General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums"He Hates the Same People They Hate"
Ive heard it proffered several times now that Trumps popularity with his base can be explained by the fact that he hates the same people they hate.
To a large extent, thats true. Trump hates black people, brown people, immigrants, Muslims and, of course, liberals. But what the Trump adorers have yet to recognize is that one of the groups he hates the most is them the people who were dumb enough to vote for him.
He hates them: the plumbers, the electricians, the construction workers who ran to the polls to cast their ballot for him, the man whos been ripping off his own workers for years and has the lawsuits to prove it.
He has nothing but disdain for the waiters, the chefs, the housemaids, and the cleaners who attend his rallies, because they were stupid enough to cheer his America first rhetoric while he hired foreign workers to staff Mara Lago a place where the outrageous prices keep the working-class riff-raff out.
He despises the factory workers, the teachers, the farmers, and the minimum-wage earners who were so dazzled by his bullshit, they went out and bought made-in-China MAGA merchandise while extolling the patriotism of a man who promised to bring outsourced jobs back to the United States.
Trump thinks his supporters are chumps every last one of them. If you think he has an ounce of respect for the idiots who are stupid enough to believe his shtick, he has a bridge to sell and he knows theyll buy it, just like theyve bought all the rest of his lies.
To Trump, his supporters are not people; theyre not even votes theyre marks. They exist to be manipulated for political and financial gain. He doesnt care if they lose their jobs, their farms, their businesses, or their way of life due to his policies. He doesnt care if they have no access to affordable healthcare, affordable education, or social safety-nets that will help them survive should they fall on hard times.
Donald Trump loathes everything his supporters are, and everything they represent. They are beneath him. They are people who smell of the sweat of hard work they are the people who cant afford to eat at his restaurants, stay at his hotels, play golf at his clubs. Above all, they are people who are too stupid to realize theyre being fucked by the guy whos fucking them.
But I do believe the great awakening is starting to happen. The farmers who voted for Trump are now facing ruin due to his policies. The workers who voted for Trump are now being laid off as the companies that employed them shut down due to his trade war. The middle-class workers who voted for Trump are seeing his much-touted tax cuts benefit the wealthy while their cost of living rises, thereby wiping out the pittance of a tax-cut they actually wound up with.
Trump supporters may not care about immigrants, people from shithole countries, the poor, the homeless, the sick and dying but they DO care about themselves. And the realization that they are the ones being screwed is becoming more and more obvious.
Trump once bragged that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue without losing a single supporter. Its possible nay, probable that a lot of those supporters are finally realizing that the gun hes waving around has been aimed at directly at them all along.
underthematrix
(5,811 posts)He ENVIES the same people they ENVY
smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)I never really though of it that way, but it's true. This is really all about sour grapes and resentment.
2naSalit
(86,577 posts)SeattleVet
(5,477 posts)The drank the orange Kool-Aid and will never admit that they were wrong.
I have been completely shocked at the level of support given to him by a few of the people I served with.
They were all highly intelligent, having military jobs of diagnosing and repairing complex advanced fighter/bomber avionics systems in the shop (where we sometimes worked down to the component level) and large-scale computer systems. They all went through about a full year of a resident electronics technical school before being sent to the duty station where they would be working on the actual components, while continuing their educations with several long On The Job training requirements. To even be considered to be eligible for training in these fields you had to score in a very top percentile in aptitude tests given before enlistment, and there was still a relatively high washout rate during the training. Yet several of these otherwise fine men and women have become hard-core trumpistas, usually after following over 9 full years of them spewing hatred of President Obama.
I completely fail to understand how some of the NCO's I served with in such technically demanding fields, and were close friends with (there is, as you may expect, huge amount of socialization and bonding among the troops) could believe a tenth of the crap that they are getting from the administration and their state-run Fox-TV mouthpiece.
Today one of them posted a meme about President Obama's 'bogus birth certificate', including almost all of the debunked crap that's been floating around for the past several years.
It's mind-boggling, especially considering how well I knew these same people when we served together.
Hekate
(90,662 posts)GoneOffShore
(17,339 posts)It is the ultimate answer to the cult members.
dalton99a
(81,468 posts)Blue_true
(31,261 posts)As you see with the people at the nail making plant in Missouri, they can lose their jobs, healthcare for their critically ill children, their homes, their possessions and be living under a tarp under a tree, and they will still vote for him over a democrat because they have convinced themselves that a democrat will screw them and they like that Trump tries to screw the people that they hate.
dawg day
(7,947 posts)So those really weird women who voted for Trump, at least some must be peeling off.
I'm an older white woman. I simply cannot believe that so many people like me, who grew up being harassed and disregarded by men like Trump, could ever vote for him.
Not to personalize too much, but I remember some comic saying that GW Bush was like "a woman's first husband"-- feckless, prone to substance abuse, more baby than husband.
Trump is more a woman's LAST husband, because having known him, no woman would ever marry a man again.
Maybe some women who thought they could stand him because he's rich are coming to realize that, no, there's not enough money in the world to make up for how abhorrent he is.
EndGOPPropaganda
(1,117 posts)Trump hates the GOP base, and the GOP hates the base too.
http://www.chicagonow.com/politics-now/2017/12/the-gop-despises-the-trump-base-and-so-does-trump/
Ex GOP strategist.
Volaris
(10,270 posts)Outright, classless, gaudy, white trash. It's why he's never been seen as anything except exactly what he is by the high-society types in Manhattan. And he knows it.
EndGOPPropaganda
(1,117 posts)smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)"When they left, it was another story. Putting on an air of superiority, we mocked all who were not elites and made fun of their simplicity. We took pride we had co-opted people for whom we had no more use for than we had for the Democrats.
Our constituency was business.
Workers are not the constituents of the GOP; white working class people are not the constituents of the GOP, even high-income earners are not the constituents of the GOP. The GOP exists to serve business owners. Everyone else, the religious, the racists, the homophobes, the right-to-lifers, the conspiracy theorists, all are pawns in service to the monied in America."
I think we have always known this, but try convincing Trump's base of it. I don't think they will ever believe they are mere pawns in his sick little game.
Cha
(297,180 posts)People and Goodness about America that We Love!
rusty quoin
(6,133 posts)world wide wally
(21,741 posts)Volaris
(10,270 posts)yonder
(9,664 posts)Achilleaze
(15,543 posts)nolabear
(41,960 posts)Youre absolutely right. One group is a weapon to use on others and he is more than happy, eager even, to destroy both.
I really hope hes arrested before a whole lot of people die.
Paladin
(28,254 posts)smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)oasis
(49,379 posts)dense members of that group will gradually discover how easily they fell for his bullshit, but will continue their support.
oberliner
(58,724 posts)Is something he actually said at a campaign rally.
jcgoldie
(11,631 posts)Garrett78
(10,721 posts)And most Trump voters were voting *for* their (perceived) cultural/social interests. They weren't duped into voting *against* their economic interests. Well, they were, but as a default. Economic woes will be blamed on Democrats and persons of color.
That's why I'm not the least bit confident that many of his supporters will abandon him. If he's forced to resign at some point, he'll be viewed by his supporters as a martyr. It'll be "we didn't deserve him." If he loses his re-election bid in 2020, it'll be "crooked Democrats stole the election." As for impeachment, that's so unlikely that it's not worth discussing, but the response would be the same as if he's forced to resign.
malaise
(268,964 posts)Nicely put
lordsummerisle
(4,651 posts)calimary
(81,221 posts)Damn good, and sad and dreadfully disappointing and horrifying, all at the same time.
And, of course, spot on.