Not many. Trump won because voters in those "damn North states", as you put it, were fed up with the crony-capitalist collusion of big-government and big-business. As government grows and regulations/red tape increases, big-business flourishes because large corporations have armies of lawyers and lobbyists to fight on their behalf and make sure they're able to successfully manage the costs of bigger government. In the meantime, small businesses, around which many communities are built, are strangled. That leads to poverty, unemployment, and growing economic resentment.
That cozy relationship between corporations and government, which stacks the deck against the average American, pissed them off, and rightfully so. They voted for the man who promised to change things. These people that you insult, don't want a hand-out or special entitlements to success; they just want a level, fair economic playing field.
why doesn't "the average American" try to better their situation like they could? why would they rather complain than try?
They often do try, but what exactly can you do when you're up against the partnership of giant corporations and a bloated, ever-expanding federal bureaucracy? The economically dispossessed don't have lobbyists to fight for their interests. So again, they voted for a man who promised to be that lobbyist, in a sense, for them.
They DO have lobbyists and interests on their behalf. Evangelicals have a huge political presence. Farmers have one of the most powerful lobbies in the country. Most workers (specifically in the Great Lakes States) had unions that one party (and voters) have neutered over the last half century. I'm not going to argue over whether or not voters
perceive that they don't have special interests on their behalf, but it's absolutely bunk to assert that they have no higher level of political organization.
Trump can be their "lobbyist" but not because he is hefting any sort of political capital; it's because he's on their side of the culture wars. He's a person who sneers on the cosmopolitans, the educated, the "politically correct" and anybody with expertise. Trump is the voice of people who feel displaced in the America's cultural arena anymore by cultural elites. People who don't see themselves in commercials anymore, or hear a national media that seems to pay more attention to the concerns of transgendered people than to poor whites. The fact that Trump still has nearly all of his base from the campaign, despite having an economic agenda that runs counter to a lot of the attractive parts of his platform, and yet has all of his base is evidence of this. He fights for them -- not necessarily for their economic interests but for their identity.
The New York Times' podcast "The Daily" recently ran a story on a female factory worker in a closing plant in Indiana. Owners of this plant announced they were going to move to Mexico, but wanted workers in the plant to train a contingent of Mexican workers before the plant moved. White male workers in the factory refused, while female workers and African Americans in the plant obliged. The reporter doing the story noted that it was probably because the females and African Americans had experienced discrimination in the past and knew what it was like to be shut out of those positions decades ago, while it was a new experience for the white male workers to be displaced. She also noted that the males seemed to talk with more of a sense of entitlement to their positions in a way that other employees did not. On the whole the episode is very good and compelling. It gave me additional insight into (and sympathy for) the mindset of a lot of displaced manufacturing workers and their reasons for supporting Trump.
Link.
