-man.
11
When contrasting Nebraskans views of Trump with New Yorkers views of a Trump, I don’t think you can downplay the amount of media attention paid to Trump from about the late eighties onward.
I don’t think anyone outside the tri-state area had any understanding of exactly how bad a business person Trump is, nor did they understand the extent of his self promoting behavior.
If the only information they had was from the tv show “The Apprentice” they really didn’t know Trump at all.
13
Gross.
It's not Trump's divorces, or his children from multiple wives.
It is his cruelty and heartlessness toward other people's children. His cheating while married, with no remorse. The hypocrisy of his "religious" supporters, like Matthew Schmitz.
Schmitz is just another in a long line of "reasonable conservatives" going through ludicrous logical and cultural gymnastics to try to convince perfectly clear and unconfused people that Donald Trump is not in fact a monster.
21
This was it. Cancelled my 18 yr subscription to the NY Times. Since even before you let go of your public editor you have done a grave injustice of your coverage of the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton, and normalizing Nazis, Trump, and the damage he is doing to our country, its democratic values, institutions, and world. I don't recognize the NY Times any more. Rely on my Washington Post & LA Times digital subscriptions for real journalism from now on.
7
I believe this is it for me as well.
2
The editorial pages, especially op-ed contributors (we already know what to expect from the regulars) have gone off the deep end. I guess just about anybody belonging to a ‘real organization' gets a voice at the NYT now. Next, we’ll be hearing from David Duke about how we all need to understand white nationalists better—they have feelings, too. And, that slavery thing really wasn’t all that bad.
After columns like this, I stick with the news coverage until I forget why I stopped reading the opinion pages.
2
Schmitz' use of "elites" is weaponized and nefarious. And even barring that this piece is garbage. The Times owes us better.
17
I won't stoop so low to divide people red and blue, an ABC news construct. Let's say some people are more tolerant of those who don't meet their standards. They struggle to meet them themselves, they're judgemental but keep it to themselves. Others think they are perfect, when they come up short they change the rules because they can never seem to be imperfect. Some are easy going and willing to accept diversity and others are stuck up and accept only their point of veiw.
2
What a cop out. Your standards condone a serial liar, serial adulterer, alleged sexual assaulter, and potential traitor as your head of state. It is not because we have different views on standards, it is because you appear to have none. If Nebraska and Texas have such values, then it is high time they left this Union. You can't impose your complete lack of values on the rest of the country.
4
Late marriage. Egalitarian. Three children, nurtured by both adults. Where do we fit in to this silly blue red purple taxonomy?
2
Would any Democratic candidate, with Trump's reputation for those "family values", won acceptance in Nebraska?
Would any female candidate of either major party, with Trump's reputation for those "family values", won acceptance in Nebraska?
No! No! No! It is not a class thing. Try again.
11
I think Mr. Schmitz misses a critical motivation: anger.
I've watched for decades now as well-to-do urban progressives have pushed their various agendas, most of which I agree with in terms of the goals, if not always the means, often with heavy-handed legislation, accompanied by insults and exclusion.
The basket of deplorables statement punctuated decades of haughty superiority; countless movies in which dim or unsophisticated characters are given Appalachian accents, or people of faith are portrayed as stupid--or worse, ridiculous.
The family values of conservative parts of the country have just followed the same course as they have elsewhere. Poor families often break up--or never come together in the first place. This is true in liberal cities and in conservative rural parts. Call it a legacy of the 60's, where those with a radical, but ultimately unrealized agenda, questioned the practicality and the validity of traditional family structures. Us progressives have done the same, but we celebrate it.
In 2016, large swaths of the voting public, who had limited political power until recent decades, just responded to the accumulated insults of urban progressives in the best way they knew how: They voted for a man who voiced their anger.
1
Does a President who considers the ten commandments as totally irrelavent have any values other than self interest?
7
This is a pathetic attempt to rationalize people's hypocrisy, and nothing more. You don't get to claim a moral value and then act opposite to it. If I say that I value charity, but I never give any money or time to charitable causes, then I don't actually value charity. You claim that "The people I know in Nebraska have the same moral views as my religious acquaintances in New York" but they absolutely do not, at least in this regard. They may claim to, but they do not. Your morality is not something separate from your actions. Stop trying to rationalize hypocrisy and call it out for what it is.
14
Lets face it, the moral issues are not that important for Trump supporters as they feel like they are losers. They can't blame themselves for their losses, so they try and find a savior who will blame someone else for them. Hate, fear, greed, and vindictiveness. It isn't a pretty picture and it is not sustainable. When the Trump induced recession arrives there are a lot of things that will hit the fan and most of them are not very nice.
6
Such vitriol? No matter how or what a person says, someone is going to take offense. All of this anger is an amazing waste of energy. I found the article interesting. I agree with the author's conclusions. My concern, however, is with the angers in the comments I read.
3
Yesterday i attended church services at a fundamentalist Baptist church. At one point the pastor breezed by Trump's non Baptist history (infidelity, lies, con artist, cheating/thievery and ..... etc.) and said that he was a Trump supporter because he liked the results. Clearly fundamentalist Baptists preach that the end justifies the means. Is this how Jesus taught?
14
Trump supporters are much less defined by what they admire in the President than by what they detest in others. And what they detest in others is a mixed bag, some of what they find abhorrent in America is an atavism favoring racial prejudice and some if it is a prejudice against the a new educated elitism that is in fact solipsistic and annoying. Focusing on the latter and calling the former to task is the challenge for democrats in 2018.
4
This guy lost me at "elites." The fact that he is an editor on this paper gives evidence to the utter uselessness of the New York Times as it now exists. Simple human decency is not an "elite" value. As long as this paper continues to pretend that there is some sort of legitimacy to Trumpism, it will be complicit in this country's descent into authoritarianism.
6
Scott -- Matthew Schmitz is not an editor on "this paper," if by that you mean the New York Times.
I agree with you however that the "purple family values" claim here is pure piffle, and worse yet the people who are Trump's biggest supporters are not "working-class whites, blacks and Hispanics" ... very few blacks and hispanics support Trump.
Schmitz cannot bring himself to speak the truth: it's all about racism, nothing else generates this kind of hatred and falsity.
5
Well said. And thank you for the correction. I misread his byline. As you can tell, I harbor some resentment towards the New York Times over it's consistent commitment to bothsidesism.
Lifelong Nebraskan here. Born/raised on the more urban east end of the state; living for more than 20 years on the more rural western end. In my opinion/experience, this analysis gives a bit too much nuance/credit to what boils down to a reflexive R vote among Nebraskans. You can run and win as a pumpkin in Nebraskan so long as you had the R behind your name. For many (certainly not all) Nebraskans, slavishly following history/tradition is the governing principle, and they exhibit the logically inconsistent tribal thinking common in many rural conservative states.
10
To the extent that prominent writers use Donald J Trump as the lens through which they view American culture and politics, they fail us. Rust Belt and rural voters (not necessarily working class) may have given Trump the margin needed to win the Electoral College, but there's some real doubt that they represent the typical Trump voter. It's more likely that those Mr. Schmitz and others characterize as working class provide a blind over more affluent Republican voters -- those who like tax cuts and business deregulation enough to vote for a candidate so obviously lacking in character and qualifications.
17
There are so many angry commenters here, which only seems to prove the thesis of this article. This opinion piece isn't trying to "normalize" Trump nor is it pro-Trump. It is trying to help us understand a (big and growing) part of our population that, for reasons still beyond my comprehension, supports him.
The day after the election, I heard J.D. Vance say something along the lines of, "So many people are acting like Trump becoming president was an impossibility. Where I come from, it was an inevitability." We need to become better listeners.
10
It's simple. The people who support Trump are the ones who think he will make them rich.
Whether he does it by improving American jobs and shutting out foreign workers and manufacturing (which isn't working and neither of which he is doing) or by blaming immigrants and the poor, they don't care.
They aren't smart enough—sorry, but it has to be said—to see that they've been conned by a master manipulator who is only interested in making his already rich friends richer. Which he HAS done.
How is that revival of coal jobs coming?
15
Please! The Trump voter swallows whatever right wing- alt right pundit shoves at them and loves it. They don't want facts and simply wallow in their hatred of all that is different because it makes them feel better about themselves. Period. Self pity and lack of analytical thinking is a dangerous combination.
13
Trump didn't come up in politics; he was not "groomed" for life as a political leader. He came of age in a swingin' NYC; he was not a man of strong moral character to begin with. I'm positive that nobody in his family ever said to him, "Donald, be a mensch!"
I am a boomer from L.A., I remember how we reveled in poking our parents' staid lifestyles and stuffy morals in the eye. Some of our kids and grandkids would not even believe who and what we once did.
But we never lost our commitment to civil rights, our contempt for racism, and our disgust with political slime. A part of us were still Kennedy's idealists.
We don't revile Trump for cheating on multiple wives, but for being a malicious hypocrite and a sellout on a global scale, pandering to the worst bigots and know-nothings in the world --- not just the country --- and why? Just to hoist himself into an office and responsibilities that he doesn't even particularly want. That he dishonors at every turn.
And in the process he has attracted the detritus of civilization like a picnic lunch attracts ants. Real human beings are savaged by this McDonalds-fueled juggernaut. I don't judge him for not being a gentleman dad. I abhor him for invigorating the neo-Nazi movement and not giving a hoot what sort of barbarity he midwifes.
19
It was ill considered of the New York Times to provide valuable op-ed space to this least-common-denominator drivel. Our asterisk president proves daily that he has no redeeming values - family or otherwise.
9
Stop normalizing this. I am *this* close to cancelling NYT.
7
I hear you, Michael. Although, that is why I don't subscribe to NYT.
1
I suspect Schmitz is correct about contempt for childlessness among the Trump base. If true, rolling back Roe v. Wade and access to contraceptives cannot be far off. Perceived childlessness has been, and will be, used to demonize LBGTQ people as well.
4
If The Times is going to host speculations on social theory could the editors please be so kind as to demand some supporting evidence beyond the author's family and friends?
His "Purple" model, which he ties closely to Southern Baptist, prosperity gospel, and Pentecostal practice, would still seem unable to explain the enormous animosity these voters have toward many groups of their fellow Americans who exhibit many of the same family characteristics.
I'd be curious to hear why the author thinks these voters would express admiration and respect for a "devoted father" with multiple children from multiple unions and a long history of humiliating behavior toward women only if that "devoted father" is a white Christian.
7
I tried to read this article all the way through, but the reasons for it just slayed me. I'm sure Mr. Schmitz is a good writer, but aren't we past the point of trying to find apologetic explanations for why people have supported & continue to support Trump? It's simple & it's real & it's all based on the fear of change. There was always going to be a backlash against the presidency of the first black president. It was just a matter of time. Yes, he got elected twice, but a lot of the xenophobic, racist & sexist segment that lives in this country probably couldn't be bothered to vote during the re-election campaign because they believed that Obama couldn't possibly be elected again. You are wasting your time, Mr. Schmitz, trying to find complex reasons for why an astounding amount of the population supports a man who is obviously a textbook narcissist & anti-social. It's quite clear. Trump knows that there are a lot of fearful people out there who are terrified of the change that is starting to take hold in this country -- just like he is. This is why he plays to their fears all the time. And I would say that this fear can be found in the red, blue & purple spectrums. I think your time would be better spent focusing on how to bring all these disparate groups together, for the sake of our democratic republic & the anxious people living inside their fears about the coming change. Fear is a great motivator for short term change. It's terrible for long term. Love is the best.
5
This is nonsense on stilts. Trump had nothing to do with his kids until they were old enough to work for him. As a New York City resident I've followed, against my will, Trump for 40 years in the tabloids, and heard about him frequently from people who dealt with him. His kids hated him, especially Ivanka, because he was such a horrible father, but they're as cynical as he is and they signed on to his Presidency to cash in as he is doing. The only thing that unites nearly all Trump supporters is racism. The notion that family values unites them is ridiculous.
12
I look to the Times for smart, insightful reporting. I do not look to these pages to find one schoolyard bully telling me that the worst schoolyard bully is a better person than most of us give him credit for. Stop normalizing hatred, cruelty, lying, and the destuction of American values.
5
more people stayed home and didn't vote than voted for trump. ask them what they think.
6
The entire premise of your article, “purple family values”, is based on stereotypes and offensive assumptions gravely lacking in evidence. To illustrate :
“A third model can be found among working-class whites, blacks and Hispanics — let’s call it purple. In these families, bonds between mothers and children are prized above those between couples. Unstable relationships are the norm, and fathers quickly end up out of the picture.”
There is no evidence that these family groups share similar values, first. As to your claim that “unstable relationships are the norm”, a quick review of the research on just one group, Hispanic families, reveal them to have high rates of marriage and marital stability, if that’s what you’re talking about. As to “fathers quickly ending up out of the picture”, this is a particularly vile stereotype of the black father. Statistics from the Center for Disease Control reveal that African-American fathers spend more time in their children’s lives than fathers from any other ethnic group, defying stereotypes.
You do your readers a disservice.
8
Those supporting Trump live in an 'alternative' fantasy world in which wrong is right and black is white.
Their moral hypocrisy is matched only by their wishful thinking that Supply Side economics will succeed where all previous attempts have failed.
Trump is presently defying gravity, which has made both Trump and his supporters giddy with their short term success. But major cracks are already beginning to show, from global reaction to his tariffs to China's decision to devalue the Yen while curtailing its purchases of U.S. debt. Trump is soon going to learn, as Napoleon and Hitler before him, that pride and arrogance guarantee failure: An economy of 320 million will never overcome the combined economies of 6.7 billion in the long run.
Domestically, Trump is creating multiple firestorms with his Supreme Court antics, while on the foreign policy front his appeasement of North Korea has already turned into a bad joke, while the European Union has now formally announced its decision to defy the U.S. and support the Iran nuclear accord.
Soon his supporters will get tired of 'winning'.
4
A great deal of the attacks on Trump are thinly-veiled classist attacks on the workers and the lower-middle class.
My circle is upper-middle class professional. These people hate the working classes, despite the fact that they are ostensibly democrats. Unlike them, I was not born into their class, so I have a different take on things, but the amount of classism present within their ranks was really surprising to encounter at first. They will harangue each other for displaying even the slightest hint of racism, but virulent classism is not only tolerated but also kind of expected in their discourse.
That's the problem with the democratic party now in a nutshell: it's increasingly a party for two groups; rich professionals and ethnic minorities.
1
Judge people by their actions, not what they say.
Trump displays anti-family values and so does anyone who supports Trump's horrifying policy of separating babies, toddlers, children, and young teens from their parents at the border as "punishment" for coming to the U.S. to seek asylum.
As if Trump's intentionally malicious mistake were not enough, Trump gleefully compounded it with his appalling & flagrant disinterest in re-uniting the children with parents.
I heard yesterday, one government agency claims it has the names and locations of the children, but has no information or location of the parents.
And shouldn't there by outrage and a collective outcry by the self-proclaimed "family values" GOP about what was done to these children and their families?
So based on behavior, Trump and the GOP are not the family values party, and Lord I pray they have not become the moral majority in this country.
10
As my daughter noted, can you imagine if Barack Obama had stood on the convention stage with wife number three and children from three different women? Need I say more?
13
I am so very sick and tired of hearing what Trump voters think and believe. We know what makes them tick and it isn't pretty. They are simply not very interesting and not worthy of the ridiculous amount of pieces written about them.
10
You're forgetting a basic principle of war - know your enemy. And though it goes against the basics of how I live my life, this is a war with an implacable and pragmatic foe. From everything I have seen or read, Trump fights dirty and will do anything to "win". I really would rather not know anything at all about Trump. But he is willing to destroy and exploit anything and everything to get his way. Nothing is sacred to this amoral human. So, yes, we had better know our enemy. We ignore him at our peril.
3
Evangelical types give a pass to Trump's moral wretchedness because they see him as a bulwark against anti-Christian cultural chauvinism and legal coercion of Christians by anti-Christian progressives.
This is hypocrisy. So what? It's not hard to understand.
Their support of him is identical to the unequivocal support feminists gave to Bill Clinton in spite of his sexual predation and womanizing, due to his defense of Roe and other womens' rights.
1
Big differences --
Bill never was on videotape bragging about groping women, BEFORE an election.
Bill didn't urge Chelsea to have breast enhancement surgery at age 16 ... and then talk later about "dating" her.
Nobody voted for Bill after the whole Paula Jones / Monica Lewinsky mess became public.
4
Yes, he's ghastly.
Nonetheless, Trump still serves as the tool to forward Christian conservatives' interests in the very same manner in which Bill - who was credibly charged with rape and countless acts of sexual harassment - served the interests of feminists.
That is why conservative Christians support him, not because they can't see his deep personal immorality.
It’s ridiculous how “working class” always refers to white people but minorities are always referred to as “the poor.”
Hillary’s voters earned less than trump’s, yet we keep getting bombarded with articles about whites with imaginary “economic anxiety.”
Even semantics have a racial tinge.
Pathetic.
6
Trump is not accepted by all Purple families. His base is Pink families, that is Red White.
4
They like Trump in Chicago as well. They don't care about infidelities. They care about illegal immigrants.
1
Excuse me, WHO in Chicago likes Trump? Hillary Clinton won almost 84% of the Chicago vote in 2016, an even higher percentage than fellow hometown hero Barack Obama.
I went to the "Families Belong Together" protest Saturday in the 96-degree heat. There were 50,000 protesters and ONE counter-protester.
3
Basically, trump made wild promises that some actually believed, many others were energized by his racist and sexist dog whistles which led them to believe he shared their biases.
6
Trump payed no role in raising his children.
6
What a bunch of baloney.
.
I'm amazed at the contortions some people who ought to know better will put themselves through in order to come up with some theory that can flatter Trump and his Trumpeters.
6
I guess lying isn't a family value.
2
The guy is a liar and a grifter. Nobody should ever overlook that. Family values among the blue, the red, and the purple is utterly beside the point.
