White working class does not equal ignorant.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

This post is not going to go where you think it is.

I keep seeing the argument posited here that the white working class voters who gave Trump his victory should be absolved of their responsibility for voting for a dog whistling racist, anti-semitic, xenophobic, misogynistic, et cetera bigot because they didn't know better. Bullshit !!!


My dad who has long passed but now whose memory I revere had a freaking ninth grade education. He was effectively emancipated at fifteen years old when he became a stevedore at the Port Of New York. The only time I saw the guy wear a tie is to a wedding or when he was buried. He never made a racist, xenophobic, homophobic, or bigoted statement. He would take my mom and I to see his friends who lived in heavily segregated African American neighborhoods or to his friends who lived in trailer parks. He would have never voted for a demagogue like Trump because there was something in it for him.

Trump voters were willing to throw others under the bus because they saw something in it for themselves.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

1. I agree. People who keep saying otherwise

Are indulging in the soft bigotry of low expectations (hey if we can use identity politics as a slur, we can say soft bigotry blah blah too)

[dawg]

2. I'm sorry, but if they really think Trump has anything to offer people like them ...

they really are pretty damn stupid.

[LenaBaby61]

44. I'm sorry, but if they really think Trump has anything to offer people like them ...

Agree.

My neighbor told me that her sister is a big tRumpleshitter, and she said her sister continually tells her that tRump will "Run all of the Mexican immigrants out of this country and back to Mexico that people in this country can get all of those good jobs that they've stolen from us in the USA."

Now, if thinking like THAT doesn't get you called a trumpleshitter, then I don't know what IS. I mean, the sheer stupidity and ignorance is just ....

[Statistical]

3. What you described IS ignorance.

Trump has a long history of fucking over the working man. Anyone who "saw something in it for themselves" and isn't in the top 20% at least was ignorant. Maybe not a bigot I agree with you there but still ignorant.

[Martin Eden]

28. And a special kind of stupid

+1

[Hayduke Bomgarte]

4. "they saw something in it for themselves"

Ironically, for them, what is ultimately in it for themselves, will be the same royal screwing over the rest of us will get.

To me, being so severely short sighted and self centered, pretty much does equal ignorance. I have nothing but contempt for them.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

5. If they were truly ignorant they deserve to be absolved of responsibility ...

If they were truly ignorant they deserve to be absolved of responsibility but they were totally aware of what they were doing.

[Hayduke Bomgarte]

24. Those people, as a whole, are

Willfully and intentionally ignorant, and in many cases, proud of it... So. No.

JMO

[Texin]

42. "Willfully and Intentionally Ignorant"

folks don't deserve the right to vote. If they're too stupid to realize that they can't expect a member of the Billionaire Boys Club to protect their personal interests - unless they, themselves, are one of those billionaires - I can't be bothered to care about them. There are seriously a large number of working class white people who would like to believe they can one day in the bye and bye become their very own Horatio Alger story, bootstrapping their way to success and wealth. Ah, the American Dream. All they need is a "chance" and some of these idiots believe people like tRump and his cronies are actually going to give them all a break. The only "break" these people are going to get is the crack of their backs as tRump bends them over to ^$+k them up the ass.

[Hayduke Bomgarte]

48. You and I

Are of a like mind.

[Martin Eden]

27. Agreed

If they actually believed this pathological liar they are indeed ignorant fools. Of course, that does not exclude them from being racists or voting for one they thought would make their lives better.

[colsohlibgal]

6. Not All Of Them

Not quite. But the Fox News/Rush Limbaugh effect has not helped.

One thing I see often is them thinking Marxism, Communism, and Socialism are interchangeable, the same thing. The Marxist slam is most common if you reflect any liberal views. I always suggest they should actually read up on the differences but that assumes they can read and learn.

[LWolf]

7. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't.

My white father dropped out of school at the end of 8th grade. He worked as a truck driver. He spawned a bunch of kids from a bunch of women; some he married, some he didn't, and a couple of those kids did not survive to adulthood, and another died in his 30s. My father's CB "handle" included the term "redneck," and he wore that name proudly. He once said in my hearing that "there ought to be n***** season," when talking about his plans for upcoming hunts. Once, on a very rare visit to his home, he left overnight, pointing out where all the loaded guns were in case there were any "problems." I hid away the whole time, more afraid of my deliverance-style step-siblings in a house with a loaded gun than any mythical intruder. My dad died young, at 42. I got an announcement. I never heard from any other family members again. I did, once, some years back, find the two half siblings remaining alive and reach out; they rejected that, so any contact with the white working class redneck side of the family simply died.

