My Dad isn’t stupid. He put himself through college, nurtured a thriving business from nothing, paid private school tuitions for five kids plus college tuitions, he voted for Carter for Christ’s sake. How do you go from Carter to Trump in 43 years? Age? Divorce? A constant stream of Fox News. Anger because you are hurtling toward death?
Doesn’t old age soften, make one more tolerant, not less.
I’m struggling with this. I can’t wrap my brain around it.
Marc Maron, host of the WTF Podcast, in 2017, way before this administration’s latest crisis, said, “If you still have people in your family who are supporting Trump, they are shitty people.”
A male friend of mine recently asked and advised, “How much do you really need your Dad? Cut him out of your life.”
I can’t do that.
My Dad taught me how to ride a bike, sat with me in 7th grade, and patiently explained algebra, helped me through a divorce, and bought me my first Carpenters’ album with “Please Mr. Postman” on it. When I was around 14, he came home with a brochure for NYU after I mentioned to him casually that I wanted to be an actress, even though that whim only latest a few weeks.
I like parts of my Dad. I’m a part of him.
Most liberals can’t wrap their brains around what would possess a person — especially one of above-average intelligence — to vote for Trump a second, or even the first time.
We don’t understand the mind and heart of a Trump supporter.
I’ve had conversations with Trump supporters (mostly my family on the East Coast. I live in LA — not many Trump supporters here) who don’t know the issues and don’t care to understand them.
What is it then? Willful denial? Stupidity. Willful ignorance? They are under the false assumption that their choice to vote for Trump absolves them of the responsibility that their vote harms others.
We have a huge dumb problem in America and a lot of rationalization.
I have no idea what to do about America’s dumb problem except for getting fucking serious about teaching civics in school.
You can’t give me, “the economy is doing great.” The economy is a mess. Unemployment is at an all-time high. Businesses are closing due to the pandemic that Trump is willfully in denial of because he doesn’t care enough about human life other than his own. He can’t be bothered to contain the virus.
Hey, if a few hundred thousand Americans die, oh well, as long as I get re-elected, so I don’t go straight to jail, we’re good.
1000 people die per day in the United States from the virus; Canada reported zero deaths from the virus last Friday. Wallstreet is no longer reflecting Main Street. Main Street is hurting. 1000 people a day are dying from the coronavirus. Trump’s tax cuts helped the one percent who own all the wealth. I don’t know anyone personally who is in that tax bracket, neither does my father.
The Trump voters interviewed on NPR each morning as I’m driving to get a coffee are not the one percent. Some of these voters don’t like Trump — they’re turned off by his name-calling and pettiness — but are sticking with him…again.
One woman said, “stick with the devil you know.” Intelligent criteria on which to base a vote. Women died to give other women the right to vote, and she is “sticking with the devil she knows,” instead of doing an hour of research on the issues.
Is Biden a devil?
Spend an hour on his website reading his platform, and no, he is not. He wants to give 300 million to the federal policing grant program for retraining and has a detailed plan to stop the virus so we can all get on with our lives.
Can you compare Biden to Trump? Are they even in the same category?1000 deaths per day. Trump lied, and now people are dying. Republicans knew how deadly the virus was way back in late January. They sold stock instead of coming up with a plan.
I can’t think of one thing Trump has done to help average Americans —neither the forgotten middle class and certainly not people living in poverty.Trump has never, ever once, talked about the economic anxiety of the forgotten middle class. He only ever talks about himself or his enemies.He shows utter disdain for those struggling to get by financially. I don’t think he sees poor people as human beings. He certainly doesn’t see immigrants as human beings; he refers to them as “animals.” A man who was handed $200,000 a year by the time he was three-years-old and received a total of $413 million from his father has disdain for people struggling financially.
A huge dumb problem.
We are living in a country of dummies. Civics needs to be taught in schools and taken seriously. Most people don’t know the names of their senators or can understand the nuances of the Mueller Report. Most Trump supporters haven’t even read it.
QAnon is a thing. Here is the gist of the conspiracy promulgated by QAnon: An anonymous person started writing conspiracy theories on Redditt about the deep state, which consists of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Tom Hanks, eating children in a basement somewhere in Washington DC. The conspiracy goes that Trump has been sent as America’s savior to stop this cabal from eating babies.
People believe this.
One of them won the Georgia Republican primary. That’s how fucking dumb this country is.
QAnon is a cult, kind of like most religions are cults. They don’t have any proof that Obama is eating babies, but they believe it. They’ve never seen any evidence, and they don’t need it because they have Q telling them what to think. They believe a person on the internet who identifies himself with a letter. They still believe Trump will “lock-up” Hillary Clinton after four years of this lovely chant. When they are confronted with the fact that Hillary Clinton is indeed not locked up but living out a seemingly lovely life with Bill in a huge house surrounded by Secret Service in Chappaqua, NY, this fact doesn’t phase them; they still believe Trump will lock her up.
How did the American electorate get so stupid?
It’s empowered dumbness.