People didn't vote, or not vote, for Trump because of 'family values.' I don't see a single sane person saying, well, his children seem to look up to him, so he gets my vote!
Your 'nuanced' view is just an enormous amount of rationalizing on the part of people voting for him. I don't consider rationalization a 'nuanced' view of anything.
6
as a somewhat well-off liberal, I could care less about Trump's infidelity. What I care about is his (credible) accusations of sexual misconduct, his lying, and his racism.
13
This fits in with what I believed all along. It seems the poor, stupid, gullible people who vote, are responsible, along with the Russians, of course, for Mr. Trump being president.
President Trump. These are two words I still have trouble believing. It would have been as inconceivable to me as President Pee-wee Herman a few years ago. What a cruel joke the founding fathers played on us with this ridiculous electoral college. Democrats have won the popular vote in 6 of the last 7 presidential elections, and yet, who gets to choose all the Supreme Court justices now? The traitor in the White House.
America. It was a nice country while it lasted.
7
I wonder how many red or purple families will read “Born Trump”, Emily Jane Fox’s new book about the Trump offspring. They may have no other choice than declare it fake news, as it destroys any semblance of Trump as a decent father or that Donnie, Ivanka and Eric are people that a parent could be proud of.
12
This is an almost completely unsourced, unstatistically supported, apocryphal bit of garbage. Couching it under "Opinion" doesn't matter. Neither should any reader's political leanings. We should all -- regardless of our various affiliations and whether Trump-supporting or -detesting -- expect and demand more...much, much more...from journalistic sources. This is both embarrassing and irresponsible.
7
I hate to get personal here, but. . . are you nuts?
Trump's behavior throughout his life has been contemptible. He has treated family, "friends," and business associates like dirt. He has mocked people of color, the disabled, and pretty much anyone who disagrees with him. He has advocated violence against political opponents and the media. He is an unreconstructed white supremacist and a budding fascist autocrat.
I am dismayed that so many Americans share those values, whether they're in Nebraska or New York, because these should not be guiding principles in a mostly moral, mostly civil society. Simply because so many share those views doesn't justify them.
8
Schmitz claims that, "Mr. Trump’s purple family values may even explain some of his populist appeal."
No, Trump's appeal is explained by his ugly racism and blatant bigotry. And his history of multiple sexual assaults can in no way be attributed to "family values" of any color.
This is the sort of conservative excuse for Trump that The Times has indulged in since the campaign. Indeed, though Schmitz is identified as "senior editor at First Things," we aren't told what "First Things" actually is.
According to Wikipedia, it is "First Things is an ecumenical, conservative and, in some views, neoconservative religious journal aimed at 'advanc[ing] a religiously informed public philosophy for the ordering of society'."
Time for The Times to stop pandering and start publishing writers who stand up against Trump's incipient fascism.
7
Nuance? Nah, just pure racist ignorance. If you paraded a black man with children from three wives and a string of bankruptcies as business acumen we wouldn’t be having this discussion. The Russians played the rubes, not with populism, but good old racism. Six decades in this so called democracy taught me one thing about Americans, they disdain the educated, despise them. Then we elect a highly educated black man with a Muslim surname, they lost their ever lovin minds.
5
Trump is far beyond the usual politician who may have a few drawbacks. Trump's totality is the drawback. A corrupt, racist, lying, misogynistic bigot has no place as President. Indeed, he is totally rejected by the majority of Americans. The fact people are defending him just to prop up their claims shows just how far gone the right wingers are. They are totally delusional if they think that anything good will result from Trump. Indeed, the greatest damage he is doing is to his "base" with his tax cuts for the rich, destruction of health care, cutting federal funds for the poor (are you listening you poor trumpers?). The fact is they will be far worse off when he is done with them, but his rich cronies will be rolling in the money.
8
"If she wasnt my daughter I would sleep with her...[though] implants could help her."
- trump on family values
7
Trump supporters got to know Trump from his television series, and they liked his arrogant, dismissive manner. They've been saturated with right-wing hate radio and tabloid celebrity trash, so Trump's behavior is familiar and expected. "More nuanced view"? No, nuance is beyond them.
4
It's quite simple, no need to over-analyze it.
"Red families" are built on authoritarianism, they just try to dress it in a more palatable "family values" disguise. It has always been thus.
Trump fits the authoritarian stereotype perfectly. So they vote for him. Nothing complicated.
9
Interesting observations by Matthew Schmitz. The implication is that not only is Trump a product of his ability to game the Right, thus widening the political divide in this nation, Trump is a product of an educational divide in this nation, which is reflected by its income levels.
The educational divide is difficult to bridge; the more reasoning side (I'm not going to call them "elitists", that's demagogic Right Wing nonsense) can't simply accept the foibles of the uneducated portion of the Right. It's like starting out an argument by accepting that there are pink cows on the moon.
Trump is there because he is able to mass-hypnotize a large, poorly educated voter base. Maybe some of those voters had never voted before and were drawn to Trump. Trump is a serial liar, and Fox News propagates those lies. Even some so-called conservatives with some education buy that faux news.
This is a deep divide, that financially advantages media outlets like Fox, and provides a power base to evangelical organizations. Fox and evangelical leaders are not going to adopt a responsible posture and teach their followers to think. They won't be like the responsible John McCain who admonished, very tactfully, that dumb New Hampshire woman that Barack Obama was not Muslim.
If the poorly educated drive the politics in this nation by encouraging power-seeking demagogues who benefit from mendacious conservative media, then it's over.
5
"Blue families prize equality and companionship between spouses while putting a low value on childbearing. "
I STRONGLY disagree with this statement; therefore, I cannot abide by the rest of the article.
6
That statement stuck out for me, too. Funny, this is an uninformed "opinion" article with nothing to back up this writer's opinion. Yet, the moderators of the comments section are so quick to toss out reader comments they don't particularly like...or agree with. I'm not talking about offensive language, either.
3
Oh thanks New York Times, just what we needed, another Trump apologia, and this time around he's a great family guy! It feels like you work on a quota system for 'you dumb elites' stories and that there's a contest to keep topping yourselves!
3
Secretly pay for sex and pay to keep it secret, make up stories or use slander and insult to create disrespect for people who disagree with him, buddy up to dictators and abusers of human rights while insulting allies and democracies.
Sorry, I don't believe the poor people of this country buy any of this. They wanted change in government but chose wrong. His personality and his lies not withstanding, his POLICIES will prove this. All the economic recovery and the hand slapping of banks too big to fail will be undone and the poor will once again be sucked dry by carpet baggers and false claims of conspiracy.
3
Goodness, how I’m impressed at the extent to which this article struggles and more or less succeeds at times to render the basic complex, the humdrum singular. But let’s not fool ourselves with academic distractions. Donald Trump is a crass and dangerous charlatan, and ANYONE who voted for him and still seeks to excuse their participation in their full frontal assault on western civilization is in abject denial of their complicity in the same.
4
I could not give a damn about Trump’s infidelities; what galls me is the hypocrisy of evangelicals who have double standards and are willing to look the other way for political gain. No, what makes me sick about our president is his lack of empathy, coupled with a bottomless pit of narcissism; his meanness, coupled with his willful ignorance. Trump wants to be a dictator; he openly expresses admiration for the worst of them. If we are not careful, he may get his wish.
9
This article's intellectual rigor ranks right up there with David Brooks's argument regarding the exclusionary nature of Italian ham.
5
Hahaha :) Thanks for the laugh, April! Made me not quite so mad at myself for reading this...."article".
1
After some hesitation I decided to go ahead and recommend a book which this article brought to mind. It is “Deer Hunting with Jesus”, and the author is Joe Bageant. Many may have already read it.
Trump is the modern day equivalent of Archie Bunker. Many liberals who watched the show All in the Family found him to be a hateful, ignorant bigot. But to many conservatives he was their everyman - salt of the earth, no nonsense, “tell it like it is” lovable guy. Trump is cut from the same cloth, except he was born with a silver spoon and has enjoyed the privileged life. Archie always found a way to explain his twisted view of humanity. As I recall, he believed in “survival of the fattest”, essentially the same philosophy as Trump’s economic agenda.
3
Donald John Trump was naturally born and bred to white color aka German Scottish American heathen hedonist pagan inherited real estate welfare socioeconomic political power and privilege. Trump represents the very worst of the fossilized royal caste system of the British Empire. A system against which the Founding Father's fought a violent rebellion.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. died on the eve of his Poor People's Campaign in the District of Columbia. King sought to unite the black, brown and white color aka races across common socioeconomic class lines. Instead of dividing them along caste color barriers.
Trump's family values rest in pride and the love of money. Trump's plan is for he and his family business to profit from his occupation of the White House. Aided and abetted by Benjamin Netanyahu, Vladimir Putin and King Salman, Trump is hiding his personal and family income tax returns and business records from the American people. While distracting attention away from his organized crime family scheme one nutty tweet and speech at a time.
10
It is SOOO tiring to read yet another worthless analysis of how nuanced the Trump supporter views are. There seems to be this endless desire to intellectualize the word salad that Trump offers and the motives of his followers. I know that it is painful to admit that the president cannot properly speak and his supporters think, for example, that Space Force is needed to reveal all the things that NASA is hiding from them. Admit it. Don't they say that the first step to recovery is to admit that you have a problem. Stop the excuses. There is a problem and something needs to be done about it.
4
so infidelity, incestuous subtext, and emotional abuse are now poverty values? thanks matt. really shows just how lowly you think of working class people.
3
The author paints with a broad brush. He groups together working-class whites, black and Hispanics and asserts that for them,mother-child bonds are more important, marriages are unstable and fathers quickly disappear -- characteristics that make them more likely to support the President, who represents these "purple family values."
How many different things are wrong with this? First, what statistics support these generalizations? Are they all based on people the author knows in Nebraska? I hope we are supposed to read "working-class" as modifying all of these descriptions. If so, then why not say "the poor"? Otherwise, how racist. And the word "values"? Please, how about just situations that people recognize, even if they do not desire them?
Finally, what about all those studies showing that the President's actual supporters are not all that poor? Further, from what I've seen African-Americans and Hispanics did not vote for Mr. Trump. Were poor African-Americans and Hispanics different? I've seen nothing that says so. Just how far did these supposed "purple family values" do?
Bottom line: garbage in, garbage out.
3
Trump is obviously low class, as the article mentions, with low class proclivities, such as multiple marriages, good father while ignoring the kids, bad language, no grasp of anything, failed at business while living in a golden palace, probably in debt on a scale we couldn't even imagine, so the low class identifies with this? The trashing of America is entertaining to these Trump supporters? They don't realize that he is dumping on them? Somehow I think it goes much deeper than this. And it's a dark place to go, and it goes back to slavery and dominance of the white race over those it fears the most, those with talent, brains, and heart.
4
This is an immensely dim-witted, reductionist, comic book version of how people live and what they "therefore think." More sociobabble "class-splaining."
3
The Evangelicals are a patriarchal society. The man rules. Many straight white men see Trump as living the dream – rich, sleeping around, not taking the blame for anything and never apologizing. What’s not to love?
The NY Times has to stop with the Trump supporter articles. We don’t need to understand them. We are never going to change their minds. We need to motivate the 50% of the country that didn’t vote at all.
7
Oh come on. Mr. Family Man hates women, blacks, browns, yellows, LBGT folks, Confederates who want the old flag to come down, Muslims, cripples, and war heroes. The list goes on. Anyone who doesn't think he's the Greatest. Sorry, Mr. Family Man, that title is taken by someone who was great. Mr. Family Man blew his cover by separating families at the border without, I repeat, without any idea how to get these families back together. When it was plain that most Americans, red, blue, black, white, brown, and green were against that cruelty, he changed his tunes. Mr. Medley Man. Wake up, America.
6
This piece is steeped in generalities and stereotypes. “Purple values”? Really? Can we get back to the simple who, what, where, when, and finally why?
4
Nuance? Really? When lower/middle-class voters supported Trump they admitted their lack of nuance.
When I asked local NY'ers I knew who supported him, "Yeah, but what about (nuanced policy Q)?" The common answers were, "I hate Hillary, and he's gonna build a wall!"
Me; "But what about the people around him? He's attracting some really regressive supporters?" (Sessions a glaring example at the time)
They; "Who? I don't care, he's gonna build a wall, and drain the swamp!"
Over and over it was, "I hate Hillary and he's gonna build a wall!"
Then when I pointed out that as NY'ers they benefitted greatly from HRC's stint as NY Senator. AND she was an early advocate for 9-11 survivors and Ground Zero pile workers.
"Dont care, she's a thief! And Trump is gonna build the wall."
As to the Evangelical, Christians in general effect. They looked the other way because they saw a means to stack SCOTUS in their favor. "Bad men are often used as instruments by our God."
Once the other GOP candidates were gone, they recognized that at his core Trump was like them, uncaring and unmoved by personal rights.
Then there's the fact that Trump talks like a Govt and Institution hater. Which appeals to a huge swath of voters out in fly-over land. Conspiracy-drunk voters, who see the Deep State in their local dog-catchers.
Trump (with the GOPs race-bating, Big Govt hating rhetoric over the years) dealt himself the right cards from the bottom of the deck.
Most NY'ers knew better.
8
Trump supporters lack reading skills and critical thinking skills. It's almost that simple. Throw in a big dose of intolerance, greed, and fear, and you've found the Trump base. Deplorable? Yes. Beatable? You bet. VOTE! and support the 21st century's underground railroad, which is hard at work. I'll say this for Trump. He woke ME up! Watch out.
4
Why is talk of restraining orders so normalized here?
3
No matter the composition of one's family, it is not possible to be a follower of Jesus and a Trump supporter.
Jesus said: The devil is a liar and the father of lies. (John 8;44) Jesus also came to make people choose sides.(Luke 12;51) When so-called Christians chose Trump, they chose against Jesus and made a bargain with the devil, with deified evil. They have gotten their judges, but no one wants to hear a word they have to say about Jesus.
All these so-called decent Americans do not mind a shameless liar in the White House.
4
"Red families tend to be inegalitarian or complementarian, viewing the man as the primary breadwinner and the mother as the primary caregiver. "
Unfortunately, those inegalitarian and complementation gender-role attitudes are empirically associated with sexual assault perceptions such as blaming the victims of stranger, acquaintance, and date rape (e.g., Abrams et al., 2003; Simonson & Subich, 1999; Yamawaki & Tschanz, 2005).
It is therefore, unsurprising that those who hold those attitudes might take a more generous view of a powerful man who brags about grabbing women by the genitals with impunity.
Though I do not count myself among them (heck, Idaho State University threatened to throw me out on my behind way back in the day), I think the elites may have the more "nuanced" view in this particular instance. Some implicit family models and values are demonstrably hazardous to the welfare of women.
4
The entire Trump Presidency is a con job from the get go. Trump has found a group of people who will support him no matter what he does. His lies, infidelities, crude and misogynistic behavior is explained to his base as "Fake News, and the FBI is out to get me!" He base eats it up, "Yep, its all someone else's fault and the moon is made of Green Cheese, The President said so!"
The Republican Party is in Thrall of Trump and will not resist him at this time. In my opinion, two things have to happen: The Democrats need to start concentrating on how they would lead the country, how they would do a better job than Trump. Secondly, they need to stop pouncing on Trump for every little stupid thing he does, people don't care. You are playing the game by Trump's rules and he is better at it than you. My I suggest you give him some more rope, a lot of rope. Rely on his stupidity to make a huge mistake, one from which there is no recovery, he will do it, count on it. Then when you respond, people will listen. Right now they are tuning you out.
5
Another Trump voter piece? Please, we know Trump won because he stoked fears of Muslims and Latinos. He's a white nationalist, through and through. Family values? Have you read the stories of how he humiliated his eldest son when he was at college? Or when he left the family for another woman? I really don't care what Trump voters think. They are brainwashed by Fox News.
4
This article is yet another pointless attempt at explaining why Trump happened. Trying to colour-code people, like post-it notes, is silly, no matter how clever the writer is. I do understand that liberal world, including myself, has been floundering about for an answer since 2016, but sweeping generalisations in tricky matters such as family value is no help at all.
5
This is the most ridiculous thing I've read in a long time.
6
While standing on the public side-walk in front of the Tegna owner WCSH TV station office in downtown Portland Maine, and holding my only demonstration, march, and protest sign, which reads on the front side simply:
DUMP
EMPEROR
TRUMP
and on the backside under and image of 'our' American flag;
"We can't be an EMPIRE"
I get almost universal (90+%); honks, waves, 'thumbs-up', smiles, and cell phone photos taken of the sign from the full spectrum of Portland drivers (and walkers) including all manner of construction workers, Portland DPW workers, older used car drivers, new BMW and Mercedes drivers, and a few days ago a Miller Beer delivery truck driver with a big smile and a strong 'thumbs-up'.
So, IMHO, I am inclined to suggest from my months of pseudo 'focus group' survey of folks thoughts on Trump in Portland Maine, something akin to what LBJ said after viewing Walter Cronkite's TV critical report on the Vietnam war:
"If I've lost Cronkite --- we've lost the war"
Trump 2020? --- "that dog don't hunt"!
So why wouldn't 'we the American people', right NOW, fire a; loud, public. sustained, 'in the streets', but totally non-violent "Shout (not shot) heard round the world" and ignite an essential people's peaceful and patriotic "Political/economic and social(ist) Revolution Against Empire" (and Emperor Trump) right now?
3
Normalizing a wrecking ball. Not a nuance. Quit explaining. All Americans very much understand "cruel and unusual." Trump is both and more. No excuses. No forgiveness. Take a look around. Please stop journalistsplaining.
5
The oh, so normal familiarity with getting a restraining order. What possible normality is that? Violence, turmoil, family disruption. Labeled front and center in New York Times Opinions as family values representing an entire class. The ultimate insult to all of the the groups so casually swept up in this pathetically false mischaracterization.
3
Bottom line Matthew imo, is Trump supporters made a pact with the devil. They overlooked the fact he is a bigot, rabble rouser, pathological liar, admitted sexual predator, philanderer, border line Russian, spy ego maniac demagogue because he is still voting for "social value" things like stopping abortion, no gay rights, etc.