Happily, he didn't raise me, and our contact was minimal. My white working poor single mother raised me, and she loved diversity. Among all the other things she was involved with, that she included me in, was going to hear Angela Davis speak at a women's center when I was 11 or 12. It was a big event in my life, and help shaped my pov going forward.

That aside, though, I live and teach rurally. I know plenty of people who voted for Trump; while my state overwhelmingly voted for Clinton, my region is red.

Some of the people I know that celebrated a Trump win are bigots. Many, though, simply couldn't get past their political conditioning. I had many, many conversations with people who said, "Man, I don't want to vote for Trump. He's terrible. I can't, though, just can't, vote for Hillary Clinton."

That's not a surprise. It was not a secret going into the primaries that the right hates Hillary Clinton more than any other living Democrat. The party chose to nominate her anyway, knowing that she would galvanize the opposition to turn out. The shock and awe at the results? Bullshit.

The world and the nation wanted change. The Rs gave their side a change candidate. The Ds did not. Just that alone depressed the turnout for the D and motivated turnout for the R. Add the right-wing hatred for Clinton, which, yes, is based on misogyny, and the nation gets President Fucking Trump. You can rail at Republican voters all you like, but Democratic voters contributed to this outcome. I doubt very much, though, whether very many Ds will acknowledge any accountability for their part of this disaster.

And, of course, she DID win the popular vote. The whole point of the electoral college was to prevent someone like Trump from winning. What happens if electors don't cast their votes for him? I had this discussion with some people last week. My take: they should. Not only could they legally derail the Trump presidency, if enough were courageous enough to step up, but it would probably guarantee the end of the electoral college, and that works in our favor, in my opinion.

[raging moderate]

8. Didn't the truly low-income whites vote more for Clinton?

I think I read that white people with minimum-wage jobs voted more for Clinton. That would include people like the Dad described in this OP, wouldn't it? My own Dad was a lot like this man, and he was not a racist. He had many faults, but that was not one of them. Small for a man and weakened from a childhood illness, he once stood up to two white men who were bullying a young Black man.

[branford]

9. I understand why many working class and exurban citizens

voted for Trump. He specifically, emphatically and continuously spoke to them and their concerns. He acted like he felt their pain, and that is paramount in political campaigns. Whether he was genuine is immaterial.

I, like virtually everyone else here, strongly believe Democratic policies are far more beneficial for these working class voters. However, as a New York attorney watching the election coverage, I was all too aware how our campaign reeked of urban elitism. Clinton and our Party generally took these voters for granted. Globalism and the economic recovery were not helping many of these people, yet Clinton barely campaigned and offered policies to help in the purported "Blue Wall" states. How can anyone really be surprised that they chose Trump? In fact, early in the election when Clinton stated she intended to put the coal companies out of business (and admitted election blunder), I knew that her chances to reach the White House were a long shot.

You didn't need to be a racist xenophobe to begrudgingly hold your nose and vote for Trump when our chosen candidate and election campaign were so damn dismal. More importantly, if we are to seek the votes of these working class people in the future, many of whom previously voted for Obama, calling them ignorant, stupid, racist, etc., is the very opposite of a winning election strategy.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

13. Hitler's National Socialist party won a plurality in the 1933 German federal elections

You didn't need to be a racist xenophobe to begrudgingly hold your nose and vote for Trump when our chosen candidate and election campaign were so damn dismal. More importantly, if we are to seek the votes of these working class people in the future, many of whom previously voted for Obama, calling them ignorant, stupid, racist, etc., is the very opposite of a winning election strategy.

Hitler's National Socialist party won a plurality in the 1933 German federal elections. It was the last free election until 1949 after the Third Reich was put down. Should the voters who gave Hitler and his party get a pass?

If they shouldn't why should Trump voters get a pass?

[branford]

17. Many of these working class voters chose Obama twice before voting for Trump.

The reasons why many were willing to choose Trump are far more complex than many here suggest or want to acknowledge.

Moreover, whether you "given them a pass" is entirely irrelevant and counterproductive. Our party emphatically claims to represent the interests of these voters and there is no doubt we need them to win elections. These voters aren't answerable to you or I. Our Party must appeal to them, both with viable policies and acknowledgment of differing cultural and economic priorities.

