A Republican explains Trump supporters:
"They are experiencing a sense of loss in the America they live in."
I am trying to understand why people would support Trump.
Some people I think I do understand:
*** My U.S. Representative, Cliff Bentz, announced support for Trump for political advantage. Bentz explained that he was trying to ingratiate himself to the winning team within the GOP caucus in the House. It would give him credibility with them in getting support for things he really cared about, like the Salmon River dams. Politics is his job, and he was just taking care of business. I don't admire this, but I understand it.
*** I think I can understand anti-abortion purists. If they really think a fertilized egg is a human soul created by God, as human and immortal as any other child of God, then Auschwitz-style mass murder is taking place in America. In that case it makes sense to support the candidate that better moves the country toward the goal of totally outlawing abortion. That would be Trump rather than Biden.
*** I think I understand frustrated working people, the subject of so much commentary. They are struggling to get by, not quite in the middle class, angry about offshoring of manufacturing, angry about immigrants, suspicious and angry about seeing others get benefits and advantages, and worried about crime in their neighborhoods. They are falling behind economically and think they have nothing to lose by electing someone who will shake things up, maybe burn things down. That's Trump.
The people I have a hard time understanding are people who I have referred to in two prior posts with the old fashioned term "square." I think of them as "normal" good Americans. They are law-abiding good citizens, patriotic people who obey laws. These are people who teach their children to be good sports and to do their homework. They teach children to respect their teachers, respect their elders, and respect police officers. They come in any race, any gender, any age, any socio-economic group. So why in the world would law-abiding people like these support Trump?
My guest post author is such a person, a "square." He is unusual only in his advantages: White, male, educated, prosperous, successful in a well-paying profession, married, 401k, house, and community involvement and leadership. He has a great deal to lose from a politician who upsets the apple cart of American government and culture. The guest post author isn't a scofflaw himself, but he supports someone who openly and proudly flouts laws, insults judges and prosecutors, is flagrant in his nepotism and grift, and tries to overturn an election. A leader with the absolute immunity that Trump asserts a president has could confiscate the author's property and take away his freedom. Laws and civil order protect people with something to lose. So, of all people, why does he support Trump and think other people like him do as well?
He thinks he had something to lose and already lost it: His values and world view. Progressives stole it.
Anonymous guest post.
Square Republicans have little time to ponder or act on the culture war issues you mention. They are hardworking people involved with their family, their work, their church, and their Rotary club. They rely on their elected leaders to do the right thing for them. They don't ask for much - only to be defended from the progressive changes that are detrimental to them.For years, the Romney-type leaders represented them and had many "reasonable" understandings and agreements with the opposition without the full understanding and consent of the Squares. Over time the Squares have observed that their American dream is under constant attack and they are experiencing growing angst when they read the news reports, see the riots where the rioters are not stopped or punished, the smash and grab mass robbery of stores they purchase from without the robbers being caught and punished, see news reports blaming white men for all the problems, see women's sports challenged in unreasonable ways, are accused of being bad people in general and are more fearful everyday. They are experiencing a sense of loss in the America they live in. They see themselves at the Mad Hatters Tea Party where nothing is familiar to them and everything seems wrong. For Squares, the truths of the 20th Century that they accepted are all now being rejected and the Squares are being accused of all sorts of dastardly deeds. Their heroes are now said to be villains.
The Squares don't have community organizers to advance their interests. They believe they can take care of themselves and their families. They want to be left alone to pursue their dreams. They believe they have been let down by the Romney-types and are turning to Trump because he is the rough and tumble leader that will not make the same "reasonable" understandings and agreements that appear to have undermined their place in the world. The Squares want to be loudly defended and protected. The Squares don't hate anyone. Their gripe is with the results of the never ending pace of change.My comments are not a battle cry, but an attempt to understand the situation you described in your blog. The Squares don't trust the old guard and believe the old guard let them down.
24 comments:
I'm with anonymous...
I write this while sailing up the Nile, back to Luxor.
Ancient Egypt thrived for a long time, and built an empire that eventually disappeared. Somehow, the pharaohs convinced people to fight and defend their reign, building monuments that survived.
Some say the people were enslaved. Others say they worked willingly for food and shelter.
I was poor growing up, but worked hard, helped others, and saved and invested wisely. I want my sunset years to be good.
The last thing I need is for progressives to turnover the Apple cart.
PS yes, I'm square, and proud of it
Peter, I don't think you do this blog any favors by posting an anonymous guest post that is so lacking in facts or self awareness, and so detrimental to society.
