Hi Tom, I am a Trump voter. I’m not here to spike the football. But instead to suggest that maybe the 70-80 million who voted for Trump did so because they don’t feel like this version of the Democratic Party represents their concerns, or that Kamala Harris is their champion. I’m recalling Bobby Kennedy’s Indianapolis speech. We can decide to move forward in this country with the two sides not talking to each other, thinking the other are evil or want fascism or what you will. Or we can make an effort to talk to each other, to comprehend, to come together, with goodwill towards all. I’m in the latter camp. We have our disagreements but in my view those disagreements don’t define us. Let’s work out our differences in the political process but then break bread together at the end of the day. Let us keep talking to each other. And as Joe Biden once pledged, let us turn down the temperature. Donald Trump is not the devil incarnate, nor are the majority of this country who voted for him. God Bless you.
Thanks for the response and you are welcome to spike the football since Trump won both the Electoral College and popular vote. To my dismay and amazement, I might add. If Trump ever sounded like you, “Or we can make an effort to talk to each other, to comprehend, to come together, with goodwill towards all” I could understand people voting for him. And he may not be the devil incarnate but his actions (January 6th) and his words, lies, misogyny, racism, belligerence, and cognitive impairment, scare the heck out of me. That seventy-five million Americans voted for a twice impeached felon, who declared he would “ gut civil service protections”, prosecute “political adversaries," deport 11 million illegal immigrants, and seems willing to flaunt the rule of law, baffles me. I know Kamala and Democratic policies are imperfect but they pale compared to Trump’s liabilities -- personal and political. I guess we will have to just disagree on Trump and hope for the best, for our country, and all our citizens.
Hi Tom, thank you for the response. I have a few observations in reply:
ReplyDelete1. Trump won with voters who had income of $30,000 to $100,000, and Harris did better with high income voters. Trump has many flaws, but many decided to vote for him anyway in the belief he will improve their lives economically. That’s not an irrational belief. The economy was better under Trump; inflation was low and real wages were rising. Biden-Harris, meanwhile, stoked inflation with unnecessary spending binges at a time when the economy was rebounding from the Covid lockdowns. Biden-Harris first told us this spending would not cause inflation, then told us it would be “transitory.” It was neither. Again, I cannot blame folks struggling to put food on the table and make ends meet for voting for Trump.
2. On the border, Biden-Harris presided over a massive increase in illegal crossings as compared to Trump. This posed difficulties for border communities, which bear the brunt of the resultant strain on public and social services. Many of these communities voted for Trump. They may have made a calculation that Trump, despite his obvious flaws, was the only candidate who would improve their lives by restoring order to the border. I can’t blame them. It’s easy to believe that Harris’s flaws are outweighed by Trump’s when it isn’t my community that is affected.
3. It’s interesting that you identify Trump discussing prosecuting political opponents as one reason to vote against him. While Trump has *talked* about this, Democrats have actually done it. While I realize it is satisfying to call Trump a “felon,” the only case resulting in a conviction was the Bragg prosecution in New York. And respectfully, any fair-minded person who takes a hard look at that case should be appalled by it. Not because Trump didn’t pay hush money to a porn star, and not because Trump isn’t a bad guy for cheating on his wife. He did, and he is. But that was at most a misdemeanor book-keeping falsification for which the statute of limitations had run. Bragg tried to turn it into a felony (with a longer SOL) by saying the alleged falsification was in furtherance of concealing another crime. The problem is, he never specified what that other “crime” was. He claimed that maybe the crime was that Trump conspired to steal the election in 2016 by not disclosing the hush money payment as a campaign expense. But the problem with that is at least two-fold: (i) The campaign disclosure was not due until after the election, so lying about it then would have no impact on the election; and (ii) Bragg, as a state prosecutor, had no jurisdiction to enforce federal campaign disclosure laws (and notably, the feds passed on prosecuting Trump for this). Furthermore, ask yourself: was hush money really a campaign expenditure? Can you imagine the outcry if Trump had used campaign funds to pay off his former lovers? Anyway, there are many, many reasons why the Bragg verdicts will be overturned on appeal. Suffice it to say here that Bragg, abetted by his Democratic cheerleaders, abused the most solemn power of the state to bring a meritless criminal prosecution against Trump. It was a case that would never have been brought against anyone else not named Trump. And indeed, this is why I personally voted for Trump: to register my disapproval with what I saw as a dangerous escalation by Democrats in response to Trump. Before the Bragg adventure (and other lawfare gambits by Democrats), I was headed towards a write-in vote for president.
In the end, the election was a binary choice between two flawed candidates, neither of which I would have selected to be a major party nominee. Most of us were given a choice between what we saw as two bad options and did our best to decide who was the “least worst”according to our circumstances and values.