I have been trying to understand why certain people are
supporting Donald Trump no matter how outrageous his pronouncements and his
antics. Many others have also been trying to understand this phenomenon because
it defies understanding using basic logic.
The original understanding was of white, middle aged men who
were uneducated or under-educated with low employment skills that are just mad
that they are no longer considered the cream of American society and believe,
with all their hearts, that Donald Trump will somehow restore them to their
perceived, former greatness.
This turns out to be not the case even thou some of those
mentioned above are definitely in the Trump camp. We now know that many Trump
supporters are relatively educated with employment skills that earn them a
decent wage. They are still basically all white.
I have to make a note about the education factor. I
erroneously thought that a college education conferred some sort of ability to
reason rationally about issues as well as distinguish facts from fiction. In
other words, I felt college educated people could not be duped as easily as
non-college educated people; and I was wrong.
I was thinking of college education in the past where
students were supposed to get a well-rounded education whereas now the
education is much narrower in scope; concentrating on the skills needed for
gainful employment. Nothing wrong with that but it does explain some of my
confusion as to how can an educated person support Trump.
In defense of “some” educated Trump supporters who
originally saw him as someone outside the current dysfunctional political
structure in Washington that could break through the party politics and get
something done; I think you now realize that that was a pipe dream as this man
has no idea how our government even works.
Also for those that base their Trump support on who he would
appoint to the Supreme Court; you now realize that you cannot depend on him to
do your bidding because he is unpredictable and swings very widely on most issues
including abortion.
Another huge factor emerging is the involvement of emotion
in this Trump support. Reports from Trump rallies show people, male and female,
beside themselves with rage against Hillary threatening to assassinate her and
her supporters using the most vial language. They also attack the media because
the media is anti-Trump and spreading lies about him and his record. They
conveniently forget that Trump’s own recorded pronouncements are proof of his tendency
to lie about almost everything; with no regrets.
Obviously Trump and FOX News are contributing to this rage
by supplying non-facts about Hillary that fuel this anger. The constant chant
of “she should be in jail” is puzzling because no one has explained why she
should be in jail; what has she done that is illegal? A psychiatrist on CNN
explained that their brains are programmed to believe what they “feel” is the
truth or what they “want” the truth to be and because this is a subconscious thought
process, they cannot be open to the truth or actual facts.
It comes down to what I have been saying from the beginning,
these are people that make up their own facts, their own reality because that
is what they want reality to look like even though it is absolutely does not.
I think we have a case of mass hysteria which has examples
in history; nothing else makes sense. These white people have been harboring
their racism, sexism and xenophobia for way too long. Trump made it ok to be
what they have always been inside. Current political correctness trends in our
society have made these people feel marginalized; they long for the days when
white meant might and everybody else knew their place in relation to the white
class.
I always knew that this racism and bigotry was just under
the skin of a lot of whites but I just did not know how many of these types
actually existed in this country; now I know.
I have blamed Trump and FOX News for fueling these people’s
delusions but their parents and peer groups must all take a lot of the blame.
People are not born racists or bigots, they are raised that way.
Many overcome being raised in a racist household through a
good liberal education but because our education system is so bad, or so
narrowly focused, their learned bigotry remains and in most cases, is passed on
to their children.
The only hope is that these Trump supporters are part of a
dying breed and that is probably the case because that is what fuels this group
to action; their declining numbers and growing irrelevance in our society and
in the modern world.
PS. I have to say one more thing about education and this
has been brought up many times. We used to have a “civics” class to teach
students how our government works and our roles in that government. Now
immigrants know more about our nation than people that were born and educated
here. Trump is a good example of this atrocious ignorance and yet many want him
to lead this nation based on that ignorance. Sad.
