As I am writing this, it looks as if the lead Trump had on Election Night is slipping away, as was expected with late counting of mail-in ballots. Left-leaning people are breathing sighs of relief after a night of panic. I did not vote for a major party candidate in this election, but I find myself disappointed at the outcome (though I expect I would have been disappointed in either outcome). I feel like the most important lesson will be missed, just as it was in 2016.
In 2016, Donald Trump won in stunning fashion, but only took the electoral college and lost the popular vote. Left-leaning people were infuriated by this, with good reason. In a democratic election, shouldn’t the presidency go to the candidate with the most support? However, the focus on the fact that the election was “stolen” from Hillary Clinton was a convenient distraction from the most important fact of that election: 63 million people voted for Donald Trump. When numbers get that high it is difficult to fathom. If all of Trump voters held hands, they could make a line that spanned from the west to the east coast….20 times. Even that is hard to fathom because, what the heck is 2,800 miles? The point is, that is a remarkable amount of people and even if Hillary had won the electoral college and the presidency, it is irresponsible to ignore the fact that 63 million people voted for Donald Trump.
On occasion, I did see left-leaning people try to explain why so many people voted for Trump, and more often than not I saw “racist”, “non-college educated”, “redneck”, “easily fooled”, “misinformed”, “dumb”. On Joe Rogan’s live stream on election night, Kyle Kulinski showed the final Trump ad from 2016. Trump talked about government corruption, trade deals that screwed over the working class, and keeping jobs in America (I suspect that Trump did not even know how he got 63 million people to vote for him because he did not bring the same message to his 2020 campaign). Many millions voted for Trump as a veto to the political establishment in Washington and as a wager that they would benefit economically under his administration. You will notice that reasoning has nothing to do with White Supremacy or how “stupid” the voter is.
During his campaign and presidency, opponents tried incessantly to disparage the character and intelligence of Donald Trump, demonstrated a severe misunderstanding of the reasons he was elected. Everyone knew who Donald Trump was. Everything that was pointed out just confirmed what everyone already knew, and every time it was pointed out, left-leaning people would sit back with their arms crossed and say, “Surely, now that you know this about him, you cannot support him”. They missed the point again and again and again and again, that people settled for Donald Trump. He was an imperfect vehicle for change that they desperately wanted; the same change that Barrack Obama had promised and mostly failed to deliver. I am obviously not describing every Donald Trump voter; I am pointing out the pragmatic and reluctant vote for Trump that I believe got him elected.
In this election (as of now), 67 million people voted for Trump. If he does not win this election, I fear the left will ignore the really important lessons once again. Will they ask how on earth the race was so close? Donald Trump’s handling of Covid-19 hurt him tremendously especially with senior voters (his most reliable demographic), and he all but abandoned the populist rhetoric that helped him to victory in 2016. He was exposed to have shady international business dealings that are inappropriate for a president to have. How was this race so close?
I think Joe Biden and the DNC is part of the answer. The DNC is far too corrupt to allow a strong progressive candidate like Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren; too committed to globalism to allow an anti-interventionist like Tulsi Gabbard; too dedicated to avoiding material beneficial change for the electorate that would come at the expense of their corporate donors to allow a policy laden candidate like Andrew Yang. They had to pick a senile, creepy, and corrupt career politician to hold together their liberal alliance and maintain their self-serving agenda. There is more to the answer, though.
I don’t have a catchy term for this, and the one that is commonly used I do not like: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Here are some examples of what I am talking about:
- There is a video of a young person (their pronouns are they/them) saying in a screeching voice that it is cool to vote for whomever you like, unless the person is a “fucking fascist”. Regardless of the content, it is awful to listen to. Perhaps they are a lovely person typically but talking about Trump makes them turn into the Wicked Witch of the West. (I could not find the original video, but it starts at 2:50 in the embedded video of this Dinesh D-Souza tweet)
- I was at a bar with a few people and one person had a friend visiting from a southern state. The visitor seemed like a nice person and did not say anything odd, but when she left the table to buy a drink, the people I was with gossiped that she was a “closet Republican”. The irony that it is a shameful part of our society that the term closeted originated because gay people had to keep their sexuality hidden for fear of persecution/prejudice, was clearly lost on the gossipers.
- An article titled, “If You are Married to a Trump Supporter, Divorce Them” advises people who find their spouse supporting Trump to separate from them. Imagine thinking that it is appropriate to advise couples that you have never met and who love each other to divorce. This is just one of plenty of articles and memes just like it.
Most people are quite reasonable and conduct reminiscent of these three examples makes it difficult for them to support the same president as the people behaving in such a way. I anticipate that a Biden victory will have these “Trump Derangement Syndrome” individuals patting themselves on the back and praising themselves for taking a “strong stance” against Trump and “fighting and defeating fascism”. They will miss the fact that it may have been their behavior that almost helped Trump into a second term in office. The ends do not justify the means.
As I said, I knew I would be disappointed in the election results. I initially supported Andrew Yang and I was hopeful that he would be the underdog that took the Democratic ticket. When he dropped out, I accepted Bernie Sanders as my next best option. I have some problems with him, but I believe in him and I believe he cares about making America great. After Bernie was defeated and dropped out, I flirted with the idea of voting for a major party candidate, but then Bret Weinstein started a Unity2020 political campaign that was about shrugging off the oppressive yoke of the duopoly, and I thought that maybe this movement could gain enough momentum to make at least a ripple. None of these panned out, and I believe that America is worse for it (at least in the short-term). I hope over the next 4 years, things change for the better. I will continue to share my thoughts in the hope that they provoke critical thought in others. I also hope that in 2024, we will have at least one candidate that cannot be described as senile, creepy, and corrupt.
Latest Posts
- The Unmentionables
- Short Takes: Martha’s Vineyard, Pronouns, Gender Identity
- The Crumbling Case for Abortion Bans
Follow My Blog
Get new content delivered directly to your inbox.
For whom the bell tolls 