This idiot notion of the deep state, the unseen and unnamed “they,” “they do this,” “they want that,” and other crazy conspiracies have gotten people killed — the man who took a gun to a pizza parlor, the man who shot up the synagogue.
Their dumbness is a threat to our national security.
If someone wants to elect a president as stupid as they are, to give them a mark of superiority, mission accomplished. Thigh-land. California needs to sweep its forests, so we don’t have forest fires. I didn’t know someone could get through 74 years of life on earth and still be so ignorant.
What issues has Trump solved? Where’s the wall? Mexico didn’t pay for anything. We aren’t safer at the border. We have more problems on the border. No name-calling. No Fox News and Russian talking points. I want facts — examples. I want to know what Trump has done for you. How is your life better now than four years ago? What has Trump done except line his pockets with American tax dollars and use the White House as his personal prop to hawk his brand?
I have talked to countless friends and family, read numerous articles and books trying to understand why someone would vote for Trump. The best explanation of the Trump supporter’s mind was most aptly described in an hour conversation I listened to between Marc Maron and Aaron Sorkin on the WTF podcast (#987).
Maron is the host of WTF — one of the best podcasts (you have to like Maron though; he isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. I like him a lot; he’s funny and oddly astute).
Aaron Sorkin is a writer and director of several TV shows and movies. Here are just a few: The West Wing, A Few Good Men, The Social Network, and many more.
Maron brought up the idea of the Trump supporter’s extreme nihilism.
Is nihilism at the core of the Trump supporter?
Maron,
“For whatever reason, there are enough people in this country who have been shattered spiritually, emotionally, and psychologically, that at the core of it, it is like, “Fuck em, (liberals) let’s get it over with.”
As in, let’s burn this place down because I’m so fucking unhappy.
He continued, “millions of people are walking around with massive inferiority complexes.”
Bing.
I looked up, “inferiority complex.” I wanted a literal definition.
Why would someone vote for Trump a second or even a first time? I would have bet anything Trump was toast after the pussy-grabbing comment; I thought the nightmare was over that day.
But it had just begun.
If 2016 taught me anything, it was this: when a woman runs for the highest office, it will unearth as many sexists or more than Obama’s candidacy unearthed racists. The racism buried, which had been bubbling, came exploding to the surface when Obama won, a parallel situation to 2016 — just replace racism with misogyny.
Man, white men are a threatened bunch; inferiority complex sounds about right. A man is caught on video saying he grabs women by their pussies, and then is elected President of the United States by 61,943,670 votes. Clinton got nearly 3 million more, but still, that a lot of misogyny.
My Dad has four daughters and eight granddaughters; he voted for this “man.”
Now there is proof of Trump’s ineptness. Real proof. Real numbers. 1000 deaths a day in America from the coronavirus. He told us it was no big deal, the deadly virus would be gone in a few months, just like the flu. It’s almost October. My daughter wasn’t able to start school in a classroom. She wears a mask just to go outside — 200,000 Americans dead by next month. And my father is voting for this man a second time. On top of the pussy-grabbing comment, on top of his record.
As many other voters will too.
The dictionary’s definition of inferiority complex:
"Inferiority complex occurs when the feelings of inferiority are intensified in the individual through discouragement or failure. Those who are at risk for developing a complex include people who: show signs of low self-esteem or self-worth, have low socioeconomic status, or have a history of depression symptoms."
“Have low socioeconomic status,” I know this explains many angry white men, they want their due and are not pleased when “others” surpass them when they are struggling financially (inferiority complex). This is part of it. Racism and sexism are tied up in their inferiority complexes.
In the interview, Sorkin picks up on the inferiority complex comment Marc made. He continues,
“Donald Trump was simply an excellent stick in which to poke liberals in the eye.”
He goes on,
“I think there are millions and millions of people in this country who have a debilitating inferiority complex. That all they can think is, ‘You think you’re better than me. You look down your nose at us people in the flyover states.’ And if you think that way, it will eat you alive, and you will elect Donald Trump.”
In Sorkin’s adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird, written by Harper Lee, Atticus snaps and says, “There is nothing I can do about your debilitating inferiority complex, and I’ve decided it’s no longer my problem.” (this isn’t how Atticus is written in Harper Lee’s book; this line was reinterpreted by Sorkin for his play).
Sorkin again,
“Everything you need to learn about why someone is drawn to Donald Trump can be learned in five minutes, not even five minutes, in threeminutes reading the comment section of Breitbart, and you will get a full education in the emotion behind this. Donald Trump hates the people they hate. He hates you and me. They hate you and me. Donald Trump makes us crazy. They’re all for that.”
It is entirely emotional.
Don’t try to use logic when understanding the Trump supporter. It’s a problem best understood with psychology and explained by a psychiatric disorder. It’s all a reaction to something they don’t have, they didn’t get; it’s all emotion.
And I’ve decided their debilitating inferiority complex is no longer my problem.
(Disclaimer: this article was written before the 2020 election)
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