I always wonder about cats like highness.
Like how did you get to NT, b?
I can't imagine a dude with your mentality copping kicks.
How bro?
How?
As a former conservative who joined NT, I can tell you the answer. A lot of white suburbanites love basketball and/or hip-hop. You do not have to care about social justice or why and how the unique culture of inner city America came to be. Rap and basketball and its cultural output is bright, fun and vibrant, especially if you are an adolescent from the suburbs.
There is also the fact that hip-hop is the music of those who are marginalized and those who feel marginalized. If you are a teenager or a young adult in the suburbs, you do feel at least a little unwelcome. The 'burbs are built largely for small children and grown adults. If you are between 15 to 25 in suburbia, you know that local zoning laws, noise ordinances and the general attitude of law enforcement sees your tastes and your presence as suspect and undesirable. Having a house party shut down or being barred from skateboarding at a park is not the same as what black folks suffer but when you're 15 or 16 and the police are called on you and your friends and you have done nothing, you feel like a
persona non grata in your own community, you feel, at least a little bit, like a black person and it gives hip-hop relevance.
There is also the much more straight forward explanation that lots of white guys in the suburbs watch and play basketball. You see NBA players and you want to wear what they are wearing. Some of those guys, myself included, develop an interest in those shoes and want to collect a wide variety.
As far as Donald Trump is concerned; he is, strictly speaking, not a racist, he is a xenophobe. Blaming foreigners is a politically shrewd move.
The dominant theme of this election is the fact that, in the last 30 years, GDP generally increases but the wages for most Americans have have not increased. Voters are really starting to understand how fictional the American Dream really is. The way in which candidates respond is what defines their campaigns. There are really only three categories when it comes to explaining why work rarely translate into a stable, middle class life for most Americans:
1.) It is the fault of the ruling class. Wall Street, Private equity groups, corporate raiders, cronyism, union busting, too many lobbyists and too little public sector investment is why wages are stagnant. Bernie Sanders has favored this approach.
2.) It is the fault of the masses. Workers are too lazy to get a job, blacks are lazy, young people are entitled and lazy, women are too hormonal to hold down a job, workers are not skilled enough, those who do work must work overtime. This is the position of every Republican and most Democrats as well.
3.) Foreigners are to blame. Mexicans have stolen your job, Chinese are robbing us and if we have a better negotiator, we can change all of that. That is obviously Trump's position.
By taking this third path Trump avoid offending whole swaths of voters (with the notable exception of Latinos) and he does not upset big money either. Bosses and employees are being equally screwed by nefarious foreigners according to Trump.
If Trump actually does get nominated, he could be really competitive in the Electoral College. The conventional wisdom is that someone who is so unpopular with Latinos cannot win. While the Latino voting bloc is important, its importance is amplified by two assumptions. There is a belief that 72% of the white vote is the ceiling for Republicans and there is the assumption that Republicans can never get more than 10% of the black vote.
I think that Trump could wrangle every white vote that Romney got and he could, by way of his economic populism, get even more white votes. I think he could make inroads with black voters. Finally, I think that he unpopularity with Latinos can be mitigated. Mexican Americans hate him the most and they tend to live in solidly blue California or solidly red Arizona and Texas. Meanwhile, Latinos from the West Indies, who live in Florida, often times want to be white and Donald Trump is the angry white man's candidate.
He would still have to contend with Mexican Americans in Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada but if he dominates the white vote, he may be the first Republican, in a long time, to carry States like Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. That would more than off set the loss of three relatively small South Western States.
That is just my educated guess, anyone who wants to disagree, I am curious what you think. In short, I believe that trump is able to appeal to all of the same people who Romney won but because his not quite as anti-black, anti-women, anti-labor, anti-youth, he can grab a few million more votes and thus win the 2016 General Election.