Also he addressed albeit in a demagogic way issues like blue collar jobs going to slave labor countries, no immigration policy etc.
Meanwhile the identity obsessed Hillary put on the top of her agenda that women should rule the country and 50% of CEOs should be women and gays should be honored like Abraham Lincoln and all men are evil except for her husband.
Most Trump voters are not as sorry a human being like he is, but the lure of the demagogue is strong.
4
ever heard of rationalization. check it out.
4
I think political pundits, editors, and columnists are desperately trying to explain how anyone could vote for such a hatefilled, destructive, racist, and fascist leaning person. I have an aunt through marriage, who was one of the nicest people you could meet. I've found out she'd turn in Ann Frank. And me. Without the slightest care. What we have to realize is right now, those who voted for DT are just like him. He's their guy. And while commentators are spewing convoluted webs of explanations, the far right is winning elections. Stop hypothesizing and face reality.
4
What a bunch of nonsense!
Would any of those red state evangelicals be so generous if any candidate of color had even one affair or made one of the many sexist comments Trump made?
This entire divide is about race. We have never stopped fighting our civil war and until we face that, our empire will continue to erode.
10
This is a really complicated explanation for what is the essential truth here. People gloss over Trmp's bad traits in hope they will profit from his policy.
Grabs women? Oh well, not good, but hey! we have a shot at TWO Justices who might overturn Roe v. Wade! On his third wife, cheated on her with a porn star, paid off the star out of questionable sources? But hey! Tax package!!
It isn't some red/blue/purple family model here. It is his willingness to scapegoat immigrants, to toss trade agreements in the air, to bluster and bloviate at rallies. The folks who support him think they will win - wedding cakes, abortion, border walls, coal mines, regulations. If they ever notice that any of these policies personally hurt them, they'll start to view his moral differently, too.
7
Wish I could give your comment more than one recommendation!
4
how easily this white author simply ignores trump's racism. not that important to him obviously. that makes what he has to say suspect and his callousness deplorable - just like trump.
4
So what color are those of us who voted for Hillary Clinton who happen to outnumber those who voted for Donald Trump? I don't think we fit into your red, blur or purple categories . Do we, a majority no longer matter in social thinking? Okay, maybe all your categories matter, but you haven't categorized women and the men who are, becoming a larger and larger portion of the voters of this country. We are not some of us are elite, but many of us are just ordinary people of all religions and all income levels who believe women should be equal to men in the government and who happen to also believe the other marginalized groups -- blacks, Hispanics, Muslims etc etc. deserve the same rights. We didn't die just because we got yet another president elected by a minority. Your color definition may be helpful in some kinds of thinking, but I do not believe it powerfully accounts for voters in the US.
4
I do not believe that any significant number of Trump voters know how many children Merkl or Macron have. I'll bet that >95% cannot say who either of them are (a few years ago, Gallup found 4% of Americans knew who the prime minister of Germany is; and I'm willing to bet cash almost all of those 4% were latte-sipping coastals). Given that, I have to wonder about the other claims in this piece.
6
Why am I left feeling that this column is just part of a longer story? Is the rest of it in the book “Red Families v. Blue Families"?
Or did writer Schmitz just run out of gas?
3
I'm sure his supporters think "nuanced" is some sort of dirty immigrant word.
4
A counterpoint to Mr. Schmitz:
...are you high?
4
The differences in these opinions by various religious groups re-emphasize the vagaries of religious belief itself which in trun is reenforced by the various extremee cruelties of the bible itself. In other owrds one can believe whatever one wants from slavery to the death of homosexuals to rampant misogyny and still label oneself a believer in god. One thing we know for sure a black repub Obama with Trump's pedigree couldn't be elected dog catcher at a cat sanctuary ran by any of the churches that serve any of these people.
3
Trump beat and raped at least one of his wives and was openly unfaithful to all three. He bizarrely sexualizes one daughter and has ostracized the other. If you still admire Trump after knowing this, it's not your "purple morality," it's because you watch Fox News.
Why on earth does the Times keep printing stuff like this?
7
Evangelicals have always been as hypocritical as they are self-righteous, so their support for an immoral pig like Trump isn't shocking. I'm sorry, but nothing explains poor working-class people voting for a greedy oligarch like Trump except ignorance and racism.
6
This lazy stream of generalizations would not pass freshman comp at the local community college.
7
Let's keep it simple stupid!
The ONLY support the grifter-in-chief gets is from these uneducated absurdists - the greedy rich AND of course your average old miserable angry white man.
He is perfect for them!
Anti thoughtful and fact based objective solutions - womens rights -education -the arts and sciences -nature -science and technology and tolerance and commitment to the poor-OH and of course our intelligent democratic world neighbors who universally despise him.
3
The infidelity is just a small piece of the man’s bad character. Could it be that from decades of firsthand coverage your friends from New York knew the Don con? The shyster is reviled in his own land...
3
You published this naïf's wedding announcement, back in January. What's the problem? That didn't exact sufficient punishment of we, your life-long subscribers? You couldn't find anyone to fill your acre of white paper with black type?
The great Margalit Fox no longer works for you, but this yutz gets to write an op-ed for you? In which Bizarro Universe is this an acceptable outcome?
Shame on you. And, you're moving closer to losing me as a subscriber, print and digital. I'm certain that I'm not the only one.
5
This has to be a joke. It's too ridiculous not to be. Where does NYT find these people?
5
As someone who grew up among the working class in Trumplandia, the NYC metropolitarian area…
Working class tolerance of Trump’s behavior does NOT reflect some alternative system of family ‘values’ but (1) entrenched, conventional notions about sex differences and (2) the cynical, fatalistic view of what’s feasible that breeds low expectations. Being a woman I can easily understand white working class women, who dismiss Trump’s remarks about pussy-grabbing and the like as trivial. ‘Whadya want? Men all have the wandering eye: big deal! He’s a good provider. Treats his wife like a queen—look at the clothes! She can get anything she wants! He doesn’t drink and I’m sure he never lays a finger on her. Whadya want?
Working class people don’t have some alternative culture suitable for anthropological investigation. Of course working class women would prefer men not to harass them or other women, and to be faithful. Of course working class women and men would prefer clean government and don’t endorse the dirty dealing of Trump and his associates. They just believe that this behavior is inevitable: that formal institutions and regulations are window dressing no one takes seriously, that all the real business of the world is done by Big Men in backrooms cutting deals, that the world is a network of cabals and conspiracies—that that is the way things always have been and always will be, and that anyone, like the ‘elites’ who say otherwise are lying and taking them for fools.
2
The NYT *has* to stop publishing articles about why Trump won that aren't simultaneously articles about why Hillary lost.
There are several very conservative evangelical family members on my husband's side who voted for Trump. (The less conservative members either didn't vote or voted for that Mormon conservative protest vote, Evan McMullin). They aren't "impressed" by Trump. They think he's embarrassing and, yes, morally bankrupt. But to them, voting for Hillary (or any Clinton) would be like voting for Hitler. Trump they may regard as perhaps only moderately but still uncontroversially better than Hitler.
From their perspective, refusing to vote for Trump just because you find him distasteful and even disgusting where his personal morals are concerned would be the height of self-absorption--refusing to participate in stopping a great evil just because you don't want to "get your hands dirty." You do anything you can to stop Hitler, right?
3
My goodness. I'm not a Hillary fan but I still can't see why anyone would think Trump would make a better President.
3
Trumpism in one word: RACISM. There, simple enough for you ?????
7
Hogwash. Trump is a con artist. I’m learning the difference between idiot and imbecile with his staff.
Anyone who finishes high school and doesn’t admit religion is nonsense, is well, delusional. I don’t have any deeply religious friends, it may be because I’m honest about religion. It’s the biggest con in history. But it’s just about over, look at the trend lines. Unless you guys can reverse the trend lines, religion will be dead in twenty years.
But wait, if you can get a God to set up a Facebook page you might have a chance. Thats what I ask young religious people I meet, where is Gods Facebook page.
NYT stop wasting my time with drivel.
3
My wife and I are going to drop our NYT subscription. These pieces about understanding people who voted for this traitorous buffoon have become tiresome and irrelevant.
7
Classless hypocrite and lying capitalist. His fans need a new cult leader.
4
This is an appalling and embarrassing op-ed normalizing racism and misogyny.
6
NYT quit giving these collaborators a platform.
6
More pro-religious nobsense. Hey Times, when you publish authors like this, could you maybe add a brief descriptor of the author's organization so we know exactly what line is being pushed before we waste our time reading drivel?
7
The NYT has crossed over from ridiculous to outright embarrassing.
4
Of all the descriptors of Trump a loving and good father defies any rational definition of loving or good. Trump brags that he never changed a diaper, he even goes further in saying, childcare and child rearing was women's work---he was too busy with his business and flings with porn stars. I know it is not fashionable to say this...but, any individual that is willing to overlook Trump's obvious moral depravity, value his aggressive stance against those very values that did make this country great---justice, equality, compassion, freedom.
8
Yes!
2
Get real. Remember the saying "It's the economy, stupid!"? Well, in this case, "It's race, stupid!"
6
Nah dude, I am going to make my children hardcore Communists. Have fun with your NeoConservative Catholic Magazine.
3
Racist tripe. I just read another garbage article on First Things from a 2018 HLS grad speciously making an originalist argument for an embryo's right to life based on the 14th amendment. Needless to say, the evidence he mustered did not support his outlandish claim.
NYTimes, why are you indulging faux-intellectuals in the pursuit of a more balanced opinion section? If you publish a conservative, at least find one that can make a logically coherent argument while avoiding racist stereotypes or complete fallacy.
7
I doubt that the reasoning conservative you want the Times to publish exists any more.
1
Of all the dumb things the NYTimes has published recently, this one takes the cake. I don't think I've read anything more condescendingly stupid in my life
5
I'm working class. It's both fascinating & appalling, the way the upper classes/intellgentsia talk about us, particularly (sadly) Dems, who used to be our champion--as though we're from Mars & they're intrepid anthropologists reporting back to their kind.
In this case---We're well aware Trump is a pig when it comes to women. So is clinton. Actually clinton is arguably far more of a pig. Yet Dems have spent decades sucking at his teats & attacking the women who have accused him of rape & harassment. As recently as this election, many prominent Dems said, in effect, that his marriage was his private business. Many others attacked the women. For instance, in The View, they said that the 'women knew he was married."
When you attack one pig for being a pig, but put lipstick on another arguably worse pig, you're not against the pig. You just want your own pig to win.
Second, because clinton & Kennedy et al acted piggishly & still were admired presidents, we know that being a pig doesn't necessarily mean you are a bad president.
So most people don't admire Trump's family values or lack thereof. He does seem to raise loyal intelligent children though & he is open minded about having Jewish grandchildren. That is admirable to me. But the way he treats women is not. But when the NYT carefully & preciously analyzes why upper class people's 'values' don't mind clinton, I'll believe this isn't about partisan politics.
1
He did not raise his children, his wives did (as he has said himself) but he is only to happy to take credit for them.
3
Apart from his sexual and other malformed boundary issues, this psychopath hate magnet-chaos machine so called president has all the "family values" that would fit in a thimble, trotted out for the public. There's not really any viable excuse other than the rule of law (which he constantly attacks) for putting up with this blathering menace that passes for the Republican's version of 'leadership'. It is a tragedy written by the Republican's longstanding assault on education that so many people in this country voted for and are in support of of such unfitness for leadership.
5
Trump's multiple marriages aren't what make him morally bankrupt, sometimes it takes a couple of tries to get it right. Its the cheating with porn stars, bragging about "conquests" on Howard Stern and the general sleaziness of how he operates his businesses that makes him someone who should never have been President. And him being a racist is kind of problem for half the country too.
6
Sometimes I get very angry and say and do stupid things. There's a lot of people out there who think they have gotten a raw deal in life. And many have. And many of them carry around a lot more anger than me. I try to understand them, and I often have empathy for them. And among them are many Trump supporters.
1
You know, I can understand people being fed up with the status quo and voting for someone while they hold their noses. I can’t understand any person who thinks Trump is a role model or good ‘family man.’ This op-ed is ridiculous.
1
Trump is destroying Christianity as he seduces Christians into celebrating pride, admiring a haughty spirit, and handing out free flowing forgiveness to a defiantly unrepentant sinner.
Does anyone even remember now that repentance is supposed to be a solid and unalterable prerequisite to forgiveness?
I always wondered when Christianity would jump the shark and here we are watching it happen.
5
People support Donald Trump because they have daddy issues? He’s not a good husband to his multiple wives, but his kids seem okay. And he did give them all work. Trump reminds them of their own fathers, or maybe the best possible scenario they could hope for from their fathers.
“Papa, please come back and save me from the mean old step dad who wants free college tuition and affordable health insurance for everybody!”
They like Trump because he enrages “liberals,” a code word for anyone who places the needs of others before them.
Certainly they didn’t see their father in Obama or in Clinton. Those two wanted to support all Americans, not just the “real family.”
5
This opinion piece reminds me of the movie "Winter's Bone":
A coastal caricature of flyover Americans.
If red families over look infidelity and value family 'values' then why do they hate the Clintons. This is a major flaw in your analysis.
4
Where does this opinion and it's conclusions come from? Red and blue families - a book about red and blue family models?!
"Blue families prize equality and companionship between spouses while putting a low value on childbearing. Red families tend to be inegalitarian or complementarian, viewing the man as the primary breadwinner and the mother as the primary caregiver."
So, blue families supposedly value equality (whatever that is these days) and companionship; put a low value on child bearing? Are you kidding me?!!! And again, the conclusion is drawn that it's the stupid, uneducated people that supported Trump. This is a false conclusion, unsupported by facts. Please, we are all Americans. Do not continue to try to divide us by putting us into obviously biased buckets.
The reason many intelligent people voted for Trump and continue to support him is because the 'blue' party gave us nothing to vote for, just divisiveness and condescending verbiage about how the government will take care of us and the Reps want to throw us off the cliff. About how we need to open our borders, give our money to those less advantaged, give away free college for everyone (even though most cannot get through college thanks to the dumbing down of the public education system), and how everyone should have access to a federal job for life. Are you kidding me?
Good father? Closeness to his children?
Baloney.
Has anyone out there seen Trump alone with his youngest son, Barron? What about Tiffany, his younger daughter?
Trump ignores his children until they prove that his genes for self-aggrandizement, selfishness, and scorn for the rest of the world will shine brightest. A few physical touch-ups don't hurt either, boys included.
Melania Trump keeps saying her son is "Little Donald" because she so desperately wants his father to love him. Marla Maples has kept her mouth shut for the same reason.
6
Isn't it just a little bit ironic that those who supposedly prize "bonds between mothers and children" are the ones who seem to be least troubled by the separation of mothers from their children at the border?
5
I got mine. You're the same color as me, so you can also get yours. And I won't hesitate to tell you that someone of another color or background is stopping you from getting yours or threatening to take yours away from you.
As other NYTimes readers have so astutely pointed out - Trump is DOA if he is black, brown, yellow or red. He plays two cards: fear and greed and asks his audience to overlook everything else about him in their name. The gullible are happy to oblige him.
7
I wonder how "respectful" Trump's adult children would be if he had no money in the bank. Also, Tiffany doesn't seem that interested in spending time with him.
2
Takes a lot of mental gymnastics to make palatable a man who embodies all the values of the Borgia family.
5
"the man as the primary breadwinner and the mother as the primary caregiver."
man and girl isn't the greatest as a description of the sexes but man and mother? That's harsh!
3
"The people I know in Nebraska have the same moral views as my religious acquaintances in New York"
It appears from your article that they do not.
5
...And yet Nebraskans didn't see the Obama's a a model American Family. Who wouldn't be impressed by their family values?
So, maybe there is something more going on. My contention is that Trump's racism, sexism, and bigotry is what is really being admired.
White Americans--rich, poor, and middle class--have a choice to make. They need to decide if they take their chances with an oppressive white minority rule, an apartheid where they identify with the oppressors (because they can.) Or take their chances with democracy, knowing that the demographic shift will lead to their new minority status. Either way, there will be no changing the trajectory already underway in our society.
Are we a people so scared of the future that we lock up babies and children fleeing violence and call the cops on kids mowing lawns and selling water?
Or are we a people brave enough to believe in the democratic values that have been forming a more perfect union since we declared our independence?
I sure hope your (purple) families wake up and realize that once the black and brown bodies have been neutralized, the uneducated, working-class whites will be next.
And so it goes!
Be brave Americans!
Fascism disguised as populism is still fascism.
5
Lying to others garners various praise or condemnation among the groups Mr. Schmitz describes.
But lying to yourself? There is something absolutely ominous about the practice, or its tolerance, especially into adulthood.
2
Ordinarily I could care less about other people’s domestic arrangements, Donald Trump’s included. However — to paraphrase one of Chekhov’s characters in “Uncle Vanya” — a faithless man who betrays his wife is just as likely to betray his country. What with the Helsinki summit just two weeks away, this (more than anything else) is what keeps me awake at night these days. Character counts.
4
The Evangelicals say Trump is ordained by God. He can’t do anything wrong. They’re blind faith is unwavering just as it is in their brand of religion.
Funny how Obama, with one baby momma instead of Trump’s three, never warranted such deference.
6
When has there ever been a photo of Trump playing golf with any of his children? Attending parents weekend at any of the private schools his children attended? Family Thanksgiving dinner? The picture on last year's White House Christmas card did not even include Barron.
5
No one can reasonably use the words "family values" and Donald Trump together. This is a man who twists truth and lies repeatedly, a man who would separate little children from their mothers with no plan for reunification, a man who will not listen to anyone's opinion but his own, a man who demeans others and calls names. Trump is incapable of acts of kindess and empathy. His behavior would ruin any family, unless the family members' concern was only all about making money for themselves.