Trump tried to overturn the 2020 election, has lied interminably about losing it due to "massive voter fraud" and made this announcement on “Truth” Social: ““A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.” He means it.
The U.S. has always had its share of outlaws and traitors, but to my knowledge this is the first time a major political party has so blatantly abandoned any pretense of belief in its oath of office and pledged its allegiance to one. Trump has made no secret of his dictatorial aspirations. He’s anti-American, and those who support him are as reprehensible as he is. I can see why your guest poster would want to remain anonymous.
It’s amusing to think of myself as a “square” given that I was a long haired hippie freak stoned Grateful Deadhead in my youth.
I was definitely on the left back then. But in the 1970s, the left started leaving me. Principles like judging people by the content of their character and not the color of their skin started to be abandoned. Reverse discrimination started to be in vogue. You started to hear justifications for atrocities, like the Chinese Cultural Revolution and Palestinian terrorism. And in addition to being alienated from the left by those things, I got older and wiser, and started moving away from the reflexive leftism that was endemic among the hippies.
I completely resonate with your guest essayist, even though I am not in favor of a second Trump presidency. What I do like about Trump, though, is the way he embodies a giant orange middle finger raised in the direction of the progressive left, something they richly deserve.
I found this anonymous opinion piece sort of repugnant, much as I find our Florida visitors post full of "I've got mine, Eff the rest of you" disdain for anybody not as fortunate as himself. I can acknowledge his hard work and Thrift, even if he denies that White privilege had anything at all to do with his successes.
The "conservative" denial of "change" has always bothered me,because I have come to believe that Change is the only real Constant, and we as humans need to learn to accept and embrace Change, thus helping to mold that change towards a more equitable Society, maybe even begin to embrace those concepts in the Constitution, which so many conservatives today seem set on denying.
No school in America would invite an actor in black face to do a minstrel show for the children, but males in womanface, mocking the bodies and lives of women, are now in public schools and public libraries. Fully supported by the Democrats.
Letisha James, Attorney General of New York, even put on a drag show for kids as part of her official duties.
Not a single Democratic officeholder has stood up for fair single-sex sports for female athletes. Not one. Biden put Charlie Baker in as head of the NCAA, and he won't even meet with female athletes who want single-sex sports. A group of young women filed suit yesterday to try to force the NCAA to stop discriminating against them and obey Title IX.
The Biden Democrats failed to raise the minimum wage, but have succeeded in putting males into GIRLS locker rooms.
Maybe that will be good enough to re-elect Biden. Currently, the Vegas odds say it is unlikely.
The "in-your-face" day-to-day, exposure to the unbalanced treatment rich entitled people is the base cause of "the feeling" that appears to be just on the tip of the tongue of people answering the poll questions like: "Are you better off now?" "What direction is America heading?".
Things like, favorable interest rates, perceived "special treatment" before the law, favorable tax treatment of their earnings and wealth, fairer housing and zoning, access to a good education in quality schools, disrespect for skilled laborers. Social media and television only make it more apparent that "everyone is doing better" than me (in their point of view). The focus on the rival and the distractions of strawman arguments and gaslighting leave one feeling upset and angry reacting as we saw on January 6th 2020.
I'm not old enough to personally recall the feelings of the 1930s but my grandparents and my in-laws that were alive than recall the difficulties under the Republican President Hoover. The hobos, houseless and "Hooverville encampments" and the deep feeling of desperation are an echo of the present unbalanced recovery from both the housing market crash and the COVID recession has left a not-small portion of our society resentful of the bailout, special treatment of "job creators"and enormous tax breaks for the wealthy.
Yet, somehow, Trump has managed to turn these feelings of about 30-plus percent of the voting population into his supporters by focusing on culture war issues a perceived slights by the "elites". I might add that my first cousins in Kansas have helped understand their feelings and why they lean this way politically and culturally.
If Democrats continue to remain locked on the urban and college towns this attitude will have not rebuttal or counter vision. If the Democrats ideas can thrive in the cities but die on the Plains they cannot say they represent America.
The world is growing increasingly complex and nuanced. Things that once seemed obvious and binary are now perceived to be set on a scale, a spectrum, which describes many subtle variations. It’s darn hard to function in society and know which end is up. A comment, which was once a complement in now regarded as a vulgar come on. “Standing on a corner watching the girls go by” is a gross disrespect of 50% of the population, not a harmless and descriptive song.
Complexity and confusion have made many people all over the world seek structure and authority. Within a rigid authoritarian social context the average Joe(Jane) doesn’t have to think too hard to get by. Right, wrong, male, female, evil, good all have rigid definitions and expectations. Not much need for critical thinking, not much controversy. Life becomes much more comfortable.
