The Year of the Reticent Voter

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The Year of the Reticent Voter

People seem to feel that if they express a preference, they’re inviting others to inspect their souls.

By PEGGY NOONAN

Sept. 22, 2016 7:27 p.m. ET

The signature sentence of this election begins with the words “In a country of 320 million . . .” I hear it everywhere. It ends with “how’d it come down to these two?” or “why’d we get them?”

Another sentence is a now a common greeting among Republicans who haven’t seen each other in a while: “What are we gonna do?”

The most arresting sentence of the week came from a sophisticated Manhattan man friendly with all sides. I asked if he knows what he’ll do in November. “I know exactly,” he said with some spirit. “I will be one of the 40 million who will deny, the day after the election, that they voted for him. But I will.”

A high elected official, a Republican, got a faraway look when I asked what he thought was going to happen. “This is the unpollable election,” he said. People don’t want to tell you who they’re for. A lot aren’t sure. A lot don’t want to be pressed.

That’s exactly what I’ve seen the past few weeks in North Carolina, New Jersey, Tennessee and Minnesota.

Every four years I ask people if they’ll vote, and if they have a sense of how. Every four years they tell me—assertively or shyly, confidently or tentatively. This year is different. I’ve never seen people so nervous to answer. It’s so unlike America, this reticence, even defensiveness. It’s as if there’s a feeling that to declare who you’re for is to invite others to inspect your soul.

“I feel like this is the most controversial election ever,” said a food-court worker at La Guardia Airport. She works a full shift, 4 a.m. to noon, five days a week, then goes full-time to a nearby college. We’d been chatting a while, and when I asked the question she told me, carefully, that she hasn’t decided how she’ll vote, and neither have her family members. I said a lot of people seem nervous to say. She said: “Especially Trump people. They’re afraid you’ll think they’re stupid.”

Which is how I knew she was going to vote for Donald Trump.

It’s true: Trump voters especially don’t want to be categorized, judged, thought stupid—racist, sexist, Islamophobic, you name it. When most of them know, actually, that they’re not.

Piece continues here: http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-year-of-the-reticent-voter-1474586866

Further commentary: http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2016/09/23/judging_the_trump_effect

In thoughtful consideration of both pieces, how difficult is it to poll on this matter? Might it really be true that large numbers of people won't be frank about their preference?

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Vote Crooked!

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[millefleur 5,047]

I think the problem is that nobody is for anyone. Most of this election is someone voting against the candidate they dislike the most....thus nobody wants to actually shout out who they are supporting, because their reasoning is based on how much they hate the other candidate. That's my view on this.

When Bernie was still in the race, I saw a lot of openly pro-Bernie activity on social media. Now I see mostly anti-Trump stuff from the same people. Very few pro-Hillary activity, even though I can wager from the anti-Trump posts that they are going to vote Hillary.

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[millefleur 5,047]

Wow, that comic is depressingly accurate.