There are lots of reasons to find Trump voters troubling, not the least of which is that they still are Trump voters. Think about this though: Jeb Bush, John Kasich, Marco Rubio, and all the others. With some exceptions (Ted Cruz) they are all worthy politicians of the Conservative stripe. I wouldn’t vote for them but then I am a Liberal, why would I? Just as I went along with Reagan and HW and W,, I would expect Conservatives to go along with Clinton and Obama.
But no, Conservatives had to go apocalyptic on us and declare our guys enemies of the Republic. Neither one was close to that. W got us into a needless war and a recession while Reagan pulled some underhanded stuff, but even that is part of the history of the presidency and Conservatives may have, in their unreasonable way, a similar bill against us.
Yet most of those Conservatives, we thought, would vote for a Kasich or a Bush as they voted for McCain. That is not what happened. They went for the con man, the grifter, the TV preacher. Most of them. They had to or he would not have won the primaries.
Think about that. It is the 33% I have always noticed supporting every bizarre, kooky, conspiratorial, goofy, racist, authoritarian, xenophobic, Social Darwinistic notion advanced by Colonel Cornpone and his legions of operatives. They with us. Are they us? Now THAT is a question.
Pat’s Polemics
On-going brilliance
Trump won the primary because a dozen better choices split up 52% of the votes among them selves. If the ones who didn’t have a chance had dropped out instead of beating their dead horses, one of the other guys might have beaten Trump.
He could not have won the primary if Americans had not voted for him at some point, knowing all there was needed to know. It is their responsibility and that may split this nation as well as families. At some point someone has to look those people in the eye and say, “You knew what you were doing.” Trump hid nothing crucial about who he was. Point to a Trump voter who now says, “Oh, I didn’t know that.”
My concern is what we do with one third of the country willing at any time to destroy the institutions central to our identify as a nation in the name of White skin and hatred of foreigners? No other country can trust us now. More and more, people on both sides are coming out and, as my neighbor says about Trump, “Telling it like it is.” King is a recent example – straight up racism. Tolerating the separation of toddlers from their parents, putting little kids alone in cement floor cages? Nazis did that and then killed them. What are we? How many Trump voters care about those kids? Not a bit as long as they get rid of the Mexicans and get the Blacks back under control.
Wes, you followed my posts on flteach for a long time as well as my blog. You know I’ve been saying this stuff for years. Trump just surfaced it. Long live Trump!
If I remember right, he won the nomination with only 48%. If a dozen other Republican candidates had been a little smarter and less stubborn, one of them might have gotten 49% instead of dividing up 52% ten ways. Any of them would be better than Trump. And then I have to wonder, how many Republicans who couldn’t bear to vote for Trump or Clinton would have voted instead of staying home? Or how many Democrats would have voted instead of staying home if they weren’t pissed off at the super-delegates deciding they were going to put in Clinton no matter what the rank and file wanted?