Again, if the attitude of our Party, represented by people mostly esconsed in safe urban, coastal districts, is to stereotype and demean working class, poor white and rural voters as ignorant, stupid, racist Nazis who don't know what's good for them, we will, and rightly should, continue to lose elections.

The issue is not whether these millions of voters, many of whom had been loyal Democrats for generations, are all "deplorables," but rather why knowing full well Trump's lack of character that they still found him preferable to Clinton. Many in our Party seem to forget that Clinton's favorable ratings were often worse than Trump and she was the quintessential representation of the failed corporate establishment our Party claimed it was fighting against.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

19. Ignorant literally mean lacking knowledge or awareness .

I am ignorant of quantum mechanics. The Trump voters were not ignorant as my dad was not ignorant of Trump's character just because he had a ninth grade education. Trump voters knowingly voted for a man who suggested Mexicans were rapists, drug dealers, and criminals, Muslims should be banned from our nation, black communities were dystopian messes, and it was okay to grab women by their genitals if you are rich.

If we can only win elections by appealing to the darker angels of the voters we are finished as a nation. Any way we don't have to. We won the popular vote by 2,500,000 and lost the Electoral College vote by 80,000. That is not a huge deficit to make up.

[Calista241]

26. If he gets those people in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconnsin

Better jobs, better pay, and a better economy, we will be in deep shit come 2020. He's already started his reelection campaign by doing the Carrier deal, and going on this appreciation tour.

I get the feeling he's going to be doing these large public rallies in the states he won for the next four years.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

34. He gave Carrier a seven million dollar tax break to save 1,000 jobs.

Under the Obama administration we have created 16,000,000 jobs.

At seven hundred dollar a job Trump is going to have to spend $1,200,000,000.00 to create 16, 000,000 jobs.


I don't think those numbers work.

[uponit7771]

43. +1, not only that over 4 years how in the hell is DPutin going to do any better !?!?

[Calista241]

53. We have lost 300,000 manufacturing jobs since January 2009

and those are the jobs these people are qualified for / want.

[LenaBaby61]

49. If he gets those people in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin better jobs ....

I'm not worried about him getting his voters good jobs with good wages in these states, nor am I worried about him improving the economy, nor getting them or us fantastic health care over the next 4 years. What the man WILL do is line his tRump brand pockets with ca$h. He's not going to do anything to improve the lot of his voters--he's going to be screwing us ALL royally.

Now, what is increasing is that the so-called Liberal media that doesn't exist is starting to cover for this pig by not calling him out--diminishing all of his fuck-ups and mistakes--the media has been and now mostly IS normalizing him. This corporate media sucks, and is really only in the business of garnering ratings, and tRump is ratings gold, and rating's gold=$$$. Hey, they love covering the big, fugly, dumb, orange, p***y-grabbing racist POS who continually threatens to pull the pin out of the grenade threatening to blow us ALL up.

Now back to jobs and tRump's economy, 2 of the 3 states you mention are on their WAY to becoming right-to-work states, and Wisconsin IS pretty much a red right-to-work state now thanks to that dumbo-eared, union-busting governor of theirs Scott Walker (And thuglicans love right-to-work jobs), so the jobs that are created in those states will be non-union, low-wage having, POS jobs that you can't really support your family on. Now, maybe those folk who voted for tRump WANT 2-3 of those low-wage having, non-union, ALEC-loving type of jobs

GOOD LUCK with those ALEC-loving, right-to-work jobs tRumpleshitters.

[branford]

30. Trump dominated the electoral college (306-232), and that is how the election is won.

Both Clinton and Trump would have campaigned differently without the electoral college, and we have no idea what the outcome would have been in such an election.

More importantly, while Clinton was hobnobbing and fundraising in San Francisco, LA and NYC, and discussing how she was going to put all the coal companies out of business, Trump was hosting rally after rally in "Blue Wall" states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Ohio. He was relentlessly mocked for his election strategy. Who's laughing now?

Globalism and the financial recovery have not benefitted many areas of our country, particularly the "flyover." I would argue that many (although certainly not all) of the working class voters, again many of whom voted for Obama, chose Trump in spite of his xenophobic positions because they perceived him as the only candidate who at least acknowledged their concerns and looked like he wanted to help. Remember, "it's the economy stupid."

