Exactly. Voting for Trump to make things better is the equivalent of burning witches because your cows are dying.
What if a Muslim mosque shows up and says white American men are evil and immoral? Should they be allowed to enforce their bigotry on others?
I’d have no problem telling a straight white man that nobody can tell him he has to be gay - and that nobody, including him, can tell anybody else they have to be straight. Everyone, including him, gets equal rights and equal treatment.
Also, I’d tell him being a straight white man isn’t a religion.
Can’t remember when I decided to be straight. Ursula Andress, in Dr No? Maybe…
How/what were you practicing before that is now illegal re:homosexuality?
Cite? Because that’s never happened.
Man, if only Saul of Tarsus hadn’t eaten those mushrooms!
Very stupid.
So the question becomes “Why are about half of Americans very stupid?” Forget Trump, because so far, he still only gets one vote in the next election.
It’s insulting to the memory of the people who established the United States, that “The People” in 2018 have been hoodwinked by a man with orange hair.
White;
Rural or from the exburbs;
Ostensibly Christian, although it is a pick and choose form of Christianity that embraces bigotry, especially of gays;
Very limited grasp of the outside world and basic economics;
Racist and bigoted, but couched in virtue signaling terms like patriotism, culture, family values and Christian identity;
Probably has traveled very little outside the US;
Profoundly ignorant on topics like science and world history;
Sees poverty as a moral failing of the individual when the person is not white, but poverty in whites is a sign that America has forgotten them;
Entitled, self-pitying, looking to blame others for their failings;
Quick to look for easy answers to complex problems, quick to see conspiracies rather than global economic and political forces;
Likely to live somewhere dependent on federal taxes for a significant portion of their state budgets and livelihood, but quick to denounce the segments of society that actually subsidize their lifestyles and to denounce Washington;
Very limited understanding of basic government functions; and
White nationalist in outlook.
“Of those who did turn out, Trump actually won a lower share of the white vote than Mitt Romney… he won a larger share of Hispanics and Asians than his predecessor, along with the largest share of the black vote of any Republican since 2004.”
It’s possible I suppose. Who am I to tell somebody what their religious beliefs are? Maybe there are a lot of people who believe their religion requires them to actively harass gay people.
If so, those people shouldn’t be allowed to transform their religious beliefs into religious practices. Just like somebody whose religious beliefs require human sacrifices. You can believe whatever you want but society reserves the right to prohibit some actions, even if those actions derive from religious beliefs.
I can’t remember if he dismissed Black Lives Matter before or after taking office.
Really? The RNC convention in 2016 was practically a “Blue Lives Matter” convention (source).
I’m not sure Trump has a “base.” Maybe fans of his book and TV show?
He put together a coalition to win. He appealed to those who wanted an outsider and/or businessman (think of those who would vote for a Mike Bloomberg, Ross Perot, Arnold Schwarzenegger, or Jimmy Carter); and then he got the nomination from the GOP, so he could get the partisans and the ideological right to vote him as the GOP nominee.
So there are really two “bases”: One is Trump fans, those weirdos. The other is GOP types who will back their team and their team’s captain for the season. The latter group will act like Trump is God himself to keep the other team down, but then he’ll be term-limited and out, and they’ll disown him; they did that to Dubya Bush.
Yep, they have twisted their religion to support their bigotry and hate.
Let them die off lonely and afraid. I have zero tolerance for such people. They can’t be helped.
It makes sense to lump minorities etc. together because their interests are explicitly recognized in that form. Politicians recognize “minority concerns” and “women’s concerns” as genuine concerns that need to be addressed at a group level, and laws and policies are formed with those group interests in mind.
Saying that white men have a voice because SOME powerful white men have a voice is both missing the point, and doing the same discounting act that drives people to the Trumps of the world.
A hypothetical guy named Ed Earl Johnson who works at a gas station in rural Tennessee is likely not feeling like his interests and voice typically get much traction, because politicians are you know, looking at people who actually have money or some sort of interesting story of oppression or discrimination.
When the Ed Earls of the nation look at the political parties, they see Republicans who are traditionally looking toward the upper middle class and above for their policies, with a healthy dose of encouraging self-reliance, lower taxes, etc… as well as some thinly veiled racism and classism. Not terribly attractive in all to Ed Earl.
When the Ed Earls look at the Democratic party, they see Democrats who spend a great deal of their time concerned with minorities and special interest/fringe groups, and who, at least in terms of public rhetoric, pay very little attention to white men, except to demonize them in terms of white privilege, etc… (saying things just like Little_Nemo just did, by telling him that because some men who do have some political power have a voice, so does he because he has the same color skin).
Neither party really puts much effort traditionally into anti-globalism or anti-immigration policies because those things benefit the economy, and tend to benefit the poor (often in other countries), satisfying both parties, even if the Ed Earls of the world are the ones who suffer the negative consequences when the factories are shut down, or trades suffer because of immigrant labor.