8
I didn't vote for him to be my pastor. I voted for him to build the wall, deport illegals, secure the border, focus on the poorest Americans citizens, in short enforce the law. Period.
1
And look what you got instead!
4
"The poorest Americans citizens" as you so eloquently put it, were focussed on by Trump's enablers in Congress when they wrote the Tax Scam bill. If they live without health care past the next several years, that law will begin to tax them more than they ever were before (because so many tax credits disappeared). Since there are more poor white folks who voted for Trump who got "free stuff" up to now, they're going to have to swallow their pride and do that field stoop work they refused to do when illegal migrant workers were there to do it.
P.S. There will be no Wall. The new Mexican President won't pay for it, and so far, I don't see Trump's campaign donors volunteering. Who's that leave? Yeah, "poorest Americans citizens".
6
Focus on the poorest citizens? Republicans don't do that. Tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations will be paid for by cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.
5
Its the art of the deal. For each segment of his supporters, Trump has signaled and dangled a carrot. To the evangelicals, he has offered an end to abortion. To the underemployed who live paycheck to paycheck, he has offered a scapegoat. To businesses, he has offered a reduction in nearly every kind of regulation. It all depends on how much they can overlook.One has to question why anyone would continue to support a man who kisses up to both Putin and neoNazis.
4
What family values are you communicating when you force a little girl to wear a button showing a grown woman behind bars for daring to think she might be powerful? Will that little girl learn it’s better to be quiet and obedient? Have no voice?
2
What are we trying to do here with this write up? Rationalize the hypocrisy of the so called salt of the earth? Why is this necessary?
As far as I’m concerned they can run their families any way they want, as long as they keep their hands off from my family or our values.
However, if they’re ignorant enough to conflate their family values with how the country is run and as a consequence bring us all down with them, then I have a problem.
Frankly, what this article comes down to is a bunch of nothing. Fact is, there’s no doubt that the republicans control congress because the democrats, not unlike the NYT, analyze the issues to death, always try to “understand” the other side and have a tendency to eat one another up instead of focusing on the opposition. On the other hand, Trump is in power because of an electoral system meant for a slavery based, agrarian society in which only wealthy white males were allowed to vote while the founders were attempting to hold all of the colonies together in opposition to Britain.
The time has come to say enough is enough to this blackmail and false sense of balance. It is high time (1) to get rid of the electoral college, (2) to make sure that there’s a true correspondence between the number of representatives with that of the population of a state and (3) to do as California did by giving the voters the last word on redistricting.
The rest is but yada yada yada.
6
In summary, one person's "family values" is another person's sexism, misogyny, and world view that women are inherently unequal. I'm really done acting like we need to be respectable of different "values" when those values are bigotry.
4
Trump may have won the vote by gaining a lot of "purple" votes but the money that got him there is pure red.
5
I would call this the pretzel defense of trump's "family values." Not purple.
3
Huh ? On what planet do people actually talk about "family values" when talking about Trump?
We are talking about a compulsive liar and proven fraud, raised with mob values (which he has clearly passed on to his kids), and bears an authoritarian streak designed to land an Antonov An-225, and seems more bent on ripping America apart than making it "great again" (whatever that means).
How in the world do you end up talking about "family values" ?
6
Donald Trump is the Flim Flam Man --
He is Harold Hill - insisting that the community must purchase trombones and band uniforms from him - for the good of the country, as well as their own -
He is Elmer Gantry - preaching "Christ in commerce" --
He is P.T. Barnum - "...an American showman, politician and businessman remembered for promoting celebrated hoaxes and for founding the Barnum & Bailey Circus...The Greatest Show on Earth." --
He is a Snake Oil Salesman - "...someone who knowingly sells fraudulent goods or who is himself or herself a fraud, quack, charlatan, and the like. "
In the end, it's really very simple -- either you believe Trump's pitches, promises and come-ons -- or you don't -
Unfortunately - in this country there are enough people who believe - or fervently WANT to believe - what Trump is selling is good for them and and all of America - that they actually were fooled into electing him to be President --
Go figure...
5
Trump has made many things acceptable, not the least of which is philandering. Mix in serial lying, vulgar materialism, racism, narcissism and total disregard for law and convention, and you have many of his supporters' version of the American Dream. When Americans think of Frank Sinatra's "My Way," they don't imagine a generous altruist. Donald Trump fits their ideal notion of unbridled license and appetite. They celebrate and envy him as the model they aspired to in adolescence and never achieved because of restraints imposed by liberals and big government. He did it his way, and they're vicariously happy to see him flaunt his vices so openly.
3
The idea that the chief concern about Trump's morality is his divorces and sex life represents a profound misunderstanding of people who oppose Trump.
His wanton cruelty, proud ignorance, consistent dishonesty and rapacious greed would be a far better place to start.
Also, where is this great father? His sons have inherited his vices and Don Jr his sexism. Do a lot more people admire nepotism as a form of parent-child bond?
Also, it's not like Clinton didn't have a successful, well rounded child.
3
With mouth agape after reading the description of the values attributed to the so-called Purple "families" , it was hard to believe someone ( two someones) actually felt comfortable enough to propagate the absurdity,
The book from which Mr. Schmitz's takes his flight-of- fancy does not do what Mr. Schmitz asserts- in the manner he asserts. The book's authors (according to reviewers) acknowledge their copious research is primarily focused on White Americans. They do not come up with the malarkey of a "third model" or the embarrassingly simplistic interpretations presented here.
" A Tale of Two Families-Red Families v. Blue Families: Legal Polarization and the Creation of Culture" by Naomi Cahn & June Carbone (Oxford University Press-2010) is a comprehensive copiously footnoted effort. Mr. Schmitz has managed a disingenuous *mashup* of various reviews and constructed his own imaginary family values structure of minorities and poor whites.
Two excellent reviews are: "Purple Haze" (a reference to the hoped for blending of the Red/Blue State construct) by law professor Clare Huntington, Fordham University School of Law who specializes in family law and poverty law.(http://ssrn.com/abstract=1596966). The other is a lengthy review by law professor Rachel Rebouche, (http://scholarship.law.ufl.edu/facultypub/34) Both downloadable.
Once again, the NYT seems to have gotten snookered into publishing a very thin effort at a complex matter.
3
Is this satire? "Even those from red families were more likely than my acquaintances in New York to know someone who is subject to a restraining order." "A RESTRAINING ORDER"? Sir, I am sorry but I do not think your friends in Nebraska have the same "moral views" as your friends in New York. It appears to be more like moral blindness.
4
You are over thinking it. Scratch a republican, you often get a selfish person who is unable to empathize until something happens directly to them. They believe they deserve their foodstamps, but the guy down the street is a moocher - and the more affluent believe they pulled themselves up to deserve the largess that lobbyists win them, but poor people are lazy.
Remember, Prosperity Gospel Christians are "temporarily embarrassed millionaires" who don't want the rules changed as someday they too will have the FREEDOM to fleece their neighbors. These christians use both trump and the bible to justify their hatred and heinous behavior.
When liberals think of the swamp, we think of lobbyists, and money corrupting policy - trumpsters think of progressives, LGBTQ, feminists, scientists, etc. When trump drains their swamp he is removing all the challenges to their sense of superiority and world view.
Once you grasp this, everything that made you scratch your head about the attraction becomes obvious.
So, on one side you have authoritarian, old testament Christians who remake a hateful angry god in their own image; on the other side you have loving and compassionate people who ask themselves what would Jesus do.
Luckily we are in the majority, we just have to start acting like it.
6
Check the election statistics: working class did not elect Trump. His voters, both average and median, had higher incomes. The author of this article follows the Trump Doctrine of “Make Up Your Own Facts.”
Despite the author’s waxing on about his personal relationships, the difference between Nebraska and New York voters is the media that informs them. Fox and other such media offer messaging almost verbatim to Russian cyberwar messaging.
The myth of the angry, white, midwestern, working-class, voter is a windmill pursued by mainstream media who fail to recognize how Trump manipulates them. Advice to media: ask yourself every day, I am writing about this because Trump wants me to? Is it really news?
Why not investigate the difference in the media by location and it’s impact on the election? Why not report on the liberal voters, comprising two-thirds of the votes, who are sick and tired of reading about mythic voters and hearing about every Trump belch on twitter.
5
You forgot to add this to your list of reasons:
When a Democrat does "it," it's shameful, unpatriotic, un-American, unconstitutional, irreligious and impeachable.
When a Republican does it, well not so much. This look-the-other-way, double standard has become the rallying cry of talking point, entrenched right wing Republicans. A lot of what you argue here could be explained by tribalism and not values.
You know, the Our Team Is Righteous, Their Team Is Only Out To Take Away Our Guns and Religion mantra.
7
This piece is much more about the author's particular ideological stance than it is about the country at large. There's no real insight here, just anecdotes and generalizations with no real basis in fact. Just another attempt to divide us and provide cover for the disgusting human being acting as our President.
9
This is a shallow article that appears to equate Nebraskans as “working” class and people who live on the east or west coast as elites. Warren Buffett is from Omaha and it is pretty urban and more white collar than blue. There are a few enclaves of factories or livestock processing and there are field hands and plenty of disaffected poor whites who don’t to want to work but like to complain about the people who do work. Then there are middle class farmers and large farming conglomerates....But somehow trying to equate people who like the absolutist evangelical message that Trump’s immoral behavior as manifested in his policies is ok whereas those Christians adhering to a secular morality in the public space are somehow elitist; well like I said this is really shallow.
3
Who objects to infidelity? The horse has left the barn on that one. Next!
1
The true thing in common is "selfishness". That way you can include all the rich hypocrites whose only value are tax cuts that provide them with power and control.
5
Am I too old, or do I correctly remember that our common values focused primarily on a person's being good, kind, caring, and compassionate?
Trump is the exact opposite of a "good," "kind," "caring," or "compassionate" person. He is boastful, angry, hostile, mean, completely self-indulgent and self-serving, deceitful, cruel, and contemptuous.
This tone-deaf analysis of "family values" widely misses the mark. With Trump, it's simple. Trump is so terrible, that he encourages our inner sub-conscious desires to be terrible to others. He liberates our meaner selves from "our better selves." That's it.
5
It remains hypocritical in my opinion. The man is a cheating, low class person, who might be close with three of his four children, but seems to have left at least one by the wayside. Pretzel politics.
3
The other thing this piece fails to include is the fact that Trump's "family values" (or lack of them) are just the tip of the iceberg of his total personality. The rest of it -- the greed; the narcissism; the mendacity; the intellectual laziness; the childish, vindictive spite; the utter lack of principle or any kind of moral core -- is even more obvious; there is no ambiguity or uncertainty about any of them, and they are, by any Biblical standard, far worse even than the adulteries, divorces, and indifference to his children's nurture until they were old enough to become his lackeys.
By the way, there *is* evidence that Trump was physically abusive, to Ivanna at least.
3
Let's get real.If Mr.Trump were poor, the fact that he has had five children with three women and numerous liaisons would brand him as shiftless and irresponsible .Because he is rich and can buy off women and indulge his children with wealth, he is somehow acceptable to people with "family values" is complete hypocrisy.Their moral standards are based on a shallow concept of morality.
4
Yes, I can't figure it out either - Trump's family values but separation of children from mothers; apparent racism and aversion to LBGT equal rights; his children are spoiled and shallow, and mean like their father; he has little or no empathy, he is family before Country; trade wars that hurt the defenseless; he is chaos not leadership. I don't get it other than what he says seems sensible on the surface but the application of his ideas is oppressive and destructive. Selfish, thy name is Trump.
2
At the end of the day, support for Trump among the working class is based on race: an antipathy to anyone not white, who is different looking and sounding than they are. Those voters will even overlook the economic damage done to them by Trump & the Republicans as long as it is all blamed on “those” people: blacks, immigrants, whomever. In fact, Trump, with his many marriages, children, sexual crimes & white bias is just like his supporters. In the same way that Obama & Hillary were just like the rest of us
4
All of this talk about values by sophisticated thinkers like Matthew Schmitz is nothing more than a fig leaf for the rank hypocrisy of Trump supporters who claim to have a moral code but in reality have made political accommodations for the most cynical motives. All fascist leaders are able to attract supporters by promising them pie in the sky and delivering mayhem and destruction.
5
"People familiar with the purple family model tend to view his alienation from his children’s mother as normal and his closeness to his children as exceptional and admirable. I saw this among my acquaintances in Nebraska."
Perhaps your acquaintances forgot about Tiffany.
Nothing to be embarrassed about, Mr. Trump seems to have forgotten about her too.
Still, it's good know how important an " exceptional and admirable" relationship with one's children is held as an important attribute in a President by those "purple family model" Trump supporters.
It explains all the love they had for President Obama despite policy differences. Really made me proud to be an American seeing that respect cross partisan and racial lines.
Mr. Schmitz, you can try and put purple family value lipstick on the pig in the White House but he is still a pig.
5
What kicked off the Reformation? The Church had been forgiving the sins of wealthy unrepentant sinners in exchange for cash money. Turned out European Christians took this undeserved forgiveness thing seriously enough to rebel and start a whole new branch of the religion.
Makes me wonder what's next for Christianity now that evangelical Protestants are repeating the same moral error with Trump.
The man is not sorry for a thing and that's not going to change.
4
Why would "class" be the difference between people in New York -- who have witnessed Trump's depravity first-hand since the 70s -- and people in Nebraska, who have consumed only a steady diet of Fox News propaganda for 20+ years. This opinion piece is preposterous.
4
Donald Trump and Family Values? You mean, lying, cheating and stealing? Those are the values the GOP so admires in Trump?
8
WOW?! stereotype much? As a liberal raised in a very Red and reactionary state, and having close friends who voted for Trump this analysis has no grounding in my experiences. The good Christians who voted for trump are hamstrung by their bigotry and that blinds them to their fungible values. They engage in a magical 'I AM SAVED! THANK JESUS' thinking that tells them they are on the right white team, and now they are well armed and winning, BTW. Pence is the living symbol of this bad evangelical theology. "God appoints leaders to honor my wants" Like some people believe dinosaur bones where put around by Satan to fool scientists; No trump voters and the GOP, they are in love with a power figure they hope will take away from brown other folk, and pesky females, and give them 'their' country back. They think the world really is Mayberry because they have isolated themselves from people not like them. It is a very human way to behave and think.
5
Nuanced: characterized by subtle shades of meaning or expression.
Oh, you must be referring to the mobs at Trump rallies shouting "Build the wall!" or "Lock her up!" Nuance? Subtlety? No, ignorance and hatred run rampant, and exploited by Trump.
6
This seems oddly incomplete. Was it cut for space? Trump has blown up the whole idea that the GOP cares about family values. The concept means nothing now. His serial adultery, his misogyny, and just plain meanness make a mockery of any proper "family" value.
4
And just where is the value in trump “family values”?
6
The biggest difference is that the people in NY know him and his family and know how despicable he really is. People in Nebraska bought the con and he is a good con man. It's his one real talent and he pulled the wool over their eyes. Now we have to see if they can free themselves before the country is totally destroyed. If he gets his pick for the supreme court and the republicans hold congress, it's game over. Trump will become the dictator he wants to be. Right now he's still a wanabe dictator.
Nebraska accepts his lies every day. That doesn't say much for their judgement.
5
He is the Lowest Common Denominator. Emphasis on common.
6
When Republicans heard on tape how Trump likes to grope the private parts of women without their permission, they thought that he was just being a "guy". When Trump paid $25M to settle a suit for defrauding students of their life savings , Trump fans thought that was clever. When Republicans learned that Trump has been bought and paid for for years by laundered Russian money they think it is a sign of his business acumen. When they learned of Trump's extortion of companies for political favors they were simply jealous. Trump fans including Evangelists live in a closed universe where an amoral, inhumane sexual predator is their chosen leader. They will always be able to make excuses for him. It is impossible to reason with these people because their have finally found a spokesperson for their racial hatred and bigotry.
More threatening than this minority of Americans is the Republican leadership who knowingly support the incompetent ignorant Trump. Their political power depends enormously on the zeal of the Trump fans who live in a closed universe where truth and morality are not deciding factors..
5
The most important point of this article is the utter social contrast between New York and Nebraska.
However, the emphasis on the religious basis of this contrast obscures the root of the growing antagonism of coastal and interior America: the rage of the devastated working class of the hollowed-out middle of the country.
In the words of one of those who created this disaster: "It's the economy, stupid."
The rot in our former industrial heartland, the world's industrial heartland, began in the 1970s. Wages since the late sixties had become too high to cover costs, with the result's being the alternation of inflation and unemployment.
This in turn reflected the failure of vaunted postwar productivity to keep up with the workers' expectations created by Establishment promises during the 1950s.
Two roads out of the crisis were possible. The workers would bear the agony of relieving it. Or the profit-earners would endure a jolt to their returns. Responsible economic programs exist to implement either policy. Or a mix.
Instead of an upper/lower class discussion to compromise on such a solution, the Establishment went behind the backs of workers to shift production to low-wage areas inside and outside the US. The latter is "globalization".
All of the other antagonisms rest on this betrayal of the workers, the former main ally of our Establishment: religion, sex, family, race.
Smug urban liberals were complicit in the betrayal, and had a jolt coming.
It's here.
I find this piece surprisingly simplistic and very thin on real analysis. Too many broad brush tropes. Do better!
8
As if Trump voters know who Macron and Junker are, let alone their marital details.
Trump’s appeal isn’t mysterious. He reaches across the wide range of Americans... and finds the racists.
5
“Global leaders like Emmanuel Macron, Angela Merkel and Jean-Claude Juncker appear to have stable and loving marriages. But their childlessness makes them worse exemplars of family values in the eyes of some non-elites than divorcees who have multiple children“
In other words, purple family values place the entire family burden on the mother, absolving the father of any responsibility. Extra credit for knowing the kids names. And the presidency for spending time with them.
It’s patriarchy defined. And the purple family values voters have swallowed it. Hook. Link. Sinker.
2
I'm a working class guy from Canada and if someone pegs me as purple, orange, magenta, canary yellow, or burnt ochre I'll knock their teeth out.
