Field Report: Bay Area Republicans

California Anthropologist

A Democrat reports on a rare and endangered micro population: Trump-supporting Republicans in the heart of liberal, Democratic San Francisco Bay Area.

Tony Farrell drew the assignment of marketing Trump Steaks. It won't be on his tombstone, but it might be in his obituary. Tony worked for The Gap and for The Sharper Image, and then moved to the roughest job in marketing, making infomercials. He became an expert in branding, and he has brought that expertise to occasional guest posts on this blog.

Tony will be voting for Biden, but he lives in an odd subculture of prosperous, well-educated, Californians who will be voting for Trump. His neighbors have been Republicans back in the era of Reagan, both Bushes, and the Romney campaign. They care about taxes because those are far and away the largest expense they pay. They feel isolated and beleaguered, surrounded by people who are more liberal, more woke, and more Democratic than they are.  

Tony knows these people. He lives among them.

Guest Post by Tony Farrell

Report from the Bay Area

 

It’s funny that people now think there are no Republicans in California. It can seem that way in 2020. In an earlier era, California defined the new Republican Party, out of Orange County with iconic leaders like Nixon and Reagan. Today, Kamala Harris counts as a Republican here, for all intents and purposes. 

The Democratic spectrum is so crazy wide, Californians who would be seen as Marxists in Alabama are smiting their foreheads over the San Francisco School District’s list of schools whose names must be changed because of the misdeeds (and thoughts) of Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Theodore Roosevelt, Hoover (perhaps America’s greatest humanitarian) and even Feinstein! 

We all know that Trump “lost the popular vote” but he really only lost California, a 4.3 million vote deficit when he only lost nationally by 2.9 million votes; that is, if you take out California, Trump won the U.S.A. by 1.4 million and, in fact, the biggest haul by a Republican candidate in history. 

In any event, California sits out national elections, from the Republican point-of-view, because the Electoral College here is winner-take-all, a shameful disgrace. It’s true, out of our state’s 53 Representatives, only 7 are Republican but, still, if California and the other 47 states had adopted the more-fair Maine and Nebraska system for allocating Elector votes (the two Senate ones winner take all; the Congressional District ones by district), then Romney beats Obama. So, you’ll find some understandable Republican resentment in the rural North and Central Valley areas, where it’s hardly worth going to the polls. 

As an aside, I've always wondered why Democrats get so angry about the Bush-Gore 2000 Florida fiasco; for starters, if Gore had won his Supreme Court case, he still loses--the four Districts in question were counted later and Bush still won. And later Florida-wide comprehensive counts showed Gore winning by perhaps only 50 votes; but the real travesty is the winner-take-all scheme, a true affront to democracy. Despite all its laudatory support for voters and democracy, I haven't sensed any move by California Democrats to adopt the Main/Nebraska model. Too bad.

All the Trump supporters I know have at least one if not two degrees from Ivy universities; so, my world is different from the Central Valley. Rather, I’m in a lovely residential area in the hills overlooking San Francisco Bay. Trump supporters are sort-of known, but keep a low profile—like secret smokers (often the same people). With one friend (and former boss), I’m treated to dinner so he can unleash his full Fox News-scripted commentary on Trump and his enemies. Because I had a sibling in the Reagan White House and generally was a Republican until they went all crazy on me, my friend feels he can, at least, talk to me. At home, he’s imprisoned by family and neighbors most would call crazed Left Coast Socialist home-schooling anti-vaccine hippies. 

In other realms, if you’re socializing with Trump people, political discussion has to be off limits; any start of a conversation invariably descends into angry vitriol and everyone wishes it hadn’t happened. I was proud of an encounter I had recently with a real Trumper, but a wonderful guy, too. Knowing we couldn’t talk current events, I simply asked him if he was involved in any nonprofit board work, and he was! He enthusiastically described what his organization did: They helped foster kids who were aging out of their homes at 18 and needed help getting credit, etc. In turn, I described my pro bono consulting work for various nonprofits around the Bay Area. In the middle of our chatting, a known Trumper lady showed up and you could tell she was keen to engage my friend with the latest Democrat idiocy, or Trump’s latest triumph, and he wouldn’t allow it, and off she slunk. I felt good about the entire engagement, but it sure took work.

 

Now that Trump is in serious decline, any fans of his are truly laying low (but of 

course, everyone is, in the pandemic). But my impression is that, soon, these old Trumpers will disavow their earlier enthusiasm, like all those lovely Germans after the War. (My family lived in Germany in the early 60s; Mom said they met so many Germans who said, “We didn’t know” but never heard anyone say, “We are sorry.”) 

Well, my own feeling is, the idea of a political party speaking for me, or representing my views on any given topic, seems completely ridiculous, right? How could anyone of serious mind, able to consider deeply complex issues, claim that a party platform is where they stand? Nuts. 

Look, every citizen finds some politicians admirable, but everyone has to forgive something in their flawed leaders. (Among Democrats, Bill Clinton comes to mind.) For a Trump Republican, there’s just more to forgive! 

I do sense a difference among Trumpers, compared to four years ago. Hillary was the real issue then; so hated. She’s gone, but Trumpers still think the President is the only one that feels tough enough to not put up with the world’s bullshit. There is mealy-mouth-ness to political discourse that any normal person should find infuriating. The military-officer retirees in my Mom’s old-folks home are, apparently, big Trump fans despite how dishonorable he his, and how insulting to the military. They like his toughness, no matter. Well, mercifully, the pandemic exposed the true depth of his toughness; shallow indeed—not to mention the incompetence, through and through. 

Ultimately, I guess, every culture (and the Bay Area is one) has a dominant realm, and if you’re outside it, you lay low, hang out with like-minded friends, and count on simple human decency to get you through it all. As for me, I’m fairly optimistic: Our system of government was designed to deal precisely with the sort of strongman that Trump wishes he were, and the system has worked amazingly well, especially the judicial side but also the civil service; the strength of some individual states (like California and New York) is a marvel. 

That all said, I’ll be very happy to see Biden win next month.