by Matthew Notch » Wed Oct 26, 2016 8:55 pm
Saw that comment, Aquila, and I totally get it. I agree even. But here's why that doesn't matter to the average (read: not incredibly racist, ignorant, awful person) Trump supporter.
Who, among the Republican party's recent batch of presidential hopefuls, most accurately represents what sort of sentiment you're probably expecting from them? Honestly the closest I can muster is Ted Cruz, who was the winner of the Republican primary here in Kansas. Guy represents old-fashioned, salt of the earth values, and I don't mean the "old ways" that just don't work anymore. I mean the old ways that have worked since forever and, now that they are being challenged, are leaving many families behind, economically and socially. For better or worse, mind you; notably, Bernie Sanders won the Democratic primary here because when you go blue in Kansas, you go blue hard as you can.
But that's not what the average Repub wants. Most of them actually are pretty well-educated. The media and denizens of the Internet like to point out, somewhat correctly, that they are less educated than liberals, but when you stop comparing them to the other party and start comparing them to ANYONE their age twenty years ago, then yes, shockingly, even they are more educated than their stereotype in popular culture suggests. They don't all sit about pining for the good old days when you could just be racist and sexist and gayist (I think I am also against the term "homophobic" because there are probably some people out there who actually do have a morbid fear of homosexuality, even if it doesn't bother their sensibilities personally). And if you wonder why being offended by the rise of social justice is such a big deal for conservatives, I'd like to direct your attention to a whole bunch of threads on this forum where social justice is offending the shit out of not-conservatives.
You either double down on the stupidity to save face or you risk being lumped in with the salt of the earth guys, who have somehow managed to remain the actual stupid ones in the eyes of society.
Trump, sometime back, made the statement, "Soon they will be calling me Mr. Brexit!" Did Trump already anticipate his fall from grace in the media? Did he somehow foresee that--regardless of what Clinton herself actually had to say about the matter--liberals would definitely buy into the "basket of deplorables" line, and that his more vocal supporters would lean into it because what have they got to lose anyway? Did he know that both he and his supporters would be portrayed as ineffective, flighty, ignorant, bigoted, impulsive creeps with an axe to grind against anyone who threatens their position, such as it is?
I posit that not only was he keenly aware of the trajectory of his campaign, but that his supporters, from DAY ONE, knew it too, and that's why they stand by their man. For them, the dressing down of their chosen candidate is just business as usual, the typical bias you can expect from "the liberal media". The difference between Ted Cruz, who makes more sense if you think rural=Republican=hayseed, and Donald Trump who frankly doesn't seem to make sense at all to me but whatever, is that Trunp might actually get something done, in their minds. They've seen it! On TV! He has a board game! His restaurant has the best taco bowls! He has success they don't feel they'll ever be able to access, even with better education and presumably better access to resources to be a success, and he says he's fighting for them. So I mean. Yeah. Who cares that he's one of them? He's "one of the good ones"!
And to be honest, for all his Christian posturing, Ted Cruz looks sort of ridiculous too. Actually it's hard for me to conjure up an image of any Republican candidate from the last ten years who has really made an impact on the party or seemingly represented the average conservative's wants and needs quite like Herr Trump.
So that's why. It's reductive of the commenter and anyone else to assume that the average Trump supporter doesn't understand that he's not in their club. Of course they do; you can't fake that level of city slickery. They just don't care. To them, it's not even about him not being Hillary, but rather that he's so the opposite of her that they can root for him.
Or at least, that's how it started. Granted, of late what I've heard the most from any Trump supporters around here is, "I mean at least he ain't Hillary, right?" And I suspect part of that is the right wing media has, as well, sort of cooled the hell off on Trump, since his campaign is now actively hurting other Republican hopefuls down-ballot. It's become such a tightrope walk with them, both the red media and the GOP, to know whether to disavow Trump and reap tribulation in the flesh, or to stand by him and honorably lose miserably for the next few elections. I suspect a lot of that has to do with whether the conservatives live in the city or not, deadly serious. So this election is as draining and exhausting for your average Trump guy as for any liberals, libertarians, or other politically oriented individuals green with envy.
On the one hand it seems preposterous that so many would still vouch support for Trump despite getting a feel for who he really is, as it were. On the other, barring a couple sorta culty approaches, just about everyone on this very forum who is voting for Clinton is doing so because "at least she ain't Trump, right?"
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