About half the people in America plan to vote for Trump, if the election were held today. What are they thinking?
Peter Sage Introduction of the Guest Post
Democrats and others who support Hillary Clinton have a problem. They need to rationalize lawbreaking, and it weakens their argument and willingness to advance it. Americans of good conscience accept being law-abiding as a moral value. It is wrong to steal, to defraud, to murder, to run red lights. There is a reason we pass laws and they have moral authority. Yet people who would not litter or tolerate it need to close their eyes to lawbreaking.
1. They need to ignore the crime of illegal immigration by treating people here illegally as having rights, even though their illegal entry meant they stepped in line in front of people who were playing by the rules awaiting legal entry.
2. They need to ignore local nullification of immigration laws in sanctuary cities. (They would not tolerate local nullification of civil rights laws in Southern cities if carried out in Selma, Alabama or Jackson, Mississippi, but tolerate immigration nullification in San Francisco.)
3. They need to excuse violence and lawbreaking in street protests by Black Lives Matter, Occupy Wall Street, and others who are protesting injustices.
4. And as regards Hillary Clinton, they need to ignore her cavalier and illegal handling of her emails, then her on-the-record falsehoods as she minimized her behavior.
There is a body of voters who notice this hypocrisy and who are pushed away by it. Their orientation is less accommodating to immigrants, rock throwers, and Hillary, but more central is that it falls back to the moral value of respect for the law.
Although Donald Trump is a flawed representative for respect for the law (flouting law and norms regarding the Geneva Convention, treaties, torture, assassination, vigilantism) he attracts voters with an authoritarian sensibility. He is the law and order candidate and insofar as he is openly willing to ignore laws or excuse extra-legal violence it is for the purpose of creating order.
Thad Guyer reports on a conversation with an "educated independent" who will be supporting Trump.
Guest Post by Thad Guyer:
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| Thad Guyer |
I finally Met a Member of “We the People”
Today’s UpClose post peels back the media vs. Trump war to its core in observing: “But in a democracy the centerpiece of political legitimacy is the popular will. Even the Constitution gets its validity because of its support by ‘We the People’."
On a sunny afternoon in Seattle yesterday, I finally met one of those people at a backyard picnic, an educated independent. He had previously said publicly only that he was leaning Trump but Bernie would be great too. But now that Bernie was out, he was irrevocably decided he’ll vote Trump. This is person the four of us love, and we did not attack him. We all respectfully asked him questions, and he agreed to answer them all honestly. Here is a paraphrased recap, most of which shocked us to varying degrees.
1. Why Trump? Answer: “Same reason as Bernie—Global trade and globalism are rotting the American economy from the inside. I want someone to stop it, and maybe even reverse it. Most of all, I want an outsider to try to knock down the established political order and political classes. That’s what Brexit was all about—finally doing what the majority wants rather than the globalism paid-off politicians want.”
2. Do you think Trump will build an effective wall, and Congress will fund it? Answer: “Absolutely Trump will try to get it built, the EU and Israel have already proven walls dramatically reduce the flows of illegals, and Israel has developed the anti-tunneling technology. Whether Congress gives him the money or not, I will be satisfied with a hard fight for the wall. America needs to have that fight.”
3. Would you support Trump deporting 10 million people, and can that be done? Answer: “I support our laws being enforced, if current law prescribes a million illegals be deported, I support a million deportations. If the law says 10 million, fine with me. If Obama could half-heartedly deport about 500,000 illegals a year, Trump would easily get that to a million in his first year, 2 million in second year, etc, so that it’s a total of 10 million in his first term. Change the immigration law if you don’t like it, but enforce the law until you do. Period.”
4. Do you agree with Trump that crime is out of control and he can stop it? Answer: “Of course crime is out of control and getting worse as police are undermined. Do what Bill Clinton did, put 100,000 new cops on the streets. (See, “I worked hard to put more than 100,000 police on the street and the crime rate went way down.” –Quote from former President Bill Clinton, Washington Post, Sept 16, 2014, https://goo.gl/YtsdjI).
5. Is Black Lives Matter (BLM) a terrorist group? Answer: “No, it is just another anti-law and order group using racial politics to mask the fact that blacks and Hispanics commit most of the crime. BLM is just like white supremacists-- blame someone else based on race.”
6. Do you support Trump’s ban on Muslim immigration? Answer: “Yes, Islam spawns terrorists worldwide, and the fewer Muslims we let in, the fewer terrorists we will have from the immigrants or their children.”
We were quiet and disquieted, but he relieved the tension: “I know you all disagree with me, but you asked, and I told. With Sanders out, that’s what I’m doing. Whose up for another Seattle microbrew?”
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