BRIDGE TO YESTERDAY- What's going on with Trump vs Harris?

Kamala Harris and Donald J Trump are shown as a dead heat on the margin of the big error, predicting tomorrow from yesterday's voters and not addressing the reasons for the divisions across age, gender, geographic and racial lines.

Polls show that Trump has a strong lead over Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris on how they would handle the economy, which is a top concern for voters, especially Republicans. Harris leads with concerns with reproductive freedom and health services.

Assuming that that neither candidate wins a majority of the primary vote as both are locked on only 48% of those prepared to say they have made up their minds, and the Electoral College takes over, it's worth looking at" what do we know about the difference that makes a difference?"

The standard answers lie in fun and females v fear and males, red v blue states, age v youth, blue v gold collar, rural v urban, South v North and immigration versus abortion as issues.

Fifty years ago, Arnold Mitchell and SRI developed a study of American VALS that indicated ( but not predicted) that nostalgia for yesterday's rust belt and traditional conservatism and socially aware, post-modern inter-generational progressives would generate an unbridgeable catastrophic divided nation.

"Nine American Lifestyles-Where We Are & Where We Are Going?" divided the US population into nine groups with distinct values and lifestyles and compared US traditional attitudes and opinions with European post-modern emergent policies.These studies identified a fundamental division between the attitudes and activities that were self and individual expectations that reinforce, sustain and protect them from rapid change and traditional family values against inventiveness, interpersonal and community engagement with an international and global orientation..

In. 2021, Alexander Hinton, Director of the Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights and Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at Rutgers University Newarkwrote a related book called “It Can Happen Here.”

Hinton writes "Where those on the left see Trump’s many failings, those on the right may see what some political observers call Trump Derangement Syndrome, sometimes simply called TDS. Some Trump supporters also see merit in his contention that he is being wrongly persecuted, just like some see the Jan. 6 defendants being persecuted."

In 2022, a poll found 7 out of 10 Republicans worried that “open borders” were part of a Democratic plot to expand liberals’ power by replacing conservative white people with nonwhite foreigners. 82% of Republicans said they viewed immigration as a “very important” issue. Trump continues to tout his proposed solution, which includes shutting the border, building a wall and deporting 11 million immigrants who are living in the U.S. without legal authorization.

There were no new wars under Trump. Biden-Harris, in contrast, are saddled with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Israel’s invasion of the Gaza Strip. Trump supporters’ perception is that American taxpayers foot a large portion of the bill, even though other countries are also giving money to Ukraine, and Israel is actually buying weapons from the U.S.

For Trump stalwarts, MAGA is not simply a slogan. In the Trumpiverse, it is a movement to save an America that is on the brink of failure. Trump is an unrelenting pugilist, or a fighter – as he showed when he raised a fist after the assassination attempt against him in July – that he should be elected, his supporters believe. Some even view him as savior – who will save the U.S. from a “radical left” apocalypse.

SO WHAT EXPLAINS THIS DEEP DIVIDE- THAT ALSO EXPLORES THE DUTTON DIVISION STRATEGY HERE? THE FIRST ANSWER lies in level of college education rather than any of those other explanations of the divisions.

Research finds robust associations between reading ability and educational success, and reading enjoyment and reading behaviour appear to be key mechanisms in this relationship. Reading ability affects attainment in literacy and, due to the need to read to gather information and understand examination instructions, reading ability also affects attainment across the curriculum.

The effect of reading ability continues throughout life. Compared to their counterparts with ‘functional literacy’ levels (a reading age of 11 or above), individuals with low reading ability are:

• Less likely to gain employment, particularly skilled roles
• More likely to exhibit behavioural problems and delinquency
• Less like to earn an above average salary
• Less likely to achieve qualifications or receive work based training or promotion
• More likely to have low levels of psychological wellbeing and life satisfaction
• Less likely to use preventative health services, remain healthy or manage treatment and medications well.

THE SECOND ANSWER lies in the findings of Julian Rotter in.Social Learning and Clinical Psychology, that human behavior is the interactive result of two underlying forces: expectancy and reinforcement value. When people feel in control of the external forces determining their understanding of opportunities they experience nostalgia for "them good ol' days", whereas if they are expected to make their own changes to increase life satisfaction, they seek greater freedom to "turn the page"

A person is likely to choose a particular course of action only if they believe themselves likely to succeed in attaining the goal and desire said goal. The minimal goal level is the threshold value; outcomes more positive than this are reinforcing, while outcomes less positive are punishing. Importantly, both expectancies and values are learned, and as with other forms of learning.

Taking these functions into consideration , Harris is on better ground when she highlights the emotional appeal of FREEDOM rather than FASCISM, and TRUST rather than TYRRANY, if she still hopes to bridge the readership divide.