November 30, 2020

I encountered a Trump voter who spoke about "communist-democrats" Saturday.

I was gathering signatures with a friend of mine for a local person who is running for office in my area. A person from one household was signing my petition as my friend was speaking with the neighbor next door.
This Trump voter came out of the house, followed my friend as she joined me, and spoke to both of us about "communist-democrats", and other Trump brand idiocy.

My friend attempted to reason with the Trump voter, but reason never works on the unreasonable.

And that is, and will remain, a huge problem for the near future as 70 million US voters believe that up is down and down is up.

What is critical, in my view, is to motivate the 33% who did not vote, or were prevented from voting.

November 22, 2020

On values voters, and silent majorities.

Many conservative voters love to describe themselves as “values voters”. They also often describe themselves as being part of the “silent majority”. These memes have been around in modern politics since Nixon first ran for office in 1968.

What is implicit in the phrase “values voters”, and the accompanying phrase “silent majority”, is that other voters have no values, and represent a minority view. This allows these self-described values voters to feel good about their choices, and allows them to feel that opposing viewpoints are minority views.

Consider that in the 2020 election, most self-described conservatives, most “values voters”, voted for Donald Trump.

Trump has always been quite open about his racism, in speech and actions. From his promotion of “birtherism” as a racist attack on the Nations’s first black President, to his actions on the Central Park 5, Trump has always demonstrated his racism. If you voted for a racist, your vote enabled a racist, and that makes you little better than one. Enabling a racist, no matter the motives, is a character defect, not a value.

If you voted for a misogynist, a person with a long history of sexual assault, your vote enabled this person, and that too, is a character defect, not a value.

If you voted for a person with a well-known, lifelong, history of cheating on his taxes, his wives, his customers, and his vendors, that is a sign of a character defect, not a value.

If you voted for a person who has lied over 20,000 times, that enabled the lying. That too, is a sign of a character defect, not a value.

If you voted for a person who bullies everyone who works for him, a person who bullied his GOP opponents in 2016, a person who attacks anyone who disagrees with him, you enabled the bullying, and that, too, is a character defect, not a value.

If you voted for a person who lied to the public about COVID19, a person who made the refusal to wear a mask into a test of political loyalty, you enabled a situation that resulted in the US ranking #1 in COVID19 fatalities. Refusal to wear a mask, refusal to take actions that are proven to slow the spread of the virus is pure selfishness. These too, are character defects, not values.

If you remained silent as Trump demonstrated to the world his unfitness to hold office, if you remained silent as Trump bullied others, if you remained silent as Trump promoted xenophobia and misogyny, you demonstrated both moral and political cowardice. That cowardice is no value, it is a character defect.

Finally, Trump lost the popular vote in 2016 and 2020. Given that 43% of eligible voters did not vote in 2016, and 33% did not vote in 2020, Trump’s “silent majority” represented, at best, 38% of the eligible electorate. I am no mathematician, but 38% is certainly no majority, silent or otherwise.