So, I wanted to understand people who really thought Trump was better. You know, what policies of his do they like, what is it that appeals to him. It can’t all be racism, can it? There’s all those articles saying I should stop shaming Trump supporters. And I know I live in a liberal bubble. On my ballot, the only non-president candidate with an opponent was running against someone from the Massachusetts Pirate Party. DJT was the only Republican on the ballot.
The problem is, that I’d already unfollowed all… OK, both Trump voters who were in my feed. One after a “what’s wrong with Bay Area house prices” discussion ended with him saying he was OK with density as long as there wasn’t hip-hop dancing at his kid’s elementary school talent show, and one after she posted something insane about how Muslims are all coming to murder us. OK there’s my wife’s uncle from Indiana who’s a single-issue anti-abortion voter. I disagree heartily but at least it’s a coherent explanation. Old-school conservative Catholic, anti-abortion, case closed.
So, in my search for understanding my differences with others, I obviously went and got into a huge fight with a friend of a friend. It’s someone who, I have been assured, is a fundamentally good person. She told me first that a lot of voters voted for Trump because they had been hurt by the Obama administration’s policies.
So I asked her, who’s been harmed by Obama? People who got health insurance? Stock brokers who had to be held to a fiduciary standard? Bankers who had to increase their capital reserves? I know people hurt because they’re out of work now, but what part of Obama’s administration put them out of work?
After all, Republicans blocked stimulus, blocked Medicaid expansion, blocked health care regulation, and then complained there wasn’t enough work, enough Medicaid, good regs on insurers. Break the government, then cry out that it’s broken.
And oh, they hate Obamacare. They don’t feel supported by Obamacare. Remember, Obamacare was a Republican originated policy that Dems adopted because it was better than nothing. And as soon as the Dems picked it up, Republicans claimed it was Kenyan socialism. There’s a branding failure, definitely. Everyone loves the individual components of Obamacare, they hate the idea of it.
They like Trump’s economic policies? Look at Kansas. Brownback and the Republicans wrecked the economy there. And now people are angry at the party trying to help?
And so she went on a tear. I’ve cleaned up the typos but holy shit, you guys, Trump people live in a totally different world.
I’m glad HRC lost because I’m sick of her policies, principles, and her way of life which her supporters are clearly showing to be un-American IMHO. I didn’t like either candidate but no way would I ever vote for her.
HRC has lived off the system for decades. Billions donated to Haiti and not much went there. Why did HRC just move $1.8 billion to qatar? So American she didn’t want to leave the $$ here to be confiscated? And how about the Swiss bank accounts? How about the pedophile ring? Hmmm nice way of life promoting adultery, pedophilia, lying, getting fired from law firms for being unethical LOL.. working the system that’s for sure!!
When I pointed out that those were all lies, she replied with a link to a fake news site about a protest against Hillary over the Haitian earthquake relief effort. I acknowledged that the earthquake recovery was not well done, but that there was no evidence Hillary or the Clinton Foundation were the cause of it.
She sent a link to a New Yorker article about how Hillary’s donors are rich bankers and she has ties to Wall Street. Which, yes, major donors have big money. We know money is part of politics. I said we’ve read her emails and seen her tax returns, which is more than DJT has provided. She’s been far more transparent.
Her: Transparent HAHAH and no Trump’s not my boy but I have to respect who ever is Pres..
Me: How respectful of Obama were you?
Her: I didn’t vote for him and Obamacare has hurt me.. and his policies have hurt my business.. but he is/was the Pres and I didn’t riot, burn business etc. like you HRC supporters are.
Me: Yes, progressives are in the streets. But I don’t see them taking over a national park and threatening to shoot government employees. Protest – even rude and inconvenient protest – is valuable to remind the people in power that they don’t have free reign. And that’s why people are protesting.
But she just went on about immigrants costing us all money. Conspiracies about George Soros paying protestors. Got into a fight about abortion with someone else on the thread, claiming Trump wasn’t really going to cut abortion access. Claiming high property taxes that fund Medicaid hurt her business as a real estate broker,
And I gave up. I guess Northeastern liberals expected too much to hope Florida would do some research somewhere other than Infowars before casting a ballot.
So, I’m going to stop trying to “reach out” and “understand” and just go ahead and be angry.
I’m angry that someone’s going to put a climate denier in charge of the EPA and an evolution-denier in charge of education. I’m angry that people are opposed to immigration when a lot of my friends and co-workers are immigrants or the children of immigrants.
No, my friends aren’t “illegals,” although I wouldn’t mind if they didn’t have papers. But under Trump it will be a lot harder for them to stay, for their families to be here, for other great people to come here and be part of America. My co-workers are from Nepal, India, Mexico, Colombia, El Salvador, Haiti, Canada. They have come for work, or fleeing natural and manmade disasters, or because their parents came, or because they fell in love. They contribute to this country. They are on H1-B and O-1 visas or green cards or they are naturalized citizens. And there are some folks I don’t know well enough to ask, and it’s frankly none of my goddamn business. I’d love to have more immigration. I think immigrants are awesome. My great-grandfather was an immigrant and if he’d been turned away his whole family would have been destroyed in the WWI-era pogroms or the holocaust.
And I’m angry that Mike Pence is going to be doing a lot of domestic policy and that he thinks my gay and lesbian friends don’t deserve to have their families recognized. I’m angry that millions of people who got medicaid through the ACA are going to lose insurance. That if some jackhole rapes one of my friends, she won’t be able to get an abortion because Pence and co shut them all down and want to punish her.
I get that Trump supporters are angry. Because I’m not satisfied with the progress we made over the last 8 years. I get that people are hurting. I get that people think it’s a rigged system.
But even if you assume that “all politicians are corrupt” (we’ll see just how much more corrupt DJT is soon enough), look at the stated policies:
Trump is against immigration. He’s in favor of an impossible wall. He’s in favor of trade wars that could plunge the world economy into recession. He thinks NATO, the force which stabilized Europe post-WWII, isn’t worth the trouble. He thinks nuclear proliferation is dandy. He’s in favor of torture. He’s against health care for the poor. He’s in favor of tax cuts for the rich. He’s against abortion. He doesn’t believe in climate change. He’s in favor of gutting the EPA, he wants more coal and oil and less solar.
All of those things are demonstrably, objectively, dumb and bad.
So, yeah, I’m going to shame people who support him because “EMAILS!” or “THE ESTABLISHMENT” almost as much as I shame people who support him because they want their white country back from uppity negroes and foreigners and bitches who demand equality and queers who act all different.
I don’t care if you mean well. I don’t care if you’re “fundamentally good.” You’re supporting shameful shit and you should be ashamed.
Secretly Ironic 