Let’s say 60% turnout for presidential elections
75% of Americans are older than 18
Trump is currently polling at about 40%
Not all of Trumps votes come from “Trump supporters”. Let’s say 40% of his votes come from die-hard Republicans, who will support any candidate with an R, (60% “Trump supporters”)
So that gives us 60% * 75% * 40% * 60% = 10.8% of Americans in the “deplorable” basket.
About 15% of Americans have an IQ below 85, so this accounts for some. Some unknown percentage are unrepentant racists and complete bastards. So this 10% figure does not seem to unreasonable to me.
I would have added: “Unless these people blame other races or recent immigrants for their problems. Then we need to educate them. And if they do not desire to be educated, then Fuck 'em.”
There are some accelerationists who support Trump because they think America needs a bizarre, shocking, unusual president like Trump to jolt it to its senses. They think America needs something bad to happen in order to see the light.
There are even some Bernie supporters, AIUI, who support Trump because they want to teach the DNC a lesson, or something like that.
I’m not insinuating it. I’m stating plainly that many of Trump’s supporters are clearly, unambiguously racist pigs. Others are merely stupid, stupid people who have been sucked into the Trumpesphere because they are too dim to understand they are being lied to.
This lapse kind of baffles me, too. Clinton has a long record of public service and, sure, there were mistakes and corners cut and things she’d do better with hindsight, but Trump has NO public service, has actually cheated in his financial dealings, has actually misappropriated money given to him for charity, and somehow his supporters still think he’ll do right by America? Everything Trump has done, including this campaign, has been in service to his personal wealth and fame. If you could let him be president for a day, let him sit in the big-boy chair for a few hours, ride Air Force One and get a tour of the cockpit and talk about gladiator movies, let him push some red buttons and make missile-kaboom noises… would that satisfy him and make him go away?
We support Trump because we are far more concerned with Hillary’s felonies and lies than we are with something Trump said 10+ years ago that is being blown out of proportion because of frantic liberal desperation. In fact, if you have an IQ over 80 and you support Hillary, please stay home on election day, because you are too dumb to vote.
If you can ignore everything he has said and done from then till now, it’s not your intelligence that is in question so much as it is your ethics and morals.
This sentiment, “Trump voters are not bad people…we need to empathize with them,” is not one I have heard anywhere. Who is saying that?
I’ve heard people attempt to understand the Trump voter, or explain their motives. But those people usually still conclude that the Trump voter is a fuckwit.
Thje candidate hasn’t. Except saying that the racist supporters are racist. I’m not considering what Trump supporters say outside of rallies, since to some extent Trump isn’t responsible for that. Unless he retweets their comments, that is.
Not to mention that the Trumpist hate is about who people are and not just about the opinions they hold.
I am so glad the cavalry arrived. A lot of awesome and appropriately roasty-toasty posts since I last logged in. In the first few hours after my OP, it felt like I had accidentally wandered into Breitbart land somehow.
There has for some time been a kind of conventional wisdom that “shaming doesn’t work”. Several people have repeated it in this thread. But I have always questioned that, given that we are social animals and social proof is so important to us. So I was very glad to hear this NPR story about how this is changing, at least within the realm of public health (controversial examples in the US being breast-feeding and anti-obesity campaigns):
And yes: several people have it exactly right. Make the hardcore Trump supporter toxic, and the fence-sitting center-right voter will be less likely to want to be associated with that camp. This has worked in the past. People like Strom Thurmond did not shift their rhetoric and voting records because of some true internal change of heart, but because their expressly racist and segregationist attitudes could no longer be expressed publicly without too much blowback. Forcing such politicians to use dogwhistles, instead of explicit racist appeals, does help move society forward because successive generations don’t even know to listen for the dogwhistles, and the old attitudes just dry up and blow away in the winds of change.
Oh, I heard it. She is one of the center-left people I am complaining about in my OP!
I wanted to have some links as citations, but I couldn’t find any. I think it is mostly reporters and columnists on various podcasts and radio shows when they are discussing the election. But I promise you I have heard it many, many times.
I believe this is indeed the problem with Der Trihs. But I object to being categorized as in the same “basket”, if you will. I have actually had many arguments with liberal friends on this topic. For instance, I have argued that someone who is hardcore against abortion is not necessarily out to control/subjugate women, or prevent them from making their own healthcare choices. They may just believe that a fetus is a baby, and that protecting a baby’s life trumps those other concerns. Not inherently unreasonable. And on economics, there are people who really believe that a less regulated market with lower taxation gives an individual the greatest chance for success, and that it is not as important to level everyone out. I disagree with that philosophy, but I don’t think it is an evil philosophy.
Trump is a very different kettle of fish. Which, again, is why the National Review, and all living GOP presidential nominees except Dole, are against him.
ETA: Bob Kerrey, on Bill Maher’s most recent show, is an example. Andrew Sullivan was sympathetic as well. If you don’t have HBO, the audio is available as a podcast. Bill pushed back against both of them, for which I was grateful. Of course he says most Americans are stupid and religion is idiotic, so his messaging probably won’t work for moderates.
If he had just said that, he’d be morally reprehensible but only that. But the number of women who have come out and said he really did it - and there is evidence of them telling others about it when it occurred - shows he wasn’t lying about his actions.
I hadn’t realized that even you thought being a sexual predator was just fine.
Sometimes the people complaining need to be part of the solution. But they won’t do anything if they think that it would all get better or stay better if we build a wall or kept black kids out of the schools.
It is not new - Nobel Laureate Dylan’s Only a Pawn in Their Game is about exactly this.
Interesting article with an even more interesting problem. Though, I think I still am against shaming because there is a difference between shaming someone for something “objectively” wrong, like pooping in the street, and the extremely complicated issue of say abortion. At least with abortion there are logical arguments that can be made to reach your position, and the issue is still at a standstill.
However, its hard convincing people that there are Trump supporters who are concerned about the issues that you mentioned, like abortion and the economy. They would much rather chalk it up to racism and have that be the end of it.