Further, we certainly need not always "appeal to the darker angels of voters" to win elections, but we must acknowledge and respect the concerns and priorities of voters outside of wealthier urban enclaves. Clinton was a terrible candidate who ran a lousy campaign. In many ways she represented everything that's wrong with the current system. If you and many other in our Party don't understand how otherwise decent people might still choose Trump over her, you are in denial, and I fear we will continue to lose elections and face a generation or more of harsh Republican governance and policies.

I would also suggest you stop focusing exclusively on the presidential race. The Republicans also control the Senate and House, and the clear majority of statehouses and governorships. Most of these gains were obtained during the Obama presidency and the emergence of Trump. We can and need to do better.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

31. There were four candidates on the ballot.

Yet the Deplorables voted for the white nationalist. It wasn't that they were poor. It was that they were poor and white. That seems to be an indignity too great for some to bear, which takes me back to my original post. The Hispanic, African American, and Asian working class wholly rejected Trumpism.
.

[stone space]

41. Let's get real. People are not stupid. A vote for Trump was a vote for ethnic cleansing.

Last edited Sat Dec 3, 2016, 01:30 PM - Edit history (1)

You didn't need to be a racist xenophobe to begrudgingly hold your nose and vote for Trump when our chosen candidate and election campaign were so damn dismal. More importantly, if we are to seek the votes of these working class people in the future, many of whom previously voted for Obama, calling them ignorant, stupid, racist, etc., is the very opposite of a winning election strategy.

Do you think that voters don't remember what life under GOP rule is like?

It wasn't all that long ago, was it?

When they came for Iowa's Mayans in 2008 (including Mayan citizens born right here in Iowa), did these Trump supporters speak out?

Or did they applaud while their neighbors were imprisoned and deported?

Trump didn't signal his racist xenophobia with (supposedly) subtle imperceptible dog whistles. He used a bullhorn, instead.

The folks who voted for Trump were voting for ethnic cleansing, plain and simple.

THIS IS WHAT THEY WERE VOTING FOR:

Interpreting after the Largest ICE Raid in US History. A personal account.

Eric Camayd-Freixas, Ph.D.

Florida International University

snip-------------

Echoing what I think was the general feeling, one of my fellow interpreters would later exclaim: "When I saw what it was really about, my heart sank. . . ." Then began the saddest procession I have ever witnessed, which the public would never see, because cameras were not allowed past the perimeter of the compound (only a few journalists came to court the following days, notepad in hand). Driven single-file in groups of 10, shackled at the wrists, waist and ankles, chains dragging as they shuffled through, the slaughterhouse workers were brought in for arraignment, sat and listened through headsets to the interpreted initial appearance, before marching out again to be bused to different county jails, only to make room for the next row of 10. They appeared to be uniformly no more than 5 ft. tall, mostly illiterate Guatemalan peasants with Mayan last names, some being relatives (various Tajtaj, Xicay, Sajché, Sologüí. . .), some in tears; others with faces of worry, fear, and embarrassment. They all spoke Spanish, a few rather laboriously. It dawned on me that, aside from their nationality, which was imposed on their people in the 19th century, they too were Native Americans, in shackles. They stood out in stark racial contrast with the rest of us as they started their slow penguin march across the makeshift court. "Sad spectacle" I heard a colleague say, reading my mind. They had all waived their right to be indicted by a grand jury and accepted instead an information or simple charging document by the U.S. Attorney, hoping to be quickly deported since they had families to support back home. But it was not to be. They were criminally charged with "aggravated identity theft" and "Social Security fraud" -- charges they did not understand . . . and, frankly, neither could I. Everyone wondered how it would all play out.

snip------------

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/07/14/opinion/14ed-camayd.pdf

vimeo.com/8914995

[raging moderate]

58. Actually, Clinton was taken out of context about mining jobs.

She was talking about the probable future actions of the human race, as all of us combat climate change and cope with the diminishing reserves of good hard coal. In her enthusiasm, she created a clippable moment in which she said something like, "We are going to be doing away with most of these coal mining jobs, and we need to be creating other opportunities for these coal miners." The Republicons clipped out the first clause of her sentence and played it endlessly as though she had been announcing a desire to ruin the coal miners' careers out of sheer elitism.