I suspect that the current state of western civilization is on the edge of a big fall. A victim of its own liberal culture and flexibility, much like Berlin in the post WW1 era, the forces of rectitude and intolerance are taking advantage of the social angst and are gathering political power.
This drift toward fascism is very repugnant to me, I don’t need the moral moorings so many crave, and leaves me very insecure about the future.
I get the picture: crime is rampant, we’re expected to treat LGBTQs like people, Whites are being discriminated against, Christians are being fed to the lions; they’re after my guns and my American Dream… Waah! Somebody call a waahmbulance.
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.”
---H.L. Mencken, 1921
"The more things change, the more they stay the same."
---Alphonse Karr, 1849
You are absolutely correct. This is a big problem for Democrats. Democrats need to stand up for the rights, safety and privacy of women and girls; also common sense, common decency and Mother Nature herself (aka biology).
Unfortunately it is true that anyone, of any "race" or ethnicity, can be discriminated against. This includes white people, depending on the circumstances. Whoever is in the minority can find her or himself at significant disadvantage. Human beings are tribal. They are suspicious and hostile towards people who look "different" and/or who are considered "foreign."
One partial solution to the angst expressed by Anonymous and some of your other commenters is start watching and reading media that's not Fox or otherwise slanted right. Everything Anonymous complains about is parroted ad nauseum on Fox News every night. As a counterpoint, there was a story on NBC the other night about the arrest of the ringleader of a smash and grab gang. People are being prosecuted and sent to jail for these crimes. Fox will never report it. Progressives and President Biden don't like crime any more than Anonymous does. There are also mainstream media stories about the increase in domestic manufacturing under Biden, the infrastructure work that he got funded, the lowest unemployment in 50 years, other positive economic indicators, etc. Biden has gone after corporate America for price gouging and for excessive fees that cost people millions. Does that count for anything with the square people?
Why is President Biden responsible for changes in society that make marginalized groups feel more included, but apparently make the squares uncomfortable? And why is it so terrible that same sex marriages are now the norm? How has that harmed anyone? What's wrong with drag story hour? Your kid is way more likely to be harmed by a minister or youth group leader than a drag queen. You're never going to undo the Sixties. Stop thinking you can. But do think about how much better life was in the 70s and 80s when the assault weapons ban was in place, and ask yourself why you prefer the candidate who celebrates deadly weapons over the one who wants reasonable restrictions on them.
Commenter Ayla Jean complains that the person Biden appointed to head the NCAA won't take on transgender athletes. Biden doesn't appoint the head of the NCAA. But it's a great example of the squares blaming the President for everything they don't like. I - who would not vote for Trump under any circumstances - agree that reasonable steps should be taken to ensure that women's sports is fair. But assuming that all transgender females have an advantage (and calling them men), even after taking hormone blockers and essentially becoming female, is wrong. The squares should educate themselves on what transgender people are all about.
A huge proportion of the immigrants in this country are asylum seekers, not illegal immigrants. Notice that Trump and Republicans have done nothing to change the asylum laws and recently tanked a bipartisan bill that would have speeded up the deportation process for those not qualifying for asylum. That bill was tanked because Trump demanded that Congressional Republicans do it. Biden would work with Republicans if they were willing to break away from Trump. Also, you may have forgotten that it was Trump who gave Venezuelans 18 months of special protected status the day before he left office. That got the ball rolling on the huge number of Venezuelans who have entered the country in the past three years. But of course, the squares say Biden is completely to blame.
Accepting Trump while knowing that he is an adulterer (see hush money payment to porn star), a fraud (see New York AG case), a cheater (see his attempt to steal the election based on no actual evidence of extensive voter fraud), a liar (see every campaign speech where he misstates his own and Biden's economic records among other things) and generally a narcissistic and egotistical person, and wanting that person to represent the United States here and around the world, strikes me as willful blindness.
The squares need to accept that putting Trump in office isn't going to change society back to the way it used to be. That ship has sailed. One way I know this is true is by watching TV commercials. Corporate America embraced inclusivity and the celebration of diverse people and families many years ago. Corporations don't shape society, they take its temperature and go in the direction they think will be most popular. It's time to adapt to 2020s America, not try to turn back the clock.
Why is it OK for males to put on enormous fake boobs and gaudy make-up and mock women, but it's not OK to put on blackface and mock African Americans?
How has this gross misogyny for toddlers become a progressive fighting point?
I did not call them men, I called them males. They are male human beings, competing in women's sports.
