Early polling that presaged the rise of President Trump

[136or142]

Michael Adams of Canadian polling firm Environics in a lecture at the Vancouver Institute on January 14, 2006

https://open.library.ubc.ca/cIRcle/collections/12708/items/1.0102938

Starting at around the 15 minute mark:
Michael Adams: "What do you think is the fastest growing trend in America since 1992 (up to 2004)?
Is it religiosity?
Is it ostentatious religiosity?
Is it patriotism? (post September 11, good hypothesis)
Is it fear of terrorism?
Well, I've set you up, it's not of these.
It's an orientation to violence as normal in every day life. Here is a statement we say to our random sample of people age 15 and over "A little violent behavior relieves tension. It's no big deal."
1992 15% of Americans said that's true
1996 27%
2000 31%
2004 32%

Among young men aged 15-24, over 50% think violence is normal in every day life.
"It is acceptable to use physical force to get what you want. The important thing is to get what you want.
1992 9%
1996 17%
2000 24%
2004 23%
Among young men aged 15-24, 4 in ten think the use of violence to get what you want is OK. The important thing is to get what you want."

I think this is explains where the growth of the Trump voter comes from.
Around 32 minute mark,
"When we look at the social values data in this period (1992-2004) we see a decline overall in the culture and this is counter to the idea that America is becoming more religious and more traditional, in fact, we see a decline towards deferment to traditional authority, a decline in introspection and empathy, and what we see on the rise are thrills and intensity, conspicuous consumption and a rise in (social) Darwinism orientation to life. This is not a portrait of a more Conservative America."

"What's in ascendancy: impulse, intuition, attraction for crowds, pursuit of intensity and a penchant for risk. This is not risk in the stock market, this is personal risk. Extreme sports or getting in a car at 4 A.M and running red lights to see if you survive."

That sounds to me like a fairly accurate description of President Trump.

And around 50 minute mark:
"The people who feel exclusion (the disenfranchised) and intensity are not voting. They're the disengaged. For them, civic engagement would be a ridiculous thing to do because they're not really orientated to any other institution as well, including the family, the school, the church, and the local community."

I think that to some degree describes the likely several million white working class voters who had not voted previously who voted for President Trump.

[Person Man]

Could that people people are bored since "nothing ever happens anymore"....except for the internet and scary brown people.

The terror threat and IT (or even AI unless ii its "strong" maybe) just can't compete with Red Dawn and Apollo.

[Phony Moderate]

There was a lot of disturbing polling data around the turn of the millennium. I mean, like, genuinely terrifying stuff that goes way beyond even what is posted in the OP.

Paradoxically there's a lot less now and yet we have President Trump.

[136or142]

In regards to the first part regarding the increase in those who view violence as normal, I'm not saying that that by itself presaged Trump and his voters, but when you take the three data points together I think they clearly suggest that millions of Americans as early as 15-20 years ago had lost trust in American institutions and wanted to throw a monkey wrench at them for whatever purpose, whether it was to have these institutions reconstituted or simply for revenge. Many people who voted for Trump indicated that was why they voted for him.

I should also point out, in case somebody thinks I've cherry-picked these data points from Michael Adam's hour long lecture, he used that increase in the normalization of violence as a teaser, but diverged from that to describe his methodology and did not get to his second data point until the 32 minute mark, which I've also mentioned.

From that part until the final data point I listed here, he described the three other quadrants of Americans (as I'm sure most of you here are familiar with, he came up with a three dimensional analysis, so four quadrants.)  The only data point that disagrees with what I have here is that he described traditional Republican voters post September 11, 2001 as becoming more traditionally religious and more patriarchal. (Their views were overwhelmed by the decline in religiosity from the other three quadrants.)

He also said that after September 11, the 50% or so who voted in the 2004 U.S election were becoming more committed to voting, but, as I quoted above at the 50 minute mark,  but did not give the percentage, he also somewhat wrongly stated that the 50% who did not vote were, as indicated in that quote, becoming more committed to not participating in civic institutions, including voting.

So, Michael Adams missed the increase in turnout from the around 50% in 2004 to the nearly 60% in the 2008, 2012 and 2016 Presidential elections (although in 2012 it dropped back to around 55%).  Obviously though, Adams had no way of predicting the financial meltdown of 2008 that likely led to much of the increase in the electoral participation rate.

He also clearly missed the number of previous non-voters who backed Barack Obama in 2008, but I think there is no disputing that most new voters from 2012 to 2016 voted for President Trump and that they were the exact sort of people that he identified as the primary non voter from 2004.