Politics & IR Summer Internship Opportunity
I AM NOT DEPLORABLE – inside the heads of heartland conservatives
The Project – working with Dr. Mark Shanahan
In November 2016, the world was stunned as Donald J Trump won the US Presidential Election,
while the Republican Party shored up their renaissance at Congressional, Gubernatorial and local
levels. However, the US Heartland, from the rust belt through the prairies to the Texan suburbs
showed somewhat less surprise. While those who had stumped for Trump rapidly turned ‘Liberal’
into a pejorative term, millions of Silent Trumpers swallowed hard and hoped for the best.
These Silent Trumpers are an uneasy alliance, comprising a ‘broad tent’ of religiously-motivated
social conservatives, agri-business owners and employees threatened by globalism, blue collar
workers left behind by changes in industry, and many outside metropolitan areas for whom the
American Dream has proved to be a waking nightmare of increased debt and long-term wage
depression. Add to these the large cohort of ‘Never-Hillary’ voters – from the disillusioned Sanders
fringes, to centrists who simply saw Secretary Clinton as the apogee of Washington insiderism.
This project has two aims: first to understand and chronicle the motivations of this disparate group,
and second to track their response to the actions of the GOP in power within the Trump Presidency
from the summer of 2017 to the Mid-Term elections of 2018.
The project makes assumptions that I aim to verify through research: that the Silent Trumpers who
elected POTUS 45 are not the stereotype of ignorance presented through the Liberal media in the
run-up to the election and nor are they extreme in their views. However, I expect to uncover a fear
of ‘other’ – and seek to define what ‘other’ means across this disparate group.
In the post-truth age, the project also aims to investigate hinge points where Presidential action
deviates from pre-election pledges and where the ‘truth’ of the White House deviates from an
objective interpretation of evidence.
The planned outcomes of the project are:
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Early and late research conference papers to be delivered Winter 17/Spring 18 and
Spring/Summer 19
A journal article (aiming for Politics) Winter 18
A monograph - Spring 19 in wake of Mid-Terms
Research needs
The research will largely be based on case studies – initially planned to be:
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Reading PA – described in 2012 as the “nation’s poorest city”1
Abilene/ Dickinson County, Kansas – childhood home of Dwight D Eisenhower, the last
‘outsider’ President, an agricultural county in the Republican heartland
Tarrant County, Texas – a large suburban country encompassing Fort Worth, and bucking the
trend in 2016 of large metropolitan counties electing Democratic Party representation.
The project will also seek to find Silent Trumpers in a 4th case study area where the GOP vote was
much higher than expected – potentially within a key swing state such as Wisconsin or Michigan.
1
"The Beleaguered Middle Class". The New York Times. June 13, 2012. (accessed 12 March 2017)
This will be supported by investigations into 2008-2016 voting patterns to identify any factors of
creeping conservatism and, more specifically to Donald Trump, a rejection of the standard practices
of big government.
This will require the sourcing of relevant statistical information and semi-structured interviews with
pollsters, commentators and academics to establish a baseline understanding of the state of the
heartland.
This will be melded with an understanding of the Trump phenomenon through detailed text analysis
both of his speeches and of the media reaction to them, building on an assumption that Trump
ensured he became and remained ‘the story’ throughout all stages of the election campaign.
The core of the outputs will be based on interviews with a the ‘variable’ pollsters found hardest to
call: the Silent Trumpers. And the most challenging factor of this work will be sourcing sufficient
numbers of such people to provide credible insight.
Intern Research
The plan for this summer is to undertake the baseline research for the project. Key tasks I foresee
are:
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Agreeing and building a timeline of key Trump speeches across the campaign period
o undertaking text analysis to isolate soundbites and patterns of their usage
Mapping media reaction to these speeches and the dissemination of soundbites in our
identified case study markets
o researching market demographics and media penetration in our three case study
areas
Identifying and interpreting key voting statistics across our three case study areas from 2008
to 2016 with a view to understanding voters in these markets
Identifying and building a picture of one other case study area – where the Red/Trump vote
polled at unexpectedly high levels
With me, making a first pass to secure interviews and an ongoing relationship with
‘American Voices’, both as credible representatives of the Silent Trumper community, and as
commentators on them.
o In this social media world, I will expect the student to set up relevant social media
accounts for the project and to use these, along with more traditional email, to
reach out to and recruit potential participants with whom we would then look to
build 18-month relationships using tools from survey monkey to skype etc., with the
potential for me to conduct brief research in the field in Summer/Autumn 2018,
subject to securing suitable travel grants (to be investigated).
The goal by the end of the intern’s work will be to have a clear picture of voting in our chosen
communities; an initial understanding of their voting motivation and the confidence of them in our
approach to chronicling their relationship with the Trump Administration in the first two years of the
presidency.
Mark Shanahan
March 2017