An altered male is not a female. The only meaningful competition for altered males is other altered males.
If there is no reason to prevent males from competing in sports with female athletes, there is no reason to have female sports at all. Just make everything co-ed. Is this what feminists fought for, to end all women's sports?
Look to Europe and the countries that have halted giving puberty blockers to youth. It is not good for their health and does not have a record of positive impacts. How can it be progressive to seek to put children on a lifelong path of medications and surgeries and sterility and lack of sexual function. This violates common sense and strikes fear in the hearts of many parents. They don't want their precious beloved children coming home from school announcing they want to become a facsimile of the opposite sex. So many families have been torn apart by the tears and anguish and pain of trying to get a child to healthy adulthood in today's world. Neither political party is helping them with this, really. But the sudden appearance of trans stories and parades and flags in today's schools is a real cause for concern. And not just for 'right-wing' parents.
Thank you Jennifer - not that providing facts will convince the "squares." I'm afraid that critical thinking so one of their boogeymen. They can whine all they want, but what matters most to those who value our democratic republic are the events leading up to and following Jan. 6. My expectation is that Trump will lose but claim he won and try to incite his cult into another coup attempt.
Very interesting conversation today, Peter. Aylas comment about Drag Queens "ocking" women is so far over the right fence to be laugh inducing. I find myself wondering if "Ayla" ever saw movies like Mrs. Doubtfire, or Victor, Victoria or Tootsie ?
At the same time, I agree with her that the entrance of Transgendered males competing in Women's Sporting Events raises a number of issues, fairness (to whom) being only one of them.
Keep up the good work, Peter !
Jennifer :
Thank you for such a well reasoned and written response.
Do you support white people in black face having Story Hour at the local public library or in a public school? If wearing black face and imitating black people is offensive (which it is) then impersonating, mocking and ridiculing females also is offensive. So-called female impersonators are misogynists.
Somewhat similarly, why is it considered offensive and inappropriate to "appropriate" someone's race, ethnicity or culture, but not their sex/gender?
Did anyone here complain about same-sex marriage? Maybe I missed it, but I will look again.
We need to protect all children from trashy, indecent and inappropriate "adult" content and behavior. Let children be children.
We are born with female or male DNA, which cannot be changed. Get over it and accept reality. Minors are not guinea pigs or lab rats for confused, deviant, unhappy adults.
LOL... Have you personally attended or watched a REAL (so-called) drag show? I suggest that you do, so that you can write more intelligently on the subject.
Also, I have noticed that the comments from liberals/progressives are completely ignoring the comparison with white people in black face impersonating black people. I assume they are ignoring the comparison because there is no way to justify one but not the other. Hypocrisy and misogyny combined, which is no surprise. Misogyny and male privilege are deeply imbedded all around the world.
It's true that transgender raises issues of fairness in female sports, and giving puberty-blocking drugs to children sounds to me like child abuse, but let's get our priorities straight. Our children face far greater threats from climate change, the national debt and the GOP's contempt for democracy and the rule of law.
The Progressive responses here today are very typical.
1. There have to be bad guys: Republicans, Trump, successful people who have worked hard and saved. Pick one or more...
2. Oregon is in such a mess from Progressive policies, that they refuse to look inward to fix Oregon. It certainly has declined after 30 years of Progressive rule, while many other states have risen and done well. An inordinate amount of time is being spent condemning conservatism and hard work by others.
Do I like Trump and some of the other idiots with an R or C after their name? Of course not, but...
Each of our elected leaders have plusses and minuses. For me, those that have an R or C, deliver much better than those with that D or P after their names.
3. Those invading our country claiming to be migrants seeking asylum, aren't fooling anyone, except those D and P people hoping to increase their own ranks, so that sometimes in the future they can have the squares unload their riches to fill the lazy D and P people who need to look into the mirror to see who is causing all this strife.
That's right, folks. Like M2inFLA says, Ds are bringing in all those immigrants to register them to vote for Biden. IT'S A CONSPIRACY!!! And compared to the Don't Say Gay, anti-Black history state, Oregon sucks.
"Me and Loretta, we don't talk much more
She sits and stares through the back door screen
And all the news just repeats itself
Like some forgotten dream that we've both seen"
Hello In There (John Prine)
Speaks to me...!
Anonymous @ 7:10 PM
Yes, I've seen real drag shows, and often found them entertaining, without demeaning women in any way. I also think those blackface shows of the Jim Crow era were humiliating and disgusting. I State those facts while acknowledging that misogyny and "Male Privilege" are a real, difficult problem Worldwide.
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