{"id":262,"date":"2016-10-25T09:56:48","date_gmt":"2016-10-25T09:56:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jbfreedman.com\/?p=262"},"modified":"2016-10-25T09:56:48","modified_gmt":"2016-10-25T09:56:48","slug":"profiles-in-america-the-unexpected-trump-voter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jbfreedman.com\/?p=262","title":{"rendered":"Profiles in America: The Unexpected Trump Voter"},"content":{"rendered":"

The gig economy may be disastrous for workers, but it\u2019s great for meeting a diverse cross-section of America. In two days of using car-sharing app Lyft in the Bay Area, each of the five drivers I met was of a different ethnicity. A small sample size, sure, but sufficient for making sweeping, unsubstantiated statements about the country.<\/p>\n

Enter Michael (name changed), a Lyft driver from San Jose. An immigrant from the east African nation of Eritrea, Michael came to the US fifteen years ago, first to study and then to work to support his family. Now he drives Lyft and travels when he can; recently, he took a trip to Northern Europe. (London is great, but he could never live there — it’s too busy). He was friendly and positive, eager to strike up a conversation about life in the Bay area and my experiences in China.<\/p>\n

Also, he\u2019s voting for Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

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\u201cTrump is a businessman,\u201d Michael said when I popped the \u201cwhat do you think of the upcoming election?\u201d question. \u201cThe Democrats had their turn to fix the economy. Trump is a businessman, so he will know how to fix the economy.\u201d<\/p>\n

On immigration, Michael had similar ideas. \u201cI don\u2019t like the way that Trump says it, but he\u2019s right on immigration.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut you\u2019re an immigrant,\u201d I replied.<\/p>\n

Legal immigration is fine, he explained, but we need to stop illegal<\/em> immigration. \u201cIf people are coming in illegally, who knows what they\u2019ll do?\u201d Donald Trump\u2019s rudeness is off-putting, Michael said, but at least Trump knows that that stopping illegal immigration is important. In Michael’s view, Trump can create more jobs, and that\u2019s the most important task.<\/p>\n

I tried to gently dissuade him from voting for Trump. I launched into a long and rambling explanation of why Trump\u2019s economic policy would not actually create jobs, and then tried to argue why he would be a terrible representative for the United States in the world. Michael listened patiently.\u00a0I talked uninterrupted for what felt like hours, wrapping together myriad different lines of argument and eventually tripping all over any semblance of a straightforward, convincing argument. \u00a0I resorted to technocratic exhortations of \u201ctrust me, I\u2019ve studied the economy.\u201d Seeing my sincere efforts to convince him fall flat, I merely asked him to reconsider his choice. He said he would think about it.<\/p>\n

As we pulled up to my destination, Michael looked at me and asked, \u201cWho do you think is going to win?\u201d<\/p>\n

All of the polls seem to say that Donald Trump had no chance. Clinton holds a consistent lead in all of the swing states, and has even closed in on Trump\u2019s lead in reliable Republican strongholds like Texas and Utah. Despite my concerns, I said, at least I felt confident knowing that Clinton\u2019s chances seemed strong.<\/p>\n

He thought about my answer for a few moments before replying. \u201cI think Trump is going to win,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The gig economy may be disastrous for workers, but it\u2019s great for meeting a diverse cross-section of America. In two days of using car-sharing app Lyft in the Bay Area, each of the five drivers I met was of a different ethnicity. A small sample size, sure, but sufficient for making sweeping, unsubstantiated statements about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[88],"class_list":["post-262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-american-politics","tag-donald-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jbfreedman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jbfreedman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jbfreedman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jbfreedman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jbfreedman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=262"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/jbfreedman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":273,"href":"https:\/\/jbfreedman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262\/revisions\/273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jbfreedman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jbfreedman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jbfreedman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}