4
http://valleytalking.blogs.sonomanews.com/2018/06/25/immigration-new-nor...
-Walt Williams
Even the most cursory review of how key social indicators - out of wedlock births, drug use, and violent and petty crime - vary across white, black, and Hispanic ethnic groups puts the lie to the notion that these social pathologies arise solely from income and class, and that cultural factors deeply embedded in the values, myths, and norms of these groups play no role.
Research has proven that the most important life outcomes derive from behavior, not from race and not from class.
Unfortunately, the academic field of sociology - which proports to study these phenomena - was hijacked long ago by the left wing loonies who have only muddied the waters by promoting discredited theories focused on blame and victimization. They were aided and abetted by liberals who would sing any tune and repeat any lie to keep minorites on the Democrat voting plantation.
Sadly, an honest and objective analysis which would shine a light on these social pathologies and the cultural factors driving them was never possible due to extreme political correctness. (Google 'Cultural appropriation', Google 'it's a black thing, you wouldn't understand.' to illustrate the point.)
So now we have Trump,who is surely a symptom of this underlying dynamic and not the cause.
What a shame.
3
New York Times Editors actually wake up in the morning thinking "Hey, in addition to all of the conservative opinion writers we've recently hired and all the op-eds we've published by other conservatives, you know what would be a good idea? Having a conservative write a column for us about how Donald Trump's behavior is not particularly bad, or good, just you know, opinions differ.
5
With all due respect, there are some absurdly broad generalizations here being passed off as facts. This is basically a mishmash of assumptions dressed up as authoritative. Sorry but the author needs to approach this with a lot more rigor if he hopes to persuade.
3
Sorry. I am bringing back the Clinton refrain: "It's the economy, stupid".
Family values suffer as people tumble out of a middle class existence. Where marital prospects have fewer economic prospects, traditionally male in blue collar culture, men are seen as sperm donors. The state becomes the provider while children can often have different last names.
It is unreal that these folks are allied to Christian movements unless you think of revivals where the wayward flock is a source of prospects for salvation.
You would see more "acceptable" morality if we improved the economy by generating better paying jobs, taught trades and supported unionization. Apparently, the simple promise of jobs is enough for these voters. Rather than paying attention to the actual policy of Trump, these voters seem to identify instead with him as victims. It is a self-defeating mentality that assures their economic decline.
Their Progressive ancestors knew it was about the economy, stupid. That organizing principle brought on the New Deal and created the greatest middle class we ever had.
The Democrats, having joined in the corruption of accepting donations from the 1%, cannot deliver a message of disruption in order to create a more equal economy by forcing redistribution through better pay and benefits. The Republicans have no qualms about lying and so the rabble is aligned with the movers and shakers via Trump, believing in salvation that will never arrive until they smarten up.
And Trump is going to make their lives better?
3
Where is the "nuance"? And I'm sorry, but I don't give a fig if others accept Trump's immorality. That doesn't change his immorality. And his "closeness" to his children is damaging control and insults. He has no real friends because he's never thought about anyone other than himself, so his kids fill that void to a degree. Ugh. Religious folk can struggle all they please to try to "explain" the hypocrisy of "religious" Trump followers, but it is still hypocrisy.
9
All in all, I think it is necessary to view Trump as the Great Transgressor. His Nietzschean Superman ways have been well documented in many spheres of his existence, yet they come disturbingly to the forefront in the sexual domain.
I wonder how long Trump's impunity will last after the fall of so many sexual predators in Hollywood and elsewhere. How many years of disgusting revelations are his supporters prepared to accept, notably his sexual attraction towards Ivanka which NO OTHER public individual would have been able to shrug off ? The tolerance of Trumpists towards what really goes beyond a 'peccadillo' speaks volumes for contemporary society's admiration of unhedged power which portends nothing good when it comes to contemplating 'unknown unknowns' during the remainder of Trump's disgraceful tenure.
3
Nothing says family values like a restraining order.
5
Schmitz portrays people he knows. That is fine. My own take is different. Schmitz does not know radicals. We often get left out of the conversation. We are here. Not that many people know about us which means my comments will not be published. Views of who we are remain generic. Our contempt is for everyone Schmitz knows. We are highly educated. We do not have children. The thought is repugnant.
We believe Trump is a criminal, and that Americans are hypocrites. We believe (this is where the gatekeepers will say I am uncivil) that cultural paradigms cave in upon themselves. If we hate Trump, we hate society more. Not many of us even have jobs. We are supported quietly by the left. Now, to what we want.
Civil war.
We believe it's inevitable. Our loyalty is not to the United States of America. We find America racist and beneath contempt.
We want a restart. There will be blood. We hope so.
We are cognizant we live in a quiet bubble. We do not care, and we will not tell you the secrets of the tribe. We know sexuality is fluid, marriage a yoke. We find your politics to be antedilluvian. If radicals meet, it's necessarily a secret. We communicate in codes we created.
We do not own weapons. We know where you keep them. We believe you are the biggest enemy to yourselves, your culture wars will extinguish you. Sexuality is fluid and marriage artifice.
We believe a civil war is inevitable. The last one settled nothing.
We watch. We wait. Usually, you prove us to be correct.
Sounds like things an extreme right wing person imagines someone might say.
2
True. The difference is that we are background noise. Nothing more. We do not have or need a Fox News to stuff our agenda down anyone's throat. We watch. We wait.
I was somewhat in agreement until the bloodshed part. That is absolutely unnecessary. We can shake hands and go our separate ways, you to your country where religion rules, me to my country where reason rules.
1
American values include hard work, education, intelligence and integrity. Trump bought everything with daddy's dough; his salmon palms have not done an honest day's work in his life, and now that he's a public servant we see that he is a liar and a cheat through and through. He talks the talk, though.
6
Family Values?
Trump is a poor example of that. All he has done so far as a father is to stress looks, money, bankruptcy, corruption, cheating and grabbing women's private parts. Which one of these virtues (sic) expresses family values?
Anyone who believes in the Ten Commandments, as taught by most Religions, can't seriously admire Trump, let alone have voted for him.
Trump appealed to a lot of voters by pretending that he could get them to the economic life he leads. And they were foolish enough to believe him. This is how Communism spread.
Now we have Trump spreading Fascism.
Why don't we all come to the conclusion that the Democrats put up a flawed candidate and so did the Republicans.
Here is hoping we do better next time around.
Get rid of the Electoral College.
3
Another generalization that misses the mark.
My wife and I are high school educated, agnostic liberal Democrats. I'm a career construction worker, she works HR. We loathe Trump. The incivility and hatred he stands for is fanning the flames of a simmering civil war.
Support for Trump consists mostly of angry, vindictive people whose primary goal is to stick a thumb in someone's eye. It's almost as if they're saying, "we don't care how inept and morally bankrupt Tump is, as long as he annoys LIBRULS".
6
Purple family values? More like purple prose devoted to an attempt to pretend that prosperity gospel preachers and the second-generation evangelical brigade (Falwell, Graham) are anything other than confidence tricksters and hypocrites.
3
Robert Novak would be very proud of this argument.
That is not a compliment.
4
Hogwash.
His base appeal is racism, guns, repealing Roe and repealing gay marriage. His supporters overlook any other sin to have their champion for those particular values. Family values? Hardly.
5
What's the difference? In a word, hypocrisy. Ask any of your hometown clan how they feel about Bill Clinton and you will get a completely different answer. You hometown grew up swallowing Fox News lies and propaganda and they won't change now, even when confronted by the most amoral, immoral, and ignorant President in our history. We don't need more articles telling us how to understand our "well-meaning but misunderstood" red state cousins, but more drives for voter turnout to crush their horrible GOP conservative candidates at the polls.
7
We all embroider; Mr. Schmitz "anecdotes"are made from whole cloth. In trying to give a new twist to resentment soaked support for Donald Trump, he has instead twisted himself into knots. I am, by the way, a fan of "First Things," though at the moment I am ashamed of my association, and of my fellow believer's muscular capacity for self-deception.
1
The NYT should have rerun all the terrible things that Trump said deliberately in the press to humiliate his first wife - and bring her to heel. These statements were for attribution and in front of his children, about their own mother. Family values indeed.
5
Is this satire?
I mean anyone who knows anything about religion knows that those with Pentecostal and holy roller gospel preaching mind-set have been begging for the "end of times" for millions of years. In Trump, they see the "end of times' being ushered in and they're giddy about that ridiculous prospect.
9
Trump has a crime family and little more. He values loyalty above all else and rewards it with nepotism. His family values are akin to those of the mafia. As to why people support him, it is a bad cocktail of authoritarianism, lack of education, love of celebrity, blind religiosity, hatred of liberals and the media, susceptibility to right wing propaganda (especially FOX "news), racism, xenophobia, and economic anxiety. It all leads nowhere good.
7
How would they justify his relationship to Tiffany (his daughter with Marla Maples), or lack thereof?
1
A few points:
1. This editorial reminds me of why I don't subscribe to First Things.
2. The Times can do better than this.
3. That word "real" you use; I don't think it means what you think it means.
4. Mr. Schmitz, we can agree that a wife-beater or a child-molester also embodies "real' family values, if "real" means some thing that exists in space and time and results in behavior that can be identified and assessed. These happen to be monstrous and psychopathic values, but "real" nonetheless.
5. Such values should be no more emulated than Donald Trump's, whose own features, among others, infidelity, dishonesty, gaslighting, verbal abuse, and cruelty. He glibly removes healthcare benefits from the vulnerable and tears refugee children from their parents fleeing violence. He accuses others of being "traitors" for accurately reporting the above-mentioned facts. There are many, many more.
6. These are likewise "real" family values. Likewise monstrous. Likewise psychopathic. Likewise normalized by the likes of you in such an op-ed piece.
7. Likewise not worth the waste of our time reading.
5
Or alternatively, they didn’t see a problem because they don’t have the same values, regardless of what they give lipservice to. In fact your Nebraska friends probably simply like his sexism and racism and that enough for them to overlook everything else
3
Mr. Schmitz, you get an essay in the New York Times and this is what you give us? You cite no science, no evidence—just a bunch of anecdotes that reinforce a tired narratives. Is it even worth taking seriously? Probably not, but I’ll bite:
Trump is a serial adulterer. He openly brags about forcing sex on women who are powerless to fight back. Each of his children have a different mother. He has been divorced three times. One of his sons is implicated in the Russian scandal. They post conspiracy theories and vitriol on Twitter. Trump makes creepy comments about his daughter. His public behavior towards Melania is the opposite of chivalrous. By no historical or objective standard is he a good family man.
I’m flabbergasted by your refusal to acknowledge the Republican descent into moral relativism. You engage in the same kind of false equivalence that has plagued public discourse since the advent of Trump. Enough.
4
This writer expects his readers to accept sweeping generalizations based on his friends and acquaintances. The book he references is 8 years old, and his glib characterization of "Trump's 'Purples'" reduces complex cultural and family dynamics to a slogan. Perhaps it's meant to be only a conversation starter. As an argument for a point of view, it's built on unsupported assumptions and the sort of casual elitism that so many find frustrating about the Times op-ed pages.
5
Absolutely sure Nebraskans think about the marriages of Macron, Merkel, and Juncker all the time, discussing these matters frequently and thoughtfully. I mean, it just makes so much sense, right? Cause the NYT says so: "Global leaders like Emmanuel Macron, Angela Merkel and Jean-Claude Juncker appear to have stable and loving marriages. But their childlessness makes them worse exemplars of family values in the eyes of some non-elites than divorcees who have multiple children — a category that includes Matteo Salvini, the leader of Italy’s far-right League party, and Marine Le Pen, of France’s National Rally party, as well as Donald Trump."
3
Hogwash. I live in a primarily rural state where the median income is about 40k and Trump is hated and disdained here.
4
Enough with the "nuanced values" of the media's newly discovered working class. Trump's supporters will stand by him regardless of what he says or does until he divorces Melania to marry a Black man.
3
Another essay trying to explain to the rest of us how the low-information, Fauxed down, 45 voter thinks and feels. I think by now we've all pretty much figured it out -- it has nothing whatsoever to do with family values and/or economic anxiety and has everything to do with racism, misogyny, bigot, and hate. I think we can stop with this meaningless opinion pieces now.
6
Painting groups of people with these broad strokes is reductive and, to put it bluntly, silly. Calling New Yorkers “elites” and intimating that Nebraskans are therefore “not elite” is helpful to no one. There are many, many New Yorkers who would not be termed “elite” because of, “in a word, class,” who might espouse these “purple” values. Can we please move on beyond these simplistic categories??
3
While some praise Trump for the way he treats his children, they may want to look closely at Oval Office photos that show he has only two photos on the credenza behind his desk. They are old b&w face shots of his mother and father. There are none of Melania, his children, or grandchildren. Compare that to Obama and W who highlighted family where they could see them every day. When was the last time we saw him enjoy his whole family on vacation as HW did? He prefers his acolytes at Mar-a-Lago.
5
we already know this: people will support the most vile and despicable person on earth if, for them, their viewpoints are demonstrated to be complete, accurate, and virtuous. That is Republicans, right now, as they support their Trump.
3
The author is a senior editor for First Things, an organization dedicated to overturning Roe v Wade. The nyt should be much more transparent about these affiliations. And, in general, the stats are presented in a way that is highly debatable.
https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2018/06/from-the-editors...
8
Oh please. We're supposed to believe that Trump's support rests on matters such as Angela Merkel's childlessness? I'd love to see the survey that shows that they--or most Americans (including me)--know such details about the personal lives of foreign leaders.
This entire piece rests on similar unsubstantiated assertions and shoddy logic. Not worthy of the NYT.
3
In 1996, Nebraska voted for Dole (no kids) over Clinton (kids, and a philanderer) by a margin of 54% to 35%. Had they not developed those special "purple" family values yet? Oh, look, Nebraska has supported the Republican over the Democrat by 15-30 points in *every* recent Presidential election. Maybe they supported Trump over Hillary by 25% because that's what they always do. How does "political analysis" this vapid and lame end up in the NYT?
4
the plural of anecdotes is not data. the midwest has staffed its packing plants and slaughterhouses with undocumented migrants for decades, with the worst safety records in generations and the exploitation of people who have no path to appeal
this considers none of that
shorter: white racists like trump, everyone else rejects him
5
Well, I'm a coastal elite living in a deep red zone, and, compared to Trump's racism, reflexive cruelty, inveterate corruption, admission of sexual predation, pathological lying, weaponized ignorance, sociopathic narcissism, and autocratic aspirations, I too would rank his serial adultery as a lesser concern.
8
I didn't know that mocking a disabled person, cruelly imitating his physical limitation in front of thousands of people, was a purple family value.
Now that you've cleared that up I feel much more kindly toward the 63 million people who voted for this abomination.
4
Socio-babble about family value chromatics is just a smoke screen. The support for the Separator-In-Chief was and is not based on family "models" or class, and geography is only a correlate. It's racism. Those who are drawn by racism or who are very comfortable with it support Trump. Those who oppose or who are at least uncomfortable with racism, oppose Trump.
For more insight into the agenda of the author, I encourage my fellow readers to google "First Things". The first page of the first hit is all you need to recognize the intellectual duplicity at work here.
3
I'd like to second Susan Jacks' comment: My family were not wealthy, nor am I wealthy now. I went to public school and worked from the age of 17. I read and keep abreast of the news. I vote. I have health care & am too old ever to need an abortion; still, I care deeply about these liberal causes. But I can't care more than the people who stand to benefit from them, and who will be directly hurt by the conservative agenda. If they choose to support Trump and the conservative agenda, their vote cancels mine.
4
Boy can I identify with Mr. Schmitz's observation. I have a graduate degree and tend progressive, my cousin graduated high school, trends conservative and married a lot earlier. We spent a lot of time growing up together at our grandparent's Midwestern farm and share a deep respect for each other and our extended family. But the last time we talked politics I was floored by his comment that he admired Donald Trump as a family man! This really made me think because my cousin is the quintessential family man with three loving kids and lots of grandkids who spend lots of time together. Because I don't believe my cousin and I define family values very differently at all, I just assumed the comment was something he picked up on Fox news. We have a family reunion coming up in a few weeks. Maybe I'll follow up.
5
Is he an evangelical? I'm getting the sense they've been hearing this nonsense at church.
1
I respect the analysis of this piece, but it strikes me as far too simplistic to qualify tens of (or hundreds?) millions of families into a mere three categories.
2
Very interesting analysis, well-written!
1
How about asking who in Nebraska believes Obama was born in Kenya? That’s the elephant in the room in any of these scholarly articles. Funny, the old home town will be eating a lot of tofu after the tariffs. THey love him because he told them it’s ok to hate the guy cutting your grass.
6
The fact that trump is close to his weird and freaky children- doesn’t recommend him
2
Everyone in that family looks depresesed. There is no dog lIke Barney or Bo.
3
Narcissists do not have pets because they can't stand sharing the attention of bystanders. Narcissists will tolerate babies and small children only if those can be presented as extensions of themselves that they think reflect well on them.
3
People can only stand feeling like broken losers for so long. When the path “upward” seems blocked, a protective culture will eventually arise that redefines success in terms that are open to them and devalues the established routes. In this culture, higher education is denigrated (“They just look down us.”) and a “self made man” is the ideal. This fantasy of independence from a judgmental culture is exactly what Trump’s base sees in him and imagines for themselves. Same motivation that animated the average Nazi supporter. The social psychology of loss and shame goes on and on and on.
1
The author brings an "empty plate" to the table. I am surprised the NYT even considered this extremely thin rendering of a complex subject.
3
The rational people who support Trump know he is not perfect; and yes they can see his defects too. Unlike the liberal hordes who march in the street to publicly shout about their sexuality or open borders; they have the good sense to focus on the positive. Written laws are the codification of the unwritten rules that went before them. The unwritten laws and practices worked out over the last 200 years are the product of American family values. The Children who have not been exposed to family values (treat your elders with respect, protect your valuables, always defend your family, don not bring bad people into the family house, don't speak ill of your family, etc.) think of them as arbitrary. These are the ultra liberals who believe they can rationalize "a better way" (to a child) which is a self-excusatory name for his or her desires: copulate freely, never marry, do not respect, demand government support, mistrust authority and base your political choices on feelings rather than experience and do not bother to learn a trade. And become a victim in order to "get your way".