[mountain grammy]

10. Thank you!

I live in a resort area, meaning most of the locals are seasonal, service workers. The working poor. The only one's for trump are the racists. Most working Americans living paycheck to paycheck aren't stupid enough to vote for the billionaire. The trumpers around here are mainly realtors with small fortunes, posting their photos of their tropical vacations while the rest of us are shoveling snow. You know, the same ones who wave the flag and love America while claiming it's a shithole, you know, like trump.

[yardwork]

11. Correct. It's a matter of character.

[ananda]

12. OK, if not ignorant, then willfully so full of hate ..

.. I can hardly imagine it.

Maybe some of both.

[Feeling the Bern]

14. After this election, I couldn't give a damn about them anymore

Sorry, these people voted for a racist asshole. That makes them racist. Fuck them and the harder white working class people the fucked, the happier I am.

And my grandfather was a carpenter. If he were alive today, he would completely agree with me. My grandfather is like your dad. But the rest. . .holy jumping fucking shitballs. Dumber than a second coat of paint.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

15. Ever see Mississippi Burning.

Remember the scene where Gene Hackman's character tells Willem Dafoe's character that his poor dad killed his black neighbor's mule because he couldn't stand to see a black man doing better than him. There was a lot of that with the Trump voters.

[Feeling the Bern]

16. You gotta a stupid smile! Did you smile! Did you! Did you smile that same stupid

smile?

Shitkickers!

[DemocratSinceBirth]

20. Was that from the movie?

I liked the scene where Hackman's character beat the Hell out of the racist deputy who was beating his wife.

[Feeling the Bern]

32. That's the scene. When we beats up Brad Douriff, that's what Hackman says and screams

at him/

[bhikkhu]

18. In general I agree with you

but...the two characteristics that most commonly determine a trump voter are race (white) and education (lack of it). Going by the numbers, due to low participation rates, that still makes less than half white working class people trump voters, but it doesn't take much to generate a stereotype.

[ismnotwasm]

21. You are correct--here is a different take

I come from white working class. I was raised by white racists. My father--a trunk driver-- in his own way, was not unlike Trump--he worked very hard, the fruits of his labors made him the owner of several homes. I think he got proper permits once. He has a certain self-taught talent in construction. Although nowhere near wealthy by Trump standards, what wealth he did have defined value for him. He was a racist, sexist, abusive prick to the point there were very few tears shed at his funeral a couple of years back. It's not that he couldn't befriend people of color or GBLT's--he did, they usually saw him as a curmudgeon, bark worse than his bite type, never understanding the very real contempt he had for them. (When are you gonna get a man? He used to ask my Gay cousin, it was a joke to her---he was serious)

My mother is still alive, her racism now tempered by time and experience and she knows better than to say anything in front of me but then, she too, was raised by racists.

In a way, he was the ugly side of the white working class. One generation away from Swedish immigrants--He was not stupid. He was unschooled, but not ignorant. He would have loved Trump, because he admired that kind of power.

[raging moderate]

57. Your father was NOT like Trump.

Your Dad really struggled and sweated and pulled himself out of poverty. His sufferings forced him to learn a hard, bitter bravery which yielded a crude and callous attitude just to succeed. Trump had everything handed to him on a silver plate at birth. Trump learned his crude and callous attitude in order to maximize his already extraordinary special privileges and create even greater opportunities to indulge his baser instincts. Trump is using men like your Dad as a sort of camouflage, hoping everyone will give him the pass which they have earned but he has not.

[NRQ891]

22. 2016 was record high negatives for both candidates

any analysis that ignores this factor, is flawed

[ismnotwasm]

23. What does that have to do with the White working class, specifically?

The OP is saying that voting for a racist, mysogynistic asshole is a choice, not an ignorance vote.

[NRQ891]

33. 'The OP is saying that voting for a racist, mysogynistic asshole is a choice, not an ignorance vote.

and that's exactly my point - it's not that simple

if this party blames Trump's election 100 percent to willful racism, while turning a blind eye to the fact that this party's nominee was associated with unpopular trade deals, H-1b visas and outsourcing, the Iraq war, 1/4 million dollar wall street speeches, was under investigation by the FBI, husband put the country through an impeachment, closest aid's husband is a pedophile, and simply dismisses all of this in favor of calling everyone a bigot, if a new populist party came along drawing 1/4 democrats, 1/4 repulicans and 1/4 from independents, it could put this party (and republicans) to the curb forever

6 months ago, this party thought the republican party was on the way out, and instead made the biggest gain in 90 years. it's time to look in the mirror, not point the finger

[ismnotwasm]

36. Again, this is a specific topic

And I'm not rehashing the primary with you--you can toss out all the Rehash you want in as many threads as you want. The fact of the matter is that is Hillary were male--most of that shit wouldn't have been a "Negative" and if we hadn't just elected the first AA president, there wouldn't have been a whitelash.

