Me The People by Nancy OhanianOn Friday, a Fox News poll of Wisconsin registered voters showed that any of the Democratic frontrunners would beat Trump if the election were held today. But on average, Trump still wins around 40% of the state's voters. Who are these people? What's wrong with them?I generally think of Facebook as a vast cesspool and wasteland-- and then I find, buried in the piles of garbage and foreign propaganda, a gem like this Monday morning piece from Mike Morrell that helps focus on who exactly Trump supporters are. Mike, who lives in Asheville, North Carolina, is the collaborating author, with Richard Rohr, on The Divine Dance: The Trinity and Your Transformation, founder of Wisdom Camp, and a founding organizer of the justice, arts, and spirituality Wild Goose Festival. And a blogger. He grew up Republican in the heart of the Bible Belt, listening to Rush Limbaugh for hours a day while accompanying his dad on painting jobs. He was a card-carrying member of the John Birch Society and thought of Ayn Rand's work as his second Bible. "Then," he wrote, "9/11 happened. And suddenly I realized where all this nationalism, sabre-rattling, and perpetual war in the name of 'liberty' got us: In a whole world of pain. I didn't then go running for Marx; I started praying w/ Quakers, Anabaptists... I've not pendulum-swung the other way. I'm no died-in-the-wool Democrat. Not everything the John Birch Society said was wrong; many leftist governments do employ unacceptable levels of violence in service of their ideals. (And for an aspiring Jesus-follower, all violence is unacceptable.) I don't have rose-colored glasses on. But I'd love for the United States to at least join the rest of the developed world when it comes to having social safety nets for the least, the last, and the lost. To make compassion more a matter of routine policy instead of extraordinary charity."
An anguished question from a Trump supporter: "Why do progressives and never-Trumpers think Trump supporters are stupid?"The serious answer: Here’s what we really think about Trump supporters-- the rich, the poor, the malignant and the innocently well-meaning...That when you saw a man who had owned a fraudulent University, intent on scamming poor people, you thought "Fine."That when you saw a man who had made it his business practice to stiff his creditors, you said, "Okay."That when you heard him proudly brag about his own history of sexual abuse, you said, "No problem."That when the Donald J. Trump Foundation withheld promised money to veterans charities and was fined $2 million dollars, you said "It happens."That when he made up stories about seeing Muslim-Americans in the thousands cheering the destruction of the World Trade Center, you said, "Not an issue."That when you saw him brag that he could shoot a man on Fifth Avenue and you wouldn't care, you chirped, "He sure knows me."That when you heard him illustrate his own character by telling that cute story about the elderly guest bleeding on the floor at his country club, the story about how he turned his back and how it was all an imposition on him, you said, "That's cool!"That when you saw him mock the disabled, you thought it was the funniest thing you ever saw.That when you heard him brag that he doesn't read books, you said, "Well, who has time?"That when the Central Park Five were compensated as innocent men convicted of a crime they didn't commit, and he angrily said that they should still be in prison, you said, "That makes sense."That when you heard him tell his supporters to beat up protesters and that he would hire attorneys, you thought, "Yes!"That when you heard him tell one rally to confiscate a man's coat before throwing him out into the freezing cold, you said, "What a great guy!"That you have watched the parade of neo-Nazis and white supremacists with whom he curries favor, while refusing to condemn outright Nazis, and you have said, "Thumbs up!"That you hear him unable to talk to foreign dignitaries without insulting their countries and demanding that they praise his electoral win, you said, "That's the way I want my President to be."Crushin' It!That you have watched him remove expertise from all layers of government in favor of people who make money off of eliminating protections in the industries they're supposed to be regulating and you have said, "What a genius!"That you have heard him continue to profit from his businesses, in part by leveraging his position as President, to the point of overcharging the Secret Service for space in the properties he owns, you said, "That's smart!"That you have heard him say that it was difficult to help Puerto Rico because it was in the middle of water and you have said, "That checks out."That you have seen him start fights with every country from Canada to New Zealand while praising Russia and quote, "falling in love" with the dictator of North Korea, and you have said, "That's statesmanship!"That Trump separated children from their families and put them in cages, managed to lose track of 1500 kids, has opened a tent city incarceration camp in the desert in Texas-- while explaining that they’re just “animals”-- and you say, “Well, OK then.”That you have witnessed all the thousand and one other manifestations of corruption and low moral character and outright contempt for you, the working American voter, and you still show up grinning and wearing your MAGA hats and threatening to beat up anybody who says otherwise.What you don't get, Trump supporters in 2020, is that succumbing to frustration and thinking of you as wrong-headed may be unhelpful, but it's also...hear me...charitable.Because if you're NOT clueless, we must turn to other explanations. And most of them are less flattering.
