The New York Times recently surveyed a group of 14 voters who thought of Trump as extreme but decided to vote for him anyway. Here was the basic take-away from the Times:
| After the November election, we were curious about a particular slice of American voters: those who described Donald Trump as “extreme” and differed with him on some key issues, including abortion rights, and decided to vote for him anyway. In our latest Times Opinion focus group, we explored these questions with 14 Trump voters many of [whom] saw his victory as a sign that America is “a little more unified than we thought we were” Anger at inflation and illegal immigration brought a lot of different people to Mr. Trump, the participants argued. Most felt he had a mandate to deport undocumented immigrants who were violent or had committed crimes — though they were more divided over deporting law-abiding immigrants. When it came to Mr. Trump’s being extreme, the participants generally used that word about his language and leadership style, and most of them liked that he threw around threats against foreign adversaries or took a hard line on issues like illegal immigration. As for abortion, it simply was not a vote driver: Our group thought Mr. Trump was probably more conservative on the issue than they were, but they also saw him as not having a role now that it’s up to the states. The idea of America moving on from politics and being more united than it seems was a core idea for many in the group. They said they were tired of being criticized for holding conservative or contrary opinions and thought a lot of other Americans were, too. |
So, if this is what the rest of the country believes about our current politics than they just do not have a fucking clue. There is absolute fury on the left, and we have never been more divided as a nation. This, at the moment, is a completely balkanized nation, and it’s not going to get better under Trump.
But let’s backup for a moment.
Conservative Resentment
I have to say that a part of me understands the long-standing resentment that conservatives have towards the rest of us, particularly those of us who are liberal/progressive.
We really can be very preachy sometimes.
Very preachy.
And sometimes we are a little crazy.
Like with gender-fluid pronouns.
Do we really expect farmers in Iowa to ask their Mexican farmhands what pronouns they want to be addressed by?
Sometimes we come off as complete lunatics.
And when I watch Hollywood awards shows or the late-night monologues, I can see how conservatives would be resentful of what seems like a universal condemnation from certain parts of the entertainment industry.
Thomas Franks, who wrote the book “What’s the Matter with Kansas” has argued as far back as 2004, that Republicans have successfully manipulated voters to vote against their own interests by pushing hot button social issues that just made them mad.
And we have been continually feeding them more and more red meat, so really, shame on us.
Liberal Fury
On the other hand, conservatives (and probably non-political America) clearly have no idea about the fury that liberals and progressives are feeling right now. A fury that is unabated and will likely grow with each outrageous decision or appointment that Trump makes.
Eight years ago, when Trump was first elected, I could see clearly that his election represented a giant “FU” to the rest of us. Okay, I got that. Because he was inexperienced and because there were people around him to put up some guardrails, he managed not to destroy the economy. Although his handling of Covid sure led to hundreds of thousands of Americans dying that did not have to die. (It is, however, hard to prove a hypothetical, so many Americans are still completely unclear about this.)
But this time around, there are — as has been observed many times already — no guardrails. Trump has already achieved the one thing that he cares about the most: he avoided prison time. Now he gets to go on his revenge tour — most likely he will find that part of his assignment much harder to execute — and to slap tariffs on other countries and deport the undocumented.
Most significantly, Trump will get the chance to destroy the economy in a way that he simply did not have time for the first time around.
In his Time “Man of the Year” interview, he has already backed off from taming inflation. Of course he isn’t going to tame inflation, nor does he care. It’s not something that will affect him personally. He will only care if it tanks the stock market and leads to bad press.
But I’ll tell you who will care: liberals and progressives. The fact that this malignantly narcissist, compulsively lying, racist, misogynist and casually cruel wannabe dictator was re-elected is something that about half of this country does not comprehend and will never forgive. Oh yeah, y’all might think that we’re just going to get over it, but we’re not going to get over it. Just like we haven’t gotten over January 6th. Now we want to stick it up your ass just as badly as you wanted to stick it up our ass. We’re not “going high” anymore.
At this point I want Trump to slap 20% tariffs on Canada, and Mexico, and China, and European automobiles. At this point I want Trump to deport a million undocumented and see what it does to the economy. (He has no hope of deporting the approximately 11 to 12 million undocumented because that would involve logistics that are way beyond the capability of the federal government at the moment.)
Oh yeah, let Trump be Trump. Let’s find out what his policies would actually do to our country. And then you can tell us again about how the price of eggs made you vote for this unmitigated shitweasel and about how we all should just calm down.
