Friday, November 06, 2020
Trump Supporters
What does Trump receiving nearly
half the votes say about this country? Americans have always considered
themselves and the country to be the best on earth. Well, we know that is
not true and now we know we are not even in the running. I have always
been aware of the existence of what Hillary called the
"deplorables" but their numbers are surprising. It will
take a long time to cram this genie back in the bottle if it can even
be done.
I was raised in a hard-scrabble mill
town that went 59% for Trump which does not surprise me, the town has not
changed much and, if anything is more right wing after mills have cut back or
shut down. Having lived nearly 27 years in rural areas or small
towns in The Northwest and Midwest, I have a pretty good idea of who these
Trump supporters are and how they think. Trump's hardcore supporters are white
males without college educations.
These men imagine themselves as
tough, no bullshit, plain-spoken guys and they do not respond well to perceived
slights and detest elitists who they feel look down on them, which, I think,
most do now. Over the past several decades their perception of what
constitutes real manhood has been seriously challenged. Many are losing
jobs or are earning less than their working class fathers did.
Trump's fake macho gibberish appeals to them while Biden's and the left's
softer language annoys the hell out of them. Being poorly educated, they
have not learned to look deeper into issues and question what they are being
told unless it disagrees with their biases. They live in an echo-chamber
of right social media, Rush Limbaugh, and FOX News. If challenged they bristle
and harden their resolve to support this lunatic. The women who live
with them and support Trump are grand enablers and are just as bad as the men.
They want their men to be tough and to hell with the liberal, politically
correct snobs. Trump has tapped into this with great skill.
Trump has shown that lying and
bullying are winning strategies for the minority party. Assuming Biden
wins, in four years the GOP will field a candidate with the Trump's politics
but
who is not crazy and so will be far
more effective at pushing the GOP desire to minimize government, maximize
profits, kill off Social Security, Medicare, and Obamacare, lower taxes on the
rich, and deregulate everything in sight. I hope Harris, assuming
she is the nominee in 4 years, is up to the task, but so far her performance
has not been encouraging but the glare of Trump's outrageous behavior made
it hard for her to break through with the media and, along with Biden, the
strategy was to lay low and let Trump hang himself. Hopefully she will
shine as VP.
We should know today that Biden is
the winner. Waiting it out is agonizing. Trump's lawsuits will go
nowhere, even with the Supreme Court which might refuse to even hear them.
If this flag-hugging flame-thrower
really loves America, then he must step aside with the
dignity expected of a president, the
so-called leader of the free world.
