Tag: #Democrats

  • 70 Million Trump Voters; Not a Monolith

    This seems to be a big talking point in the news and online right now; Biden got 75 million votes, the most ever for a winning candidate, but Trump got 70 million votes, the most ever for a Republican. The context seems to be that Biden’s 75 million are a fractured group that will come apart at any moment, while Trump’s 70 million are solid as a rock.

    I have to disagree, with that take.

    What I am reminded of is a research study that was part of our curriculum in a Sociology class I took in college. The study was over punk rocker membership and social strata, and how that reflects on society as a whole. Follow me on this…

    In the punk rock world, at the center were the hardest of the hard-punk rockers. These people dressed punk 24/7, lived it, and worked in it. Punk rock was their identity, and nothing could shake them from it, and though hard core and the most visible, it was a small group. Then around them was a larger ring with more people, but they were not as hard core, listened to the music and adopted the ideology, but also might have had a job and paid bills. Then outside of that ring was a larger group, who liked the music, and maybe had tattoos, but worked normal jobs, and dress punk out of work and on the weekends. (I think you get the point.) Finally, after several rings, you get the final group that likes the music, but does not have anything else to do with the punk scene, but those people do consider themselves to be “punk” on some level.

    This is how I see Trump’s voters. Trump’s people want us to believe that all 70 million voters are the tight hardcore at the center, but to be honest that’s the smallest group. The majority of Trump voters make up those final two “soft” outer rings. They consider themselves to be Republicans/Conservatives, but aren’t Trump people. Now, if you give these two rings the binary choice of Republican or Democrat, they will always side with Republican because that what they consider themselves, but again, they aren’t live or die Trump people. They are the people that are sad that Trump lost, but they don’t see it as a conspiracy.

    My point; relax everybody. It’s not as dire as everyone thinks.

  • Post Election: Still Worried

    (Oh, and this is just about as cynical of a post you will find.)

    I was excited on Saturday. Amazingly excited, and we drank champagne and went down the block for the dance party in the street. Ding Dong! The Trump was Dead! His reign was over and sanity was to resume in the world. I did shed tears when I saw Vice-President Elect Harris come out, dressed in Suffragette white. Another barrier broken, and a step closer to a more perfect Union.

    Then Sunday morning came, and I could tell the joy was giving way. We went to visit friends who think along the lines that we do, and though they were happy about the win, they were rather pragmatic about the situation on a whole. 70 million voters still support Trump, they said, and why would they stop supporting him?

    Outside of my family, I am still in contact with one open Trump supporter, and that guy sees the election as