“Such a nasty woman.” During the third and final Presidential debate, Donald Trump uttered this gendered quip, in an attempt to undermine Clinton’s proposals on Social Security. The comment was far from a brief slip-up—Trump based much of his campaign on personal attacks and insults, widely condemned as overtly racist, misogynistic, or otherwise bigoted.
However, public opinion among millennials shows that young Republicans and Democrats saw Trump’s rhetoric in different and surprising ways. When polled by the Harvard Public Opinion Project about their feelings on the elections, 72 percent of Republicans between the ages of 18 and 29 reported that the level of civility in American politics has declined over the past five years. This compares to only 54 percent of Democrats. One would expect that those who support Trump should be less inclined to view him as rude and crass, yet the data collected suggests otherwise.
Two factors may explain this unexpected result. First, perhaps it isn’t as clear as it seems that Trump was the more ornery of the two candidates. Republicans could believe that Clinton’s campaign rhetoric contributed more to the deterioration of American politics. Alternatively, Republicans could find Trump more vulgar, however this would mean that there is an inherent contradiction in Republican messaging.
Trump explicitly built part of his base by moving away from norms of political correctness. What many saw as virulent rhetoric, his supporters interpreted as breaking away from an overly elaborate network of annoying rules. In particular, the Trump campaign pointed to the atmosphere of the “special snowflake” on college campuses, where liberal students were perceived to be too fragile and closed off to any possible criticism. The HPOP research indicates the precise opposite––that young Republicans are more troubled by criticism than their Democratic counterparts.
Despite their victory, young American Trump supporters feel more persecuted and alienated by the present political process than Democrats who supported Hillary Clinton. In college campuses throughout the country, supporting Trump was deeply taboo and remains a sore topic of discussion. The HPOP data finding may reflect this fact, representing the increasing discontentedness of the moderate Republican base.
This study, represents one of the few sources of information that we have available on the political views of millennials after the election. Using it as a lens, we can parse the distinction between the rhetoric and belief structure of young American voters.