So when he’s looking at parties, the Republican party edges out on the whole because at least they make a point of saying that if he does somehow eke out a little success, the government is not going to try and take it to give to someone else.
And I’m not convinced that the Ed Earls of the country are necessarily consciously racist, but they are consciously not anti-racist, if that makes sense. By that, I mean that I don’t think there’s necessarily hate or a desire to do minorities wrong because they’re minorities, but I think that the way that a lot of the political rhetoric is said tends to set up an us-vs-them situation among the working class white population who sees a lot of money and effort being spent on inner-city minorities without any corresponding spending or effort on poor rural whites. So they view them as enemies of sorts, on a grand scale. This doesn’t mean that Ed Earl dislikes black or hispanic people on a personal level, but that he views them as bitter political rivals.
And along came Trump. This guy spoke to them- he talks about making America great again, and deliberately evokes the America of their parents’ and grandparents’ day where one could live in a small town, work in a factory and be successful. His political rhetoric speaks directly to things that concern them- immigration, globalization and the restoration of American blue collar jobs. He also gives the finger to all the notions that minorities and/or city dwellers are important or a focus. Sure he has his flaws, but so does everyone else. Keep in mind Ed Earl isn’t living the middle-class life of propriety and manicured lawns, etc… so it’s entirely possible that his pecadilloes aren’t such a big deal to Ed Earl. And the racism probably doesn’t bother him overly much either, since that us-vs-them attitude was set up prior to Trump showing up.
So if you’re one of the Ed Earls of the nation, why WOULDN’T you vote for him?
I think that we also have to acknowledge that the Democrats have put themselves in the position of actually being antagonistic to Ed Earl. Even when they put policies in place, they sub-consciously reinforce an us-vs-them dichotomy where Ed Earl is always the them. Even excellent speakers like Obama do this. For instance, Hillary’s ‘put miners out of work’ line that was followed with a plan. The rhetoric wasn’t ‘we’re in trouble, let’s figure a way out of it.’ It was ‘You’re in trouble, so we’re benevolently going to help you.’ Or Obama’s infamous ‘guns and religion’ line. It wasn’t ‘We have a tendency to distrust government.’ It was ‘THEY cling to their guns and religion.’ implying that the ‘they’ is not part of the enlightened ‘us.’ Democratic national leaders have a rhetorical device of always placing the white-rural-middle class in the ‘other’ category and then wondering why they vote against them. The last Democratic politician that was able to avoid this trap was probably Bill Clinton, but it has been nearly 30 years of reinforcing this idea that the ‘we’ of the Democratic Party doesn’t include rural white people.
Because I’m not as stupid as Ed Earl apparently is.
It’s back in 2016 and Ed Earl has to pick who he’s going to vote for. Does he vote for Hillary Clinton? No, because the way Ed Earl sees it, she only cares about women and black people and Mexicans and gays. She doesn’t care about Ed Earl.
So Ed Earl decides to vote for Donald Trump. Because he wants a President who cares about a straight white man like Ed Earl. And our system gives people like Ed Earl more votes, so Trump gets elected President.
Trump won. But did Ed Earl win? Is there any evidence that Trump cares about Ed Earl? Has Trump done anything for Ed Earl? Did Trump ever do anything special for straight white men before he was elected President? The answer to all those questions is no.
But Ed Earl feels good. He helped a straight white man get elected President and he feels a connection to Trump based on the fact they are both straight white men. Donald Trump and him stuck it to all the people who aren’t straight white men. What Ed Earl doesn’t understand is that Donald Trump also stuck it to Ed Earl.
Hillary Clinton didn’t blow smoke up Ed Earl’s ass that way Trump did. But she would have done more for Ed Earl. She would have written tax laws that benefited people like Ed Earl rather than people like Donald Trump. She would have helped Ed Earl get better health care and schools for his kids, Ed Jr and Earline. She would have negotiated trade agreements that would lower the cost of things Ed Earl buys in the store. She would have done a lot of things that would have helped Ed Earl and straight white men like Ed Earl.
But she would have also done a lot of things that would have helped other people who weren’t like Ed Earl. And that bothered Ed Earl. Ed Earl decided he’d rather have a President who promised to do everything for him and did nothing than a President who promised do something for everyone and would have done it.
That kind of thinking explains why Ed Earl hasn’t been a big success in life. Because ultimately no President can fix Ed Earl’s problems if one of his biggest problems is himself.
Don’t be an Ed Earl.
Ed Earl lives in rural TN. People that live in rural TN get one vote, just like you and me. Their votes don’t get as much weight in the Electoral College as people in Utah, but more than people in New York. All three of us get largely ignored for the people living in Florida, whose individual votes carry as little weight in the electoral college as New Yorkers. Wyomingans, the alleged winners of the “more votes” lottery get utterly ignored by everyone.