All these years later, I still don’t get it: the continuous adulation by my fellow Americans of former President Donald Trump. It’s called Trumpism. They’re called Trumpers. They number a solid third of all Americans. Some speculate there’s a real possibility that half the country or slightly more will vote him back in office later this year.
Just about every person I know loves him still. He’s got their vote. But I live in Texas. He’s got our state, too.
For years I’ve pondered the Trump phenomena—why millions, maybe a hundred million, of Americans young and old believe in him. Believe is the right word. It’s an emotional (or rational) bond. His followers (and that’s the right word, too) especially the poor truly feel that Trump represents them. Did they all watch his show The Apprentice and Celebrity Apprentice and chuckle at his gruffness when saying his trademark line, “Yah fired?” Doubt it.
Weren’t we all aware of his once handsome looks; three marriages with children; constant celebrity; magazine covers; enviable wealth and success; and his name stamped on his plane, NYC golden tower, assorted buildings (hotels, casinos) and many other products (books, board game, business institute, bottled water, steaks) and even international projects (state-of-the-art golf courses)? Doubt it.
All of us who disapprove of Trump and a second Trump presidency—and we’re a comfortable majority of Americans—are on the same wavelength. We’re not all Democrats or liberals but also Independents (what Trump claimed to be during his earliest presidential attempt) and a number of real-deal Republicans like Mitt Romney—patriotic Americans who think about character, intelligence and ability when choosing a U.S. President.
Four years later, why Trump?
Knowing so many people in my life—I’d say 95% of all family, acquaintances, and colleagues—who absolutely will vote for Trump, I stand back and ponder, incredulously, “Why?” Why don’t others see Trump, the subject of serious jail-time felonies and defendant in assorted federal and state trials, as the other half of our country does? We think he should never be President of the United Stages again.
Is it really our media divide, deciding to hear only what we each accept as truth from ‘liberal’ or ‘conservative’ journalism? [Psst. There’s no such a-thing.] Perhaps that is part of the problem. I won’t watch Fox—not after all their shameful wrongdoing following the 2020 election. I won’t forget that dead serious judgement against Fox, just under a billion dollars. What they did—maintaining 24/7 that Trump won and our country’s election was rigged—will be the greatest media scam and sham of my lifetime. Then there’s the 90 or so lawsuits against the former president for alleged illegal activities, one by one going to court practically every week. And the verdicts are guilty so far.
Decency is a character trait we should consider when choosing a person to vote for as U.S. President. And yet decency does not matter to those who support Trump for President. From the moment he started making campaign speeches, Trump mouthed on about his assumption that our government, the USA, was as corrupt as all others—that no American has a right to say or think that we (our form of government) are better than other countries like Saudi Arabia, Russia, China and North Korea.
AND millions of Americans said Amen.
Not able to capture the Independent voters, Trump, a lifelong Democrat, ran as a Republican in the last election. Back then the Republican convention had a knock-down drag-out fight over handing the party to Trump. Yet he won their wholehearted support. Then he won the national election, by electoral college not by popular vote. It was so shocking to half the country that network reporters wept on the air and a million or so women marched in DC to protest the election of Trump. They did this because of his misogynist attitude toward women (the p word tape) and that he intended to overturn Roe v Wade. And he surely did.
Next thing we knew, it was four years of happy-pappy Republicans and assorted daily domestic and foreign political chaos while the rest of us managed to live low key if not ashamed in Bizarro America.
And now a third to half of Americans want to go back to all that … drama?
Which brings me back to my ponderance: Why Trump? Why him? His own native city and state can’t stand him & won’t vote for him. That alone should tell the rest of us something. Don’t any of us know Trump. Nevertheless, it’s ignored by residents in the ‘fly-over’ states.
I’ve always thought people like Trump because he says what they wish they could say—without admonitions of shame due to political correctness or something called wokism. People that like Trump love first his big mouth, that he says whatever the hell he wants, and they’re entertained by his televised speeches.
Since the vast majority of his supporters are white and older white people, I always thought his fans (and that’s the right word) would like to go back to the old days in America’s history when whites freely called Blacks the n word and called Hispanics the s word and women the b word and w word and c word. And they think people who are offended by racial epithets are the ones with the problem. I know what I’m talking about here.
No, the folks who support Trump, warts and all the alleged illegal shenanigans, follow him in a way that is beyond what makes sense politically and culturally. But they do have something in common: a collective pessimism about politics in general. They think or have grown to believe that it really doesn’t matter who’s the U.S. President. They think, like Trump proclaims, our country is just as dirty and corrupt as our enemies—all nations that are not free societies. They have forgotten—because Trump isn’t about to remind them—that Democracy is messy … but compared to all the other governments on earth, it’s the best choice for all humanity.
Instead, the American pessimists maintain a “Get real” and “Grow up” cynicism that binds together followers of Trump. They’ve lost faith in America as the greatest country that has ever existed (ironic given their MAGA caps). And they no longer believe in what made the U.S. great: a nation of immigrants, a mix of cultures, a free public education, a country where a poor person could work up to a good-paying job and middle-class life, where free press and free speech and no sanctioned state religion were considered sacred, where more sects of our society have been provided equality through constitutional amendments, where the people rule and not the elected officials including the President himself—and accepting and fully understanding and supporting the Balance of Power.
The support of Trump is not just a practical choice by his flock. It’s much deeper and personal—more like a religious movement. Trump always reminded me of Jim Jones. Still does. And his opponents say his followers have ‘drunk the Kool Aid,’ referring to the mass suicide by Rev. Jones’ religious followers or fanatics. ‘Drinking the Kool Aid’ means the followers gave up thinking for themselves. For some reason, they want someone to lead them and do all their thinking for them.
And in this country, that’s very dangerous thinking.
In coming to terms with our nation’s political crisis whereby millions would choose to support Trump over anyone else, I know most of his supporters are at heart good moral people, even church-going Christians, who cast their vote for Trump after praying to God for guidance—the same God I pray to.