A Mirror For Trump Voters

A while back, I wrote a post saying that conservatives are like vampires.  In that, I pointed out that like the classical movie vampires, conservative voters are unable to see themselves in the mirror.  After the 2016 election, and through the first 6+ months of the Trump administration, I’ve come to realize just how true that is.   I’ve had to listen to the rhetoric, the news reports, and lord knows I live in an area that went 2:1 for Trump and hear it every day.   Since they refuse to look the mirror, I thought I’d tell them what they’d see.

1.  You’re bigoted.   Don’t tell me you’re not, there were a lot of polls in the aftermath of the election that said just that.  You voted the way you did because Trump promised you he’d remove all those scary Mexicans, Muslims, other “not white” people, and clamp down on the ones who were here.   If I wasn’t hearing all the dog whistles, it was because I was hearing the prejudices being outright stated.   Heard or said this? “I’m not a bigot, but…”   Right, except the “but…” is always followed by a bigoted statement.  If it wasn’t that, it was the standard “I have a (fill in the race/ethnicity/religion) friend!”     Think of  the things that were said by conservative media, all the jokes and meme pictures that were shared around about President Obama.  What it came down to?  “He’s black!”

2.  You’re cowards.  The moment President Obama was elected, gun sales took off.  You had the NRA pounding the airwaves with conspiracy theories, the passage of “right to own laws,” various groups like Oathkeepers starting up, and lots of conservative media stories telling you why you should be afraid.  The scary black man (see #1) was going to take your guns away!  He didn’t.  There was a crime epidemic!  Except that crime rates were lower than ever before and dropping.  Sharia law!  Terrorists!  Drug cartels!   Illegal immigrants! You name it, you’re frightened to death of it.  Never mind that those things weren’t going to happen and really aren’t a threat to you, you feel you have to carry a gun at all times to save yourself.  That’s if you aren’t trying to get laws passed to enact “Christian principles,” which mostly ended up being … the same as the Sharia law you’re scared of.

3.  You are not patriots.  I’ve watched for the past decade as various conservative groups wrapped themselves in the flag and piously declared they were for “freedom” and “defending the constitution.”  Except that their “freedom” meant taking it away from everyone but them, and their defense of the Constitution revolved around the Second Amendment and whining that the First Amendment meant “I shouldn’t have consequences for saying stuff!”  That’s when you weren’t waving around the Confederate flag (which, by the way was never a flag of the Confederacy), to celebrate your “heritage.”  Or, more realistically, celebrating a group of traitors who wanted to keep owning slaves.   After 8 years of listening to “America!  Fuck Yeah!” chants, suddenly it was “Make America Great Again.”  Those of us who actually love this country thought it never stopped being great.  A recent poll showed that 52% of Republicans would be fine with delaying the 2020 election because of “voter fraud.”  Which isn’t a problem to begin with, unless you mean “people who aren’t white get to vote.”  We’ve held elections on time even during world wars,  so what you really meant with that was that you were terrified of the thought that white people weren’t going to be the majority in the future.

4.  You’re hypocrites.   Pick any of big conservative talking points.   “Moochers” who are taking money from hard-working taxpayers.   All the pointing at “welfare queens” in the past, talk of “big government” and “government run healthcare.”  All nicely slanted to point at “those people,” by which they mean some black or brown person in a big city.  Except the reality is that they’re talking about you.  Just look at some of the states that went for Trump, and are “reliably red.”  Guess who gets more federal money?  Which areas have the most government employees?  Have the highest rate of people getting Medicaid, SNAP benefits, disability payments, and so on?   The rural or suburban areas that are mostly white.  Coal miners get their pensions guaranteed by the federal government, and healthcare for an occupational disease.    No one else working in a private industry does.   Farmers and ranchers get various subsidies,  and rely on immigrant labor.  Yet everyone one of you will sit around and complain about someone else getting “free stuff,”  immigrants “taking American jobs,” or say you want government cut.    What you really mean is “except us.”  Want to talk about “morality” and “family values?”  I’ve spent decades listening to various evangelicals in the religious right filling the airwaves about it.  Then came this past year, and they couldn’t stop gushing about a candidate who violated every one of the things they’ve been preaching against … for other people.

5.  You are stupid.   Ignorance is when you don’t know something.  You can always learn  or ask someone who does know, and correct that.   Sometimes it’s trying something and you find it doesn’t work.  Stupid is when you refuse to admit you don’t know, won’t ask or listen to someone who does, or keep doing something that doesn’t work.  The past few months have seen lots of rather tense town halls and protests about health care.  Why?  Because Republicans were about to do something they’d said they were going to do for the past 7+ years, “repeal Obamacare.”  Apparently the reality that  your health insurance, Medicaid funding, and various other protections were a big part of Obamacare didn’t sink in, despite people telling you that.  I see the same stories across the board.  Farmers aren’t able to find people to work on their farms, harvesting crops or working in the barns.  They used to use immigrants, and the immigrants aren’t showing up anymore.  Ranchers and others are having financial problems because trade agreements fell apart.  Rounding up immigrants, building a big wall across the border, and pulling out of trade agreements were a big part of candidate Trump’s platform.   In many of the Republican controlled states, the “cut taxes, cut the budget, cut government” initiatives had the opposite effect from what was promised.  No big jobs growth, decaying infrastructure, budget deficits, and declining schools. But you still walked into a voting booth and re-elected them.

Think this is being too brutal?  No, this is me being restrained.  I’m sick and tired of watching you spout all sorts of bullshit, vote in people who tell you what they’re going to do and then whine when it turns out what you depend on is included in that.   What your entire philosophy comes down to is “I want mine, screw everyone else.”  Unfortunately for you, the people you keep voting for lumped you into the “everyone else,” and you just don’t get that.   Stop complaining, because that’s what you said you wanted.  If didn’t well, maybe next time look in the mirror, and see just how ugly the reflection is.