Racism, bigotry, misogyny, gluttony, avarice, mendacity and sociopathy are not family values.
Complicit.
3
By definition, no rational people support Trump, only hypocrites, racists, and dupes of the Fox News ignorati.
2
Published ideas can be easily received as authentc and true to public. It tends to be so, because ideas are published as products in a book form on the market (to be able to draw money from interested buyers). This fact as itself is very authentic. **** Today, the social media and data can promote books. Or vice versa. Publishers ask sprashable ideas to writers to write as contracts. That is not new, except the part of social media as the data source. **** This opinion piece is implicitly questioning the authenticity in the family value-ideas in the book in question. Whether or not the actual events preceded the value analysis? Red=RE. Blue=BL, (additional)Purple=PU. Those three are, yes, just typified models. Variations come into, according to a quasi-infinite number of individuals’ different circumstances. **** A female middle-aged white American (= F ), for example, has a deep sympathy and admiration for PU model, for example. How can anyone persuade her (= F) the fact that the model is presented as a sociological generic? My warning is that F, may not be able to distinguish a specifically individual case from the typified model. ***** Or, a specific is induced to the generic, as Mr. Trump is mentioned in the opinion piece. In any case, at the bottom are the data based sociological analyses. That is not new either. The current has been for the data based social science over humanities (as liberal arts). Today, even theology may become its inclusion.
I saw "Purple" in the headline and wrongly assumed that the NYT was referring to the elite class of billionaires, our American royalty, the modern-day wearers of the purple. They're "different," they're beyond us and above us.
Because, as everyone knows, royalty is allowed concessions that the rest of us aren't. Like bragging about grabbing women you-know-where, regularly engaging in Internet bullying with impunity, and playing golf while kids are separated from their parents. And, you know, being BFFs with despots and dictators.
All hail demonarchy!
1
Piffle.
Run those silly numbers with race as the variable.
Dishonest. Corrupt. Smug.
4
This story embodies the Soviet Russian term "vranyo" as a very special kind of lie that you and your intended target audience both know is a big fat lie, but both wish to believe.
What I cannot believe is that the New York Times just published this fantasy tale as opinion, when it's little more than religious hypocrisy lit on fire to make a smokescreen amongst the stupid people Donald Trump loves.
7
I'm sure if Obama had had the same cavalier, misogynistic attitude, treating women as sex objects - particularly white women - all those Southern Baptists would have been just fine with it.
4
Nebraska, that bastion of corn and conservatism. Who gives a rodents rear end what the norm is there? They don't speak for anyone except for themselves. From their flat, dry,cloistered little land-locked state, they have proven to over the years to be incapable of rising above their insular existence.. . The expression used to be that Republicans would rather vote for a dog than a Democrat; this time they chose a Rat. Spare me the social analytics. Hillary snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.
2
I'm going to go out on limb here and suggest that these mythical purple families comprised of people of color do not support Trump's racist agenda. Honestly, this op-ed piece does not withstand scrutiny. Long on style, short on logic. C . Please revise and resubmit for revised grade.
3
He’s an unabashed racist and misogynist. Wielding power over others is his calling card and the secret of his appeal, as limited as it is.
1
Why does the @nytimes keep normalizing @realDonaldTrump, while totally missing out on the #Resist movement?
3
To classify Trump in terms of different views of family values is to leave out every significant factor that contributes to how he must be viewed: his brutalitarianism, his arrogance, his bigotry, his dishonesty, his constant mendaciousness, ... And in exactly what way has he ever shown anybody that he is a good father at all? All I've ever heard is that he once said he found his daughter sexually attractive.
3
Just stop it. Tired of these trite excuses for folks who really don't have any values except their racism. This is valued over decency a la their acceptance of all of the corruption in the White House by Trump's family, e.g., violations of the emoluments clause, sexism, bigotry, Trumps payoffs to porn stars, his payments for at least 19 abortions and his cozy relationship with Russia and gangsters.
Also, the columnist didn't discuss Nebraskans/Purple value folks de facto support for White Supremacy and groups like Alt Right, Neo-Nazis and KKK in the Trump camp. No more excuses for these horrible Rosanne Barr types. This is another attempt to normalize the abnormal.
9
Where did you hear about payments for 19 abortions? I suspect that is true but would like to see evidence or a source cited. I have always thought the phone calls that Michael "the fixer" Cohen recorded might have some pretty callous remarks about abortion in Trump's own voice but I'm not sure even that would change the minds of the true believers.
It was discussed on either CNN or MSNBC with the author of the Fire and Fury book concerning Trump. He has used Michael Cohen to facilitate these abortions.
Make America Grovel Again.... sadists love to watch people grovel...
2
Wow, what a long, drawn out way of working around the real issue that your hometown in Nebraska is full of uneducated fools who are ready to be conned. I just can't imaging the amount of mental gymnastics it took to come up with this apologia for self-destructive behavior as if it were some kind of philosophy. I am sure the author could come up with a nice way to explain his hometown's racism too. Basically, "purple" must be his term for stupid, malleable or gullible, since the author doesn't seem to think his old friends intend to be hypocritical or like being taken for fools.
6
This author is the mother of all navel gazers, parsing reasons Trump "won".
Trump won because his opponent practiced political suicide.
She disgustingly used "marriage" as a political tool and with her business partner amassed a fortune in the name of philanthropy, took x millions from banksters and ignored and/or shamed historic democrats which is where the winning votes were.
Trump voters I speak to find him disgusting, but less so than the haughty sacrosanct losing democratic model of the past 3 decades.
Winning the American vote is not complex. An idiot did it.
1
What this tells me is that authoritartian followers will grab onto anything to confirm their belief that the autocrat is their good dad.
What "good dad" rips already traumatized babies and children from their parents and puts them in cages???
4
If you are curious to know what is happening in the country right now, go to youtube and type "walkaway" in the search bar.
You will find dozens and dozens of videos from all kinds of people, gay/straight/trans/, black, white, Latino/Asian etc. from men and women, all explaining why the hatred of the left is making them leave the Democratic party.
Go to twitter and search on the hash tag #walkaway.
You will see Americans rejecting hate. Lifetime Democrats are leaving the party that tries to win political debates by screaming homophobe, racist, and idiot at the other side.
When the D's (and the NY Times columnists) compared the unjust and cruel border policy to the wholesale murder of millions in Nazi Germany, they lost me for good.
Trying to win an argument by comparing those two things is disgusting and either a bad faith attempt to manipulate or an outright denial of what really happened.
1
You are making this up as you go along. "Walkaway"? How about walking away from Trump's Twitter feed?
3
I DID go to Twitter and type in #walkaway in the search box. The number of Tweets were pathetically few, maybe one or two a day, sometimes days between a #walkaway Tweet. It doesn't appear to be a viable movement. *** In a brief scan, I saw NO videos. They must be buried down to the timeline from months ago. *** Nice try - you're about as convincing as the author of this article.
3
And Hillary will win in a landslide, right?
Stop looking for rational reasons and making excuses for mindless, ignorant people.
8
Oh please. Red families, my foot. Your Nebraska friends are just rationalizing their love of a nativist, jingoist, white nationalist who trumpets are three.
6
First of all, who really cares. Just keep out of other people business my grandma use to tell me, mind your own. Working class people-the working poor, have too much to worry about as it is, they have to pay the rent/mortgage which at the present time is eating up two paychecks a month, then they have to pay the food bill which is constantly rising though the paycheck isn't. the Car note, gasoline, the utility bill, phone bill, cable bill, and what if the kids need new clothes, you add it all up together and you cant save a dime, not one thin dime, and thats with you and the wife going to work day after day, and doing everything they told you that you were suppose to do to "Live the American dream." And you want me to worry about If Donald Trump slept with a porn star?
No, just don't vote for him again.
3
Oh come on, these people are simply making excuses for Trump ... the fact is they wanted a racist, bigot and they got one ... they are more than willing to support an adulterer and serial liar as long as they get a racist, bigot ... the man consorted with porn stars, doesn’t pay his taxes, cheated on all his wives and praises dictators like Putin . He has no redeeming qualities - but for some being a racist and a bigot washes away all his other sins .
8
a never ending plethora of gibberish trying to explain away racism. will we ever tire of this nonsense?
6
Written by a man so. . . . but really? What a white wash of trumpism. No mention of the hypocrisy, brutality or coercion he exhibits as a spouse and parent. No thanks NYt
4
Almost well written enough to gloss over the obvious superficiality of this opinion piece. Really, NYT....get your subeditors back. You must be overworked to let something like this pass as anything more than a deflection to the depth of emotional manipulation that Trump supporters get fed by Fox News, Shock Jock pundits, the President, his cabinet and his Super Elite family members.
3
Trump is a lair.
Fox News is 24hr Trump propaganda. Fox is the most one sided 'news' entity in the history of the country.
The Trump "can do no wrong" cult in America is a disease.
8
This is easily a new low for the NY Times in extremely bad journalism, moral relativism, and being apologists for the Trump Crime Family. Unbelievable.
7
GOT IT. So if you don't see through Trump's staggering hypocrisy, corruption and criminality--not to mention his fascism and seething bigotry, it's because you're a coastal elite who doesn't understand normal folk in Nebraska, and shame on us.
I'm tired of being told I'm supposed to "respect" people's ignorance and delusion--not to mention hypocrisy--or else I'm an elitist.
The NYT can't seem to go a week without printing one of these "We just don't understand real America!" apologists pieces.
7
I would love to intelligently argue this opinion, but there simply is not any intelligence here. This writer wants to sell you a product, but his only sales tool is diversion. It certainly isn’t facts or logic.
It isn’t “class” that Trump sells, it’s racism, xenophobia and jingoism. Just like every other fascist dictator does. Hey, Franco got the Catholic Church to approve of mass murder against leftists. So being religious isn’t always in conflict with fascism.
See, there is a better argument for your murderous website, dude.
3
I wonder if there was ever a piece written like this one at the beginning of Hitler's reign. Seriously, this piece is nothing more than trying to excuse those who believe in hatred, racism, divisiveness, misogyny, greed, deceit, corruption and adultery. There is no excuse for anyone embracing the magnitude of evil that is Donald Trump - none.
6
OK, let's flip the script here. Suppose it had been President Obama who cheated on his wife and bragged about grabbing a woman by her bleep? Do you think these "purple" families would forgive him? Would they say, "Oh, it's no problem. As long as he loves his kids."
You know and I know there is no way on God's green earth that would happen. The same blue-collar conservatives who support Trump would have fallen all over themselves demonizing Obama. So would all of Trump's evangelical apologists.
I don't care what the studies say. It all comes down to politics and tribalism.
5
Wow. Just when you think the NYT can’t go any lower in its pathetic attempt to normalize the Bully-in-Chief, here we go again. There is no standard by which Trump can be argued to exhibit family values. He has cheated with scores of women whom he had to pay off to keep silent (Stormy Daniels), he has been divorced twice and is on his third marriage, he physically assaulted his first wife, and he expressed lustful thoughts about his first daughter.
What family values? Shame on the NYT for continuing to publish fluff pieces for a man who is tearing migrant families apart at our Southern border.
8
What about people who believed, correctly, that he's a white supremacist and a soulless monster who hates women and isn't loyal to this country?
6
It's simply the worst in journalism when someone defines some arbitrary trends or categories, then makes up 500 words (or a whole book) explaining the details of their brain fart. These categories don't exist. I don't doubt that you can find a family here or there that represents these view points, but there is simply no real basis for this entire discussion.
It's much easier to postulate that people in Nebraska or whoever represent your pro-Trump types just think Trump is on their side and are happy to overlook all the bad stuff. There's really no cultural conversion to have.
Honestly, this just reads like you needed a thesis. I'm sorry to be such a jerk about it.
3
This writer doesn't seem to have met blue families with children.
2
This is more right wing garbage. Schmitz knows nothing about families of color and completely ignores history.
3
So many working class americans go through the million dollar divorces, star in soft porn films, and spend half their lives at Playboy mansion parties - although they leave those early, usually, in order to get to work bright and early at the steel mill.
The nyt is really searching for those Dark Web intellectuals and has surely found one here. I can see him podcasting with the master, Jordan Peterson. A match made in heaven!
3
Another simplistic piece of sophistry from first things the neoconservative religious journal.
4
Purple? As in the purple bruises from a man with a restraining order? What a piece of unadulterated garbage.
3
Mr. Trump is first and foremost subordinate to the dominant idea of male virility. He is not the author of virility but one of its minor characters. No man is, and there's the rub. Men serve the image, they do not dominate it. What makes Trump attractive to his Nebraskan and New York fans is that he is in crisis and he is singing the Swan Song of male virility. Your Purple People feel sorry for him and for themselves and project their self-pity on the most pathetic example of a dottering old man who has no future and whose idea of the past is a fantasy.
1
Mr. Schmitz gets an A for apologist.
5
I'm so tired of NYTs pieces which try to nail down what the Trump supporter thinks and feels as opposed to the non-Trump supporter. It is filler and has been done repeatedly in the last 18 months. It is lazy journalism. Please. Move on! Nothing to see here, just leftover scraps.
3
Short and simple. The difference is not class — because I know wealthy Dallas men who support “him.” Sadly 33% (1/3!!!) of our country is dumb, uneducated, stupid, illiterate OR racist. Sad!!!!! Depressing.
3
In the annals of pieces the NYT publishes to insult the intelligence, not to mention the sensibilities of its readers, this piece is epic.
We are not elite. We went to real schools, real colleges and live real lives. We are OFFENDED by Trump and his thuggiish minions. They have no values, they have anti-values. And we find it offensive that people who call themselves Christians are so blinded by the way he is packing the juduciary with ideologues they think they like (they won't like the plutocratic stuff they uphold), they ignore the fact that Trump and his whole family are corrupt, racist grifters using the high office to which Putin selected him for profit.
Please, no more of this nonsense in the NYT. Please.
3
This is ridiculous. NY Times, can you at least screen your opinion writers posing as experts to see if they actually have expertise on the thing they're talking about? This guy has an English undergrad degree. He's not a sociologist.
4
Pretty funny coming from a guy who thinks Pope Francis is too big a lib.
https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/distinctly-catholic/first-things-...
~
3
Donald Trump is a racist and that is the overriding value that draws his base. They forgive all else because he treats black and brown people as they wish they could. It is the trait that most repels the Left!
6
so, basically what article says is that Trump voters (the majority of which are men) are OK w/impregnating a woman and then abandoning her. May kinda work if man is rich enough to provide generous child support, but isn't this exactly the behavior that, republicans have been telling us for decades, leads to terrible outcomes for children, esp. when the men in question are working or middle class and can't provide such support?
3
Interesting thesis, but again, painting all of us with a wide brush. The “elites” in New York don’t know anyone with a baby out of wedlock? Please. What about all these rich ladies having IVF? President Macron as a paragon of family values? Well, he is now, but the back story is that he met a beautiful, accomplished, smart, rich woman many years ago and basically stole her from her husband. We are all too complex for even a three category color system.
2
Inexplicable to me how an immoral and selfish man with multiple wives, affairs, bankruptcies and disregard for his fellow man, could be held out as some savior. So disappointed with people who I thought were values based.
5
for what it's worth, Gorsuch is a member of the conservative branch of the Episcopal Church.
3
"subject to a restraining order" is not a normal measure-it shows that no matter the underlying situation, someone isn't handling themselves in a way that is civilized, and clearly not the way children should learn from parents....
Most #45 supporters have been ignored for so long they'll jump to anyone who said the right things. That woman in the ghetto who has nothing going her way will listen to the sweet talk of a guy with one interest only, who will be gone once he gets what he wants, and will do nothing for the woman later, is the exact analogy to the Trump Voter. I'm always amazed how every regulation un-done is to protect the people...you know, the powerless people.....who are protected by this very regulation.
2
Insightful article. But I suggest that there's a fair amount of infidelity among the "elites," whether red or blue.
Oh, please. The same who overlook Trump's infidelity and misogyny are the same voters who loathed Obama because he was "uppity." It's about race.
7
How does this alleged behavior on Donald J. Trump's part square with the "purple" family model? http://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/miami-dj-says-he-watched-donald-trump-...
2
Red, blue, purple - meaningless distinctions - as Mr. Schmitz connects these silly, politically-tainted colors to a multidenominational religious substrate which is where the real problems and divisions grow and fester.
1
"Baffling as it may be to elites, Mr. Trump embodies a real if imperfect model of family values."
I hope there are not any NYT readers who are so genuinely out of touch with the blue collar world that they will swallow this tripe. This is nonsense. Besides my own personal experience living in an area where Trump did very well in 2016, this article just defies logic. This absurd article wants us to ignore everything else. It's not Trump's fear-mongering about Muslims and "illegals" hiding their beds. It's not Trump's empty promises of jingoistic greatness and "winning" trade wars. It's not Trump's constant barrage of pleasing lies. It's not Trump actively cultivating a cult of personality, demanding loyalty pledges from everyone - from boy scouts to the FBI director. Schmitz, an editor a ultra-conservative fundamentalist Christian web site, wants to tell us it's really because blue collar Americans share Trump's family values.
Operating under Schmitz's assumptions, single mothers should dominate politics in Trump's America. And why is acceptance of Trump's estrangement from wives and closeness with his (kleptocratic) kids uniquely blue collar? Does Schmitz think that lawyers and doctors don't divorce? Does Schmitz think there aren't educated professionals today who aren't children of divorces and accept it as normal?
NYT, stop running nonsense thinkpieces and social pseudo-science. Use your Opinion pages for real research and informed opinions.
4
He’s consorted with hundreds if not thousands of women and still hasn’t sued the women he promised to sue for falsely claiming he molested them.