Don't even get me started about sex scandal's and republicans. That just pure hypocrisy

[DemocratSinceBirth]

37. Trump favors H-1 B visas.

He's a wily one. He likes the H-1 B visas because you can get skilled labor cheap. The irony is those are just the people who can displace American workers. There is no clamoring among Americans to work the fields. Those jobs are filled by undocumented workers.

[ismnotwasm]

38. He has very..selective..points.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

40. He's a wily one. That's where him and Bannon split.

Bannon wants to halt all non-white immigration. Trump just wants to halt non-skilled non-white immigration.

Trump also holds himself out as a friend of the working man but he fights tooth and nail not to keep his properties non-union.

[Iggo]

25. "White Working Class" is about the loudest dog whistle I've ever heard.(n/t)

[Bear Creek]

29. Willful ignorance

Is the term. Yes most are. They believe what they see on Fox news, they lap up what Rush Limpballs, Breitbart, coulter put out. They believe what their pastors at church tells them, do not question god has a plan and can use Trump. There are a few that have not succumbed under the spell.

[nini]

35. The Term ' White working class' has been hijacked

It means 'white middle class christian fox news watching conservatives' these days.

[ismnotwasm]

39. That is a very good point

For instance, I have good friends in the WWC (might as well have an acronym) who are die hard Democrats.

[nini]

46. well in the eyes of the dark side none of us work

so how could we possible be 'working class'?

I grew up near the LA Harbor..heavily union and working class. Most are still Dems so some have drank the kool aid. The WWC is still predominately Dem - but like other things they are controlling the conversation. Just like throwing out 'Identity Politics' at the Democrats - accusing us of being the ones who look down on the poor. Makes me nuts how people play right along with this crap.

[branford]

51. A great man of those "white middle class christian fox news watching conservatives"

apparently previously voted for Obama, many twice.

Your allegation is simplistic and evinces a great deal of denial. If we are to win elections, we need to honestly understand what went wrong in prior elections. If people insist on looking for easy answers such as accusing so many millions of Americans as simple racists, or ignoring or absolving our own candidate of her vast and myriad of problems, including unfavorable ratings lower than Trump, we are destined to lose more and more elections.

[ismnotwasm]

52. What is "simple" about racism?

I've taken college courses on it. It a huge all encompassing part of white dominance, and while I agree there are many factors to examine regarding populations, dismissing racism as "simple" is no better than blaming Hillary's loss on something like White water.

[nini]

55. You obviously missed my entire point

The term has been hijacked to push the exact thing you are accusing the Dems of. YOU are playing right into their hands allowing this identity politics theory to fester. I never said those people were simply racist either and those that are can go fuck themselves.

I'm glad you got your Hillary digs in though since that probably makes you feel better.

[obnoxiousdrunk]

45. Trump slogan worked

Make America White Again.

[world wide wally]

47. It is always tricky trying to determine what is in people's hearts and minds when they do

something we can't understand.
However, STUPID just kind of jumps out and screams at you.
So, even if I were to give Trump voters the benefit of the doubt and accept that they are not racist (cough, cough), we still cannot turn a blind eye to the stupid it takes to do so.
You must have thought his impression of the disabled writer was one of the most hilarious things you have ever seen, so you voted for Trump to be President. There is a disconnect there. See what I mean about stupid?

[mcar]

50. My Trump supporting neighbors wanted a businessman

They are the small government types who wanted to "drain the swamp." One told me he was perfectly willing to overlook Trump's bigotry and hatefulness because he wanted change.

I am taking great pleasure in posting articles about Trump's cabinet picks on FB and asking "how is that swamp draining going for you?" He hasn't replied.

Whatever their reasons, they voted for a hate-filled sociopath and are thus enablers of hate.

[uppityperson]

54. Many were supporting bigotry, because they saw something in it for themselves.

not all were bigots, but they were supporting bigotry

[jmg257]

56. trump voters knew exactly what they were doing...

For whatever reason they need to justify it.