I assume the answer is “me, now”.
This is a good response! I was thinking about starting a new thread, with not quite so much well-poisoning, but I don’t think I’d get anything better than this.
I think there are a lot of honest reasons to vote for trump.
For instance, The above.
If you are a small business owner, government regulations cost you money and give you hassles every day. How is that not rational?
And is it rational to want to save lives? Many abortion opponents truly think that every abortion is a murder. Or at least, every abortion after x weeks, as many understand that there’s a real difference between a blastula and a newborn, but draw the line a lot closer to “blastula” than i do.
This is true, too. Some of his voters are really upset that America is less white, and women and Blacks get too much respect. That there are more Hispanics than there used to be, and thus, we see signs in Spanish. That queers are tolerated in public. Maybe not rational, but an honest reason.
And then there’s this. I’ve seen young voters who despaired at inflation and believe Trump will bring prices “back”. There are blue collar workers who believe trump will bring back good American jobs. These people are just wrong, but these are things they desperately want, and it’s hard not to chase hope.
The other thing most Trump voters have in common is not caring that he’s personally vile. Most of them are willing to admit it. Except the bigots, who revel in it. But while bigots are an important voting segment, i don’t think they are a majority of Trump’s voters. His other voters don’t think his personality is as important as his policies, and what his administration will do. Ant don’t believe that our democracy is in any special danger. It is it is, that’s less important than the danger to our society of leftist policies. And a lot of American political rhetoric is firmly in the “me first, i worked for it” camp. Much of American believes that charity should stay in the home and church, and that “society” doesn’t have a responsibility towards those who suffer misfortune.
The thing is, someone doesn’t have to be a Trump supporter to agree with everything here. A non-Trump supporter may have more nuance about Trump’s term and agrees that Trump should not be elected again and may be willing to hold their nose and vote for Harris. Doesn’t mean they’ll like it, doesn’t mean they won’t split the ticket downballot, but that doesn’t make them Democrat supporters.
People, including lots of posters here, are perfectly happy to use a very wide brush to condemn millions of people in a way that they wouldn’t tolerate for a number of other groups or identities.
His positions on matters may influence some voters, but only if they openly disregard the fact that Trump’s moral weather vane swings towards public opinion and can change just as fast.
Uh no. What you are calling “centrist” (i.e. this board), is very much LEFT of “centrist”, as that word would be defined by any defensible definition. Maybe not anarchist overthrow the government Antifa leftist (generally, there are certain exceptions), but definitely left of center. Your point of view is skewed due to your lack of personal association with anyone who is right of center. Most everyone wants to be thought of as part of the reasonable, rational, not at all radical centrist point of view. The problem is your baseline of what centrist means is shifted.
This is my ex-best-friend’s honest arguments for Trump:
Personally, I just want wars to end… I liked the peace we had with Trump. I liked that my dollar went farther. I liked that houses were more affordable, and that he was cutting regulations. I like that other countries were contributing to NATO more. I liked that the southern border was more secure. I liked less crime. I liked affordable gas and groceries. I liked lower taxes which are set to expire next year I believe. These last 3.5 years have been a total disaster, I can’t believe people are voting for Kamala, especially with her proven record of supporting crime, bailing out felons, and her being the border czar and totally messing that up. If she was meat, she’d be sausage because she’s the wurst…
You don’t have to like Trump to vote for him. His policies are objectively better for everybody. The last 4 years have shown that republicans may not be the solution to our problems, but democrats and the democrat agenda is, without a doubt, the cause of many of our problems. Vote for Trump, I know you want to!
As always…
You can’t reason a person out of a belief that they didn’t use reason to hold in the first place.
– [Paraphrasing] Jonathan Swift
I’m sorry, but it looks like your friend wasn’t even honest with them self. Just saying those things without backing them up with facts, even to the point of disregarding opposing facts, does not count as “honesty” in my book-it is, at best, willful ignorance.
Funny how that never gets deployed against those who say they would vote for a ham sandwich over Trump.
Again, Trump’s given plenty of reasons he should not be elected. But it’s not like every voter the Democrats get is perfectly rational and enlightened.
Just sharin’ what I see. Thats how he honestly feels. I don’t agree with any of it but I’m sure if I engaged he’d prompt me to do my own research.
Never? The right does it all the time. You seem to be saying that you want both sides to do it…which of course would render it useless.
This is getting to be a hijack, but
I think @Der_Trihs is European? The American political spectrum leans very far to the right of the European political spectrum. That’s what i was getting at when i said "
That’s a common American sentiment, but less common in Europe. Which is why Europe has a stronger social safety net than we have, and why Trump is popular among many non-bigots in the US.
Getting back to the topic, i think you need to acknowledge the strong individualistic strain in US politics to understand Trump’s popularity.
Personally, I’d have to know more about the ham sandwich if the ham sandwich had tried to overthrow the legitimately elected US government.
But I haven’t seen any evidence that the ham sandwich did that.
Trump, OTOH, most assuredly did.
IOW: I don’t buy your premise At. All.
I haven’t studied things terribly closely, but my impression is that Trump was quite successful in:
-reducing taxes on the wealthy;
-attacking the permanent bureaucracy and reducing many categories of information/services provided to the public;
-opposing any meaningful addressing of immigration;
-appointing judges/justices who seem willing to be very activist and decide cases reflecting religious and - um - conservative principles;
-lessening our obligations to various international organizations.
Too many folk say that he accomplished nothing during his presidency. I’d agree, with the qualifier nothing GOOD. But he was QUITE effective in these areas - possibly more. If someone really liked any one or more of those accomplishments, there’s your honest reason.
Thank you for sharing. That stuff is gold
The last sentence is super revealing ("Vote for Trump, I know you want to!). That’s what I would say to a friend…but I’d say Harris. The underlying genuine thinking for both is: you can’t possibly like Harris/Trump for all these reasons, and on some basic level that you won’t admit, deep down you want to vote for Trump/Harris.
Such a disconnect.
Who knew the result, no matter what the actual content, would end up with a totally artificial “both sides do it”?
I did.
Not really. Yea, Inflation had been down under Obama, but it started to go up again- until Covid.
No, I live in California.
That said, in my lifetime the politics of the US have moved increasingly rightward, the Left has become basically irrelevant, and the so-called “center” has let itself be dragged steadily rightward for decades while claiming to be the “moderates” the whole time. And I refuse to let the Far Right define what the “center” is.
The way I read “I know you want to” is that some reptilian part of the brain wants to vote for the candidate, perhaps because the same people who look down on the candidate look down on me.
My answer to that is — I believe you want to, but you shouldn’t because DJT’s a con man.
To me, it doesn’t work the other way. It is hard for me to imagine many voters wanting to vote for Harris while knowing they shouldn’t.