Why not?
Because the odds of him never having been involved in an abortion must be close to zero and his Fundamentalist supporters know this.
Yet they continue to lovingly support him.
Why?
Because as hypocrites, they rank just as high as he does.
7
A picture says a thousand words: The future has been taken hostage.
If the Times has to publish drivel like this to give Trump supporters a voice, it just shows how totally bogus their view of the world is. The tortured logic, the absurd claims ("The people I know in Nebraska have the same moral views as my religious acquaintances in New York.") Wake up, Mr. Schmitz, and smell the hypocrisy.
3
I don't think I know what the point of this article is, except to be the opinion page version of "man bites dog." Or is this a cute way of calling Trump's supporters "white trash" without using that offensive epithet? But if we are to buy the logic of this article, then this is one more way that the lowest common denominator of the public has pulled the highest office in the land down to its own level.
3
It's exhausting to listen to the unending excuses for Trump supporters pouring out of some camps: the urban liberal elite "don't get" rural red state voters; Hillbilly Elergy says Trump supporters are just well meaning and misunderstood patriots; someone from the WSJ said red state families raise their children "naturally" and take better care of their neighbors.
This guy has decided Trump supporters are "more nuanced" than people who um, prefer Democracy.
Trump's children are "respectful" and his daughters "successful."
Well I guess that about sums it all up! Rational, fair minded liberals who aren't raging racists just aren't as smart or good as these simple country folk!
In the meantime the Trumps grow richer day by day.
Huh!
6
So now conservatives are embracing moral relativism, which they once railed against, because it allows them to cozy up to Donald Trump and pretend that they haven't sullied every value they've claimed to embody for the past three decades.
Sorry. Not buying it. This is certainly not social science, and it's shoddy journalism. And the NYT should have higher standards than to publish such drivel.
3
I wonder how many would forgive a woman her infidelities and indifference to her children. I always hear the "Purple" folks saying, he's such a good family man. Do you think Trump raised one of his children? Changed a diaper, stayed up all night with a sick son? Played a single game of anything with any one of his five children? He barely notes that he has a daughter, Tiffany. I guess they figure he's too busy making money and that's okay. It's so easy to justify anything with Trump.
5
Mr. Schmidt,
I question your intents, honest; your pretense of innocence, and insincerity in argument. I expect to see this article in hard right rag funded by some deep pocketed nut; not in NYT (a paper I revere, but what on earth . . . is this?).
There is overwhelming evidence that Trump has inordinate support among rural, white, working and middle class and religious people because of one clear reason: they know that changing demographics (browns and blacks) are hurting them socially and economically - and for good reason; and their politicians used them to line their pockets and little else. They are hurt socially (loss of status and social entitlement to lynch, grab); economically (other demographics often outwork, out-think, and succumb less often to drugs, debt, broken families, and a culture of entitlement).
The dread coupled with the fomentation of pure hate by a combination of AM radio, Fox, and church - explains Trump.
What two years of Trump, and the recent call for "civility" have made clear to us, and to the world is that if you are a republican today, and sanguine about Trump (and will vote for him again), you may not carry your robe and cross in public, but you surely have one in a closet. No amount of schmaltz from you could hide that. What we have here is a cruel, inhuman criminal engaged in a money grab, having sold his soul to the bidders (including Russians), and loved by his minions; and you seem to be one of them.
3
“Nuanced” is not the right word. It’s a euphemism. “Hypocrisy” is the only word applicable. This column is nonsense.
5
The author's wirting is full of innuendos and troubling labels, and has little merit but to instigate and to continue to separate. He states, "A third model can be found among working-class whites, blacks and Hispanics — let’s call it purple. In these families, bonds between mothers and children are prized above those between couples. Unstable relationships are the norm, and fathers quickly end up out of the picture." You sir are a part of the problem. Your opinion lacks credence and is limited. Limited thinking is what has gotten our country into the trouble we are in.
4
Yesterday, I submitted a lengthy comment, criticizing and challenging Matthew Schmitz's concept of "Purple Families"as a disingenuous out-of-context construct that does not appear in the book he cites. There are a number of reviews on the book he sites; Schmitz seems to be the first to apply this family construct. The authors acknowledge their research is primarily on White Americans but do not engage in lumping blacks as a new (and separate) family dynamic.
"Purple Haze" by Clare Huntington Fordham University School of Law , 109 MICH. L. REV. 903 (2011) (reviewing Naomi Cahn & June Carbone, Red Families v. Blue Families: Legal Polarization and the Creation of Culture) doesn't coin the term as a third family construct comprised of blacks and poor whites.
The New York Times' own David Leonhardt wrote a 2015 piece;
"Red vs. Blue America on Marriage" ( David Leonhardt
June 12, 2015-( www.newyorktimes.com) referencing the same book.
Schmitz's weak attempt to extrapolate a very complex political; social/economic dynamic and reduce to comport with a simplistic notion of why certain people are "Trump" people and others are not, is faulty and sloppy.
1
sexism and infidelity? Who cares? How about lying to the people of the country. Constantly. How about denigrating in insulting language good and famous people just to satisfy your need to let them know you have no respect or regard for them regardless of what they've done? How about spitting in the faces of long time friends and allies like England and France and others? How about telling us Putin and Kim Jong Un are wonderful people when we and the whole world know them for the vicious and cruel dictators they really are? How about lining your pockets using the office of the presidency to for profit? How about....never mind, there's just too much. And if you Evangelicals out there think that Trump has even the tiniest molecule of religious faith in him you need to find another line of work because you are defrauding your followers by allowing them to believe you're intelligent.
5
The author is a senior editor at First Things which bills itself as “AMERICA'S MOST INFLUENTIAL JOURNAL OF RELIGION AND
PUBLIC LIFE”. Consider me not interested in this opinion.
3
Religion and public life should be two totally separate subjects. The fact that the author espouses the opposite is extremely worrisome in today's America.
2
When we look at those 'religious' folks supporting the unsupportable, Donald J. Trump, hypocrisy and ignorance come to mind, certainly well exploited by our ugly American in-chief, Machiavellian to the bitter end. To our loss. These are awful times for a democracy, trampled by a merciless thug in the Oval Office, unrestrained by a complicit G.O.P. , a laughingstock for the world to see, feel, and suffer.
5
There's nothing nuanced about racism and stupidity. Please stop looking for and making excuses for these people. Anyone who can still support Trump after watching children being forcibly removed from their parents doesn't deserve your sympathy or understanding.
5
Drinking the GRAPE Koolaid as it were. God help us all.
2
I find it astounding that Trump supporters are always whining that they are being mistreated and misunderstood.
When you make foolish, irrational, bigoted and racist choices that are not based on facts or reality you deserve to be criticized.
When someone calls a cat a dog, they are the ones that are delusional, not those that criticize that form of ignorance.
7
Are we really doing this? They like the racism, that’s all.
7
There's a subtext here, I think unintentional, that belies "more of the same" fundamental lack of understanding of the DJT moment. Something like "by gosh I've figured it out, it's all those uneducated poor idiots who elected Trump!". In a guise of pseudo-science, we have an anecdotal classification scheme: educated (bc wealth and education intersect to form class) conservatives who look down on Trump... educated liberals who look down on Trump.. and behold... uneducated poor who support him because there own lives are so messed up they can relate! It's a fundamentally insulting and demeaning viewpoint... and the liberal class has never been accused of that!... and ignores a lot of voters who are poor/ uneducated and didn't support Trump. I would say, at best, back to the drawing board and try again when attempting to decode the Reality.
This is one of the most idiotic things I've read in a while and I've read the Orange ones Twitter feed, so that is saying something. Don't normalize this mans behavior by comparing to hard working Americans who have been duped by a con man. Any snake oil salesman can charm you with whatever he's selling at the time by acting like he relates to your values but take his mask off and out jumps the wolf. This kind of fluff piece belongs on state media!
3
This is post-hoc rightwing idiocy that is trying to smooth over the hypocrisy of those spouting "family values" when convenient. Ignore Schmitz, as he is not a reliable narrator.
3
Horsefeathers, combined with the incredibly soft bigotry of low expectations. Am I the only American who grew up in a red town and who is not making excuses for racist, sexist, nativist trash? This is really a ridiculous genre that seems to be all the rage among those who’ve either never before met a Trump voter, or who skin in the game of excusing the indefensible.
4
Only one "family" bears any resemblance to Trump and his entourage - the Mafia crime family.
Any other use of the word "family" in connection with the Trump business organization and the Trump presidential administration is a travesty.
5
So now a value system that would readily accept "someone who has had a child out of wedlock or is subject to a restraining order" as our president is a value system we want to live by? Spare me
4
“The people I know in Nebraska have the same moral views as my religious acquaintances in New York, yet they had a totally different view of Mr. Trump as a standard-bearer for family values. What made the difference? In a word, class.“
No. What made the difference is the Nebraskans were Republicans, so they voted for Trump, and now they have to rationalize that vote.
I can’t believe NYT published this twaddle.
4
"Baffling" to "elites?" What a bunch of nonsense. Viewing infidelity, divorce, absentee parenting, sexual innunedo toward your own children, and setting a parental example of lying and cheating as abhorent doesn't require an iota of "elitism." Just an ounce of sense and decency.
8
Lots of theorizing and explaining, while skirting the real issue. The self proclaimed King of the birthers, the kidnapper of Children, the bought and paid off lackey of the super Rich was, is, and will always be the BEST, more well known and celebrated RACIST in the USA. Forget all the talk about class, religion or education. Not all Republicans are Racists, BUT all Racists vote Republican. Religion is the opiate of the masses, but Racism is the crack cocaine. Or methamphetamine , pick your poison.
Seriously.
5
"family values"?
and you're talking about the criminal in the White House?!
You. Can. Not. Be. Serious.
6
"His closeness to his children" is by far the most laughable line in this piece, and most of these lines are laughable.
6
The author and NYT carelessly and recklessly normalize Trump's Infidelities, womanizing, and treatment of women without acknowledging that he faces multiple credible allegations of sexual assault. My liberal professional friends and I decry his sexist behavior AND the serious allegations against him. You and the folks in Nebraska should do the same.
4
This is not true. I live in an upper middle class suburb of Richmond, VA and I would say at least 2/3rds to 3/4ths of my neighbors voted for Trump. I cannot be sure, but I know for a fact that several of my neighbors did because we discussed it before the election. These are religious Christian people. They have multiple degrees. They are not hurting financially. Their reasoning was that they hated Hilary, but they always voted Republican. Personally, I think they simply put aside their distaste for Trump so Republicans could stack the Supreme Court, which is what’s happening now. They were willing to vote for someone who was morally repugnant (and they knew it) to advance Republican agendas. And it’s worked—hasn’t it? I’ve been struggling lately with whether or not to continue being friendly with neighbors who continue to support Trump. It seems easy to say “no” but it’s hard to reconcile my nice, kind neighbors with the president and his policies that they support, either overtly or tacitly. And yet I’m Jewish, and I think of what it must have been like for Jews in Germany to see neighbors they had lived next to for years supporting Hitler. I disliked Republican presidents for years, but it didn’t stop me from being friendly with Republicans. But this is different. This man is not qualified to be president. The amount of power he wields carelessly terrifies me. If there’s one positive thing from this, it’s that I have to be an activist, and if I feel that way, others do.
7
Me thinks you generalize too much.
3
An interesting question to ask Purple Families is what their opinions would be about a woman who had 5 children with 3 difference men. M, Deffebach
3
How many articles, op-Ed’s, columns, stories do we have to be told to justify this cretin. And since when have rich white evangelicals chastised him no where I have seen. Stop this idiocy and attempts and justification.
Rich and poor black evangelicals didn’t fall for the con. Rich and poor black folks who live in red states didn’t fall for the con. You know what might be interesting for a change is contrasting these two groups and determining what the deciding factor is as to which the African American community didn’t fall for the con and family values mantra(something those white red state folks seem to attack African American for). What could it possibly be. Nope you don’t want to touch that because god forbid the term “racism”might have to raise its ugly head
It’s amazing the lengths all of you goto to try and justify what is in plain sight to all of us. A world gone by and resentment.
6
Nebraska residents believe Trump is a good father??!! Ivanka cannot be trusted to do anything except rake in money from this administration, D Jr shoots animals, Eric runs T assets to make $$ while Dad is President, and T apparently never pays attention to Barron. That leaves Tiffany as the only civilized child, for which she had her mother to thank.
Nebraskans are entitled to their opinions about serial adulterers and the role model that behavior sets, of course, but that attitude says far more about them than Trump, it would seem!!
4
Oh, how I relish another lecture on elitism from a Princeton grad who writes about Met Operas and publishes disquisitions quoting Francis Fukuyama.
Surely this Schmitz fellow has his finger firmly on the pulse of working class people in Akron, OH or ranchers in Nebraska, and how they view morality in more flexible terms to accommodate Mr. Trumps many well publicized philanderings.
Delicious. But too much Onion for me.
5
not sure I get this one.......
1
Where to start? At first I assumed this was satire.
A thrice divorced man who cheated on all three wives, with porn stars no less. A man with multiple pending charges of sexual assault, who has boasted publicly of grabbing women by the genitals. A man who lies daily to the American people, who boasts about not paying taxes and refuses to disclose his tax returns. A bully who has mocked the disabled, war heroes, and gold star families. Not my family values, and not, as polls show. the values of the majority of Americans. This is a sorry attempt to ‘normalize’ Trump by claiming a billionaire shares the same idea of family as the poor American ((Hispanic or Black) worker. And we should all get on board the Trump train because, hey, the far right leaders in Europe are just like Don the Con. No thanks, I know the values my family shares and divorces and restraining orders aren’t part of it.
5
This is an interesting take, but if Michelle Obama had posed nude for lesbian erotica and Barack had five children from three different mothers, I’m not sure Trump supporters would be so forgiving. I remember the outcry when Michelle wore a sleeveless dress, for heaven’s sakes.
4
“A Robert Novak Journalism Fellow.”
Thanks for the early morning belly laugh.
6
This article falls way short. Trump is not just a sexist, he is a sexual predator, someone who proudly admits to sexual assault.
Why is this article silent on this? That Evangelicals maintain support for him despite this points to some darkness I certainly don't understand.
It seems cowardly that the article didn't call Trump what he is.
6
I'm sorry. I don't care what class you hail from. Blatant racism, the childish demeaning of opponents, the overt cruelty of policies should be intolerable across the spectrum. Unless of course it's aimed at people of color. So tired of these analyses that seek to give legitimate intellectual space for Trump supporters to nurse their bigotry.
6
At least conservatives are honest about their feeling towards Trump's personal life and their support for his agenda. Contrast that with the hypocritical lefties who tried to gaslight us when Bill Clinton was on the sexual prowl, which including harassment, alleged rape and other sordid acts.
"They were impressed by his “respectful” sons and admired the success of his daughters."
Why "respectful" (in quotation marks) Mr. Schmitz. Are Mr. Trump's sons not respectful to him? Perhaps you meant respected, but that is something else. You should should not let your prejudice effect your writing.
1
So the people of Nebraska, then, are monsters. Strange.
3
The "family values" voters are frauds who vote against their interests. Could they be any dumber?
Underneath the Norman Rockwell images are savages without thoughts in their heads. They would rip off their grandmothers for an extra dime, then forgive themselves at church the next day.
5
You are dead wrong. A better explanation would be the banality of evil found among Nazis and Soviets.
It is a very common garden variety of weed. It grows every where.
Your relatives like mine in Kentucky are simply exhibiting it.
Americans are not special.
5
This is way over thinking, how about this? Hillary was a terrible candidate and everybody was sick to death of the Bush's and Clinton's.
1
This piece is all rationalization for so-called evangelicals. Trump’s followers like his racism, mean spiritedness, and vulgar language. They don’t care about his lying, misogyny, and obvious corruption.
These Trump followers just make up excuses for him. Trump could declare himself Satan and his evangelical followers would continue to love him.
3
The author appears to have no research, no facts and no real interest in 'families' but a keen interest in normalizing trump.
Trump's history of assualting women, cheating on his wives w/ porn stars, stealing, gaslighting and boldly lying in every breath is evidence 'family' is not a factor in his life. Indeed, his behavior, his lived experience, is antithetical to the whole notion of family.
To the editors at the Times; please stop with the destructive, desperate attempts at false equivalency. Now 'Go, and sin no more'.
3
The man is an utter boor. No class, no compassion, no kindness. He represents everything that I loathe in this life. When I hear him referred to as "the President", I cringe. A total low-life.
6
MAGA is no different from Scott Brown's Senate campaign in MA a few years back, spearheaded by the slogan, "He's one of us." The Republican enterprise is racist to the core, even here in good 'ole Yankeeville.
3
The author has a very biased agenda. Before you praise his astute sociological analysis (he’s not ine), google him.
I’m frankly surprised that the NYT would print something so patently biased. It should be labeled an infomercial for the “First Things” organization.
I canceled my longtime subscription to the NYT a few weeks back because of this growing trend to elevate “conservatives” with specious views to positions of visibility. It’s a form of pandering to appear balanced, but it’s a form of relativism that has a distinct whiff of collaboration, and it doesn’t smell good at all.
I’m moving over to The Guardian. The Tunes is print no too many pieces that would be, a decade ago, not fit to print.
4
Oops, a few iPhone typos. Sorry.
He’s not one (a sociologist)
The Times has published many pueces lately that a decade ago would not be fit to print.
1
I'm so tired of these analyses that ignore race. The working class is not all white, and this grouping of people into "purples" ignores this. Voters of color overwhelmingly disapprove of Trump, for obvious reasons. I am so disappointed in the New York Times. This is just another example of its sloppy journalism.
2
Are you referring to the family values of raping his first wife, or his behavior of all but flat-out stating that he would like to have sex with his daughter?
Or perhaps you were replying to the deeply held family value of cheating on all three wives with porn stars and Playboy models, then paying them the equivalent of multiple years of a working class salary to stay quiet?
Could you also elaborate on how restraining orders—usually obtained in cases of physical assault, stalking, or other awful behavior—are a mere difference in culture or perception? Bonus points: try to work in a mention of how important it is to keep a copy of Hitler's "Mein Kampf" on one's bedside nightstand.
There's also the 'strong family value' to discuss of Trump's referral to literal Nazi's as 'fine people,' and retweeting of literal Nazis and hashtags like "#BurnTheJews." That would make for a great follow-up editorial.
4
Their admiration for Trump makes them terrible human beings who will use any justification for their depravity.
4
Only religious hypocrites can support Mr Trump. Unless you believe his madness has been sent by God to bring about the return of the Christ you are faced with a vicious sociopath who has treated even the women in his private life with contempt and all women as potential victims of his very pedestrian desires for control and conquest: I saw, I conquered, I came. He’s no emissary unless you are among those Christians who read the Bible as a justification for slavery. And for all those Jews who support him, you must pretend that the Holocaust never happened.
4
stop over complicating. its racism pure and simple. they are hypocrites one and all. their religion is a religion of hate and intolerance. what kind of person would support a president that behaves the way this one does both before and after the election. deplorables, that's who. they disgust me and I don't need their racism explained away.
4
Look like the poor and less educated white supported Trump no matter what :-)
2
Democrats and liberals conveniently forget about Bill Clinton, Anthony Wiener, Eliot Spitzer, even the Kennedy's and Gary Hart when they bash Trump for "sexism" and lack of "family values". Typical liberal hypocrisy...
This is a very strange article. His pro Trump friends in Nebraska believe Trump is/was a good father???? Trumpf had nothing to do with his children; by his own admission he never changed a diaper or fed them; never took them to the park, watched their games or recitals, took them on kinds' vacations, had NOTHING to do with them until they started to work for him. A "good" father would NEVER humiliate his children's mother the way he has done with all three of his wives and five of the children. Perhaps these Nebraska Trump supporters support him regardless of who he is and what he does. Sort of a cult, eh?
6
I don't buy the "men are from Mars, women are from Venus argument" type of argument. If love of one's children was a sign of one's virtue then Vito Corleone would make a wonderful president.
Don Vito Corleone: You spend time with your family?
Johnny Fontane: Sure I do.
Don Vito Corleone: Good. 'Cause a man who doesn't spend time with his family can never be a real man.
It comes down to media sources and linguistics. Fox, the official Trump state news outlet, spews victimization. And the added bonus - the president talks about the perpetrators "infesting" our country the way the average drunk white guy at a bar does. It's a perfect marriage of disinformation and lack of empathy.
3
If anyone doubts that sexism played a big part in the election, just imagine Hillary Clinton on stage with her five children from three marriages -- to hunky young foreigners, yet -- and having people compliment her family values. Just incredible.
8
“Alienation from his children’s mother,” and “restraining orders.” Sounds like your purple people shrug off misogyny and domestic violence, which is not news to us non-deplorables.
3
The election of trump had nothing to do with “economic anxiety.” It’s a convenient media excuse to deflect from the racism that fueled his ascent. Many white liberals also use it to defend relatives and friends who voted for him (“my sweet mom/sister/aunt Becky for him but she’s not a bigot”).
Besides, why didn’t “economically anxious” minorities vote for him too?
His voters just wanted to “take their country back” from the uppity black man who had the nerve of getting elected president... and build wall to stop the browning of America.
“Trump won whites making less than $50,000 by 20 points, whites making $50,000 to $99,999 by 28 points, and whites making $100,000 or more by 14 points. This shows that Trump assembled a broad white coalition that ran the gamut from Joe the Dishwasher to Joe the Plumber to Joe the Banker.”
- Ta-Nehisi Coates
8
I think a) the author has a significant agenda ((check out First Things website www.firstthings.com)), and b) there is failure here to recognize propaganda and control of information as an underlying threat to democracy. Where you get your information is as important as how much you make.
6
Best piece of rationalization I've ever read! Bravo!
1
My family doesn’t fit into any of these subgroups.
1
You said it clearly but I am surprised you had the intestinal fortitude. People with class find Trump despicable. Even fiscal conservatives. People without any hint of class like him.
2
Never mind family values (red/blue/purple, Mansons or Corleones) when discerning how and why people support 45. The root question to them: what are your fears and why do you enjoy having those fears stoked by such a man? Without fear and crisis 45 has nothing to offer them.
3
Explain Barack obama and Hillary Clinton in this context. This just does not make sense. These people believe what they want to believe and see what they want to see. They all watch Fox News and they are Republicans. They shoe-horned trump into their world order because they had no alternative.
3
The thing is, Trump’s not interested in anyone’s family but his own. The very fact that people have bought his ludicrous message that he cares is so frustrating, I want to scream. I do scream, a lot. This whole presidency is a power grab. The fact that purple families see something familiar in him is heartbreaking. While they follow along behind him, waiting for his scraps, he’s laughing all the way to the bank. And taking down our democracy in his wake.
4
Your hypothetical ‘purple’ family values Trump’s closeness to his children. They choose to ignore the obvious: that ‘closeness’ is based upon his employing them & their self-interest in staying close to their ‘piggy-bank’.
6
Family values has been a myth in rural America for at least thirty years. Never mind the preachers - listen to "country" music. 50% of it is a self-pitying inability to move on from failed relationships, while blaming the other partner for one's own moral and mental disintegration. The other 50% is infidelity, drunkenness and fighting. It is, admittedly, less offensive than gangsta music - rape and murder are not celebrated, and language that used to be unacceptable to the FCC is generally not used. But family values? No. The music reflects the real values. So Trump is fine.
3
Trump's "family values" are purple, alright, as in bruised. This man's every behavior shows that he has no ethical or moral grounding and not even the veneer of civility. He is unfit for his office. And the excuse that he loves his children? They are just a reflection of himself. Grifters and law breakers, all.
3
Sure, I remember the "purple" values of the people you talk about - their purple faces as the whites from Southie screamed at the blacks integrating the Boston schools, the evangelicals cleaved in to the white and black halves of the Baptist church and others like it. Let's talk about tribalism, the xenophobic fear of everyone different. It's so easy to hate and fear immigrants in places like Kansas where you don't know any - it's a little harder carry fear of immigrants when you kid's best friend from soccer is named Mohamed.
Note that despite the NY Times every effort to portray Trumps supporters as economically stressed this is not true, polls have shown the average Trump supporter to be slightly better off than the average Democrat. The class difference you refer to is one of education and knowledge of the world - fear is easy when you know only what the fear and resentment channel at FOX "news" tells you.
6
Elite nonsense. People believe what they want to believe, and in these poorer homes with less education, less upward mobility and less stability, there is less emotional maturity. I don't say that in a judgmental way - it's just a fact that if you are in a less stable family, you're going to rely more on your instincts than your pre-frontal cortex and act out of fear and anger more often.
Fox & company keep people in a state of fear and anger, and Trump came along as the perfect "you can't tell us what to do" kind of guy to take advantage of their business model, which is all about appealing to the emotionally immature. His appeal to an immature sense of rebellion holds more water than anything.
4
I am working class, from a very red area, raised in a very red family, and I proudly voted for Hillary Clinton. A naked con artist like Trump was unthinkable. I find his sexism and racism highly disturbing, but my greatest fear lies in the danger he poses to the underpinnings of our republic itself. "And I'm frightened by those who don't see it."
4
Donald Trump's loutish sexual behavior has been on view since he he came of age.
His shady business dealings have been well documented.
His bankruptcies are a matter of record.
His lusting after publicity of any sort is the stuff of tabloids.
His tastelessness is on view in all his buildings.
His lies are easily proven.
People voted for him anyway.
All of Trump's pronouncements re the European Union, NATO, the WTO, and other alliances, are part of his toadying up to Mr. Putin, who knows about and has abetted his money-laundering. That's the real story. Trump is now in a position to give the United States to what will again be, soon enough, the Soviet Union.
3
I continue to be confused by who is a Trump supporter. Here, Mr. Schmitz says lower income. But in late March, Times contributor Roxanne Gay, writing about the show Roseanne, said: "This myth [of working class people voting for Trump] persists, but it is only a myth.Forty-one percent of voters earning less than $50,000 voted for Mr. Trump while 53 percent voted for Hillary Clinton. Forty-nine percent of voters earning between $50,000 and $100,000 voted for Mr. Trump while 47 percent voted for Mrs. Clinton. The median income of these voters was $72,000, while the median income of Hillary Clinton voters was $61,000. A significant number of middle-class and wealthy white people contributed to Trump’s election."
She sounds as confident as Mr. Schmitz in her stats -- and this is just one of the many contradictory examples I've read since Nov 2016.
The pollers and media and pundits couldn't figure this out before the election, but why does this continue to be so muddled?
I get what you are saying, but I don't think it was what made T the champion of these people. It was something else. Racism, xenophobia, white superiority? perhaps. Anger at the turn of events and a populist answer? closer perhaps. A well honed hatred of "liberals" and a loyalty to a "conservative" brand is closer still. Disdain for compromise and preference for power over adversaries? probably yes as well. All these things influenced people to vote for T. His moral failings, unethical business practices, lack of preparation were blemishes that had to be rationalized away. That is why already red voters rationalized and blue voters didn't.
3
There is a lot of interest and value in this column, but I am very disturbed by the author's decision to skate over a central moral issue that should bother a lot of people a lot more than it does. Mr. Trump has been credibly accused by numerous women of sexual harassment and assault. These acts are crimes -- abusive behaviors that change the lives of victims forever. I know he has not been convicted of anything, and I know he has successfully silenced some of his accusers. But in an era when we are finally beginning to believe women, I believe these women. Not even to acknowledge their existence is an offensive act of erasure by someone who purports to address the roots of Trump's appeal, by seriously underplaying the role of straight-up All-American misogyny.
1
After reviewing periodically, over five months, all media, I'm amazed that there is zero discussion of more than nine words on working class and middle - -class wages; the bottom 80 percent;; the top 1 and the top 9.95 percent; our 46 million hungry children; the elderly spending down their money prior to death.
So, I'm hardly going to follow "news" anymore for a well- deserved vacation from the Very Unfree press.
The difference between your educated NY friends/acquaintances and those in Nebraska is that those in NY don't make assumptions about Trump. They read and inform themselves, so they know who he really is. If your Nebraska friends/acquaintances bothered to do even a tiny bit of research, they'd learn that Trump is not, in fact, a good father. That he was an absentee father to all his children. That Don Jr. didn't speak to him for years after he divorced Ivana and Ivanka worried he might reject her and her siblings after the divorce. That he didn't want to name Don Jr after himself because, "what if he's a loser". Is that the kind of man who qualifies as a good father to your Nebraska friends? They would also appreciate that this "close" relationship has more to do with his children's reliance on him as their gravy train, sugar daddy, hand that feeds them -- which he lords over them in myriad ways -- than anything else. Do they believe Don Jr. or Eric would have any kind of high flying career outside the Trump organization? That Ivanka built her "empire" without the advantages of daddy's money and connections? That Ivanka or Tiffany earned their spots at Penn? More revealing, we know that the sole beneficiary of the trust Trump established as the fire wall in name only to his business "empire" is Trump himself. So, unlike all people of great wealth, he hasn't even established trusts to pass his wealth to his kids. So he can continue to control them, to and beyond the grave.
6
The reason "liberals" see so much hypocrisy in Trump's family situation is because the right-wing media feed their listeners a steady diet of hand-wringing over precisely those types of families. One cannot listen to Rush Limbaugh without being told how all the problems of the non-white single mother would be solved if she'd just marry and stay married. Republican congressmen, in an effort to "prove" this, continue to cut back on anti-poverty programs that serve those women and their children under the guise that less government money will force them to stay in marriages, no matter how satisfactory they are (or whether the men actually provide).
Anyone paying attention to Congress' treatment of alimony in last year's tax bill also understands it was a punishment for divorce. That punishment will most surely fall primarily upon women, since they receive 98% of all alimony paid and will now most likely receive less alimony because of the unfavorable tax treatment of said alimony.
Clearly Republicans are doing everything in their power to entice people to either get married or stay married. So yeah, it's difficult to square the circle Republicans draw around the "family values" that obviously exempt their dear leader.
2
I would never marry a man (and would discourage my children and grandchildren from marrying someone) who was a proven serial adulterer, serial liar, had no respect for the law, had no respect for people, routinely insulted others, failed to keep his word, stiffed his workers, and created his own reality. In fact, I wouldn’t let such a person in the front door. Such an individual would have a highly flawed moral character and need psychological help. What type of person would want such an individual in the White House? What kind of leadership could such a person provide? What type of role model would such a person exemplify?
5
Here is factor to be considered: Trump supporters can see no wrong in the man, because their thinking is: as long as it's not Hillary, anything os OK.
5
Except that those who overlook and tolerate Trump's immorality will happily criticize the same in someone of a different political belief (they STILL to this day complain about Clinton's infidelity). It's a value system based on convenience with no anchoring and a complete lack of self-awareness of the hypocrisy of it all.
4
Fine. But what about his chronic lying?
3
I'm sorry to break this real news to you, old sport, but Trump supporters and "nuanced approach" should never be used in the same sentence, the same paragraph; make that, the same article, whose length taxes Trump's reading capacity, which is not saying much. Trump is the clearest case one can make for a black and white argument. One is either for or against. There is no middle ground with Trump because he has exacted a scorched-earth policy to that no man's land. And those of US who have resisted Trump from the very beginning will not waver one inch in our goal of removing him, Pence, every Republican in Congress. Trump wants a trade war, a battle raging of fake news attacking real news? Well so be it. Trump has provoked US and all who value freedom, liberty, equality. His day of judgement awaits him. Until then, our Resistance remains unwavering.
DD
Manhattan
5
I'm confused, this article purports to explain that hypocrisy is due to class? Is giving corporations a 40% tax reduction likewise a purple family value? Separating children from their parents? Deregulating the banks? Trump voters rabidly embrace whatever the Great Leader embraces. Trump calls Putin a great man, and they all line up behind him. His supporters can justify it however they may, but family values aren't really among them. Sounds closer to what the Old Testament calls "hardness of heart."
5
If you think Trump in any way "embodies a real if imperfect model of family values". Then I need to review my subscription to the Times. I'm 70 and he is the most corrupt and immoral person I've ever seen that holds or has held a high government position. I wonder what his supporters think family values are.
4
I no longer think about Trump and his “family values.” At first I thought his children were loyal and well- mannered, but now I think they’ve all been brought up to manipulate others. They’re all greedy to the nth degree, and they do the well-dressed, well-spoken schtick as part of the big manipulation performance. Remember Ivanka advertising her favorite 10 thousand dollar bangle in one of the early Trump as prez photos?
That says it all.
What I really care about are trump’s lies, his tariffs, his lack of competence and knowledge about global supply and production lines, his lack of respect for NAT0 and his very suspicious regard for Putin. His separation of children at the borders, his cruel treatment of families as LESS THAN a piece of property, his plans for WTO, on and on.
Family values of Trump? They have none - not blue, red, not purple. It’s all greed.
I only care about his affairs insofar as they reveal his money laundering and other corruption. But no wonder Melania doesn’t care.
4
This column doesn't make any sense to me. I'm an African-American child of divorce and I find nothing admirable about Trump's "closeness" to his children. (Just because you admire your children or keep them close to you, it doesn't necessarily mean that you are a good parent.) I get the argument Mr. Schmitz is trying to make, but it is hard for me to see it as anything more than another way the Times is trying to normalize his racist, xenophobic appeal by rationalizing it under the guise of alternative "family values".
5
Trump has been in office 18 months. The media covers everything he does. Have we ever seen him alone with Barron, go anywhere or do anything with him? Have we ever seen him actually do anything interactive with this boy, other than walking across the White House lawn or getting on & off Air Force One?
Does he spend any time with his son? On the one hand, from what we can see, he's not much of a father. On the other hand, maybe we ought to consider Barron extremely lucky that his father doesn't seem to be interested in him!
6
Obviously a man who disregarded his older children until they were old enough to work in his family business and who left his nephew without health insurance to pay for his late brother Fred's grandson's care as an infant diagnosed with seizures during a dispute over Trump father's will has no sense of family except as window dressing.
5
I don't care if people can relate to his family values or not. I don't even care what Trump's family situation is, although - as obvious as it is - Obama would have been crucified if he were in Trump's familial shoes. What's alarming is another article in a string of NYT articles normalizing an administration which is not normal or acceptable by any stretch. An administration that TREATS families with the utmost disrespects and even disdain. The word "values" and "Trump" should never appear in the same headline.
4
Opinion pieces like this are one of the reasons I'm canceling my subscription to the NYT. Where are the pieces covering the people who are not part of the cult of trump? I am no longer interested in why these people continue to be duped by trump. They watch Faux News, follow Breitbart, and only read the NYT to prove to themselves that MSM has it in for trump. Or, they want to hang on to their money and their status at the expense of democracy. They are afraid that "socialist" lefties are going to threaten their hegemony. So let's just stop analyzing these trump supporters and cover the people who are working hard to preserve democracy. Anyone who thinks trump or anyone in his family represents family values either doesn't understand who trump is or has a very low threshold of what family values mean. There are multiple reports of just how badly trump treated Don Jr. He has treated his wives despicably and this also reflects on how he has treated his children.
3
This is possibly the most insulting piece of drivel about Trump published to date in the Times. Decent people oppose Trump's presidency because he is a career criminal - a professional money launderer who cheats his employees and refuses to pay his creditors. The White House is just his latest scam and vanity project. He is not just a "sexist", he is an avowed assaulter of women and a creepy locker room voyeur. He encouraged violence fro the podium during his campaign - I have eight lurid instances on paper in front of me right now. Never mind that his campaign strategy is to inflame racism and manufacture crises by means of organized and repeated lying, and that he has no coherent economic or foreign policy, and the he is a credulous idolator of dictators. Whatever excuse his supporters are selling, I'm not buying. And it certainly has nothing to do with family values of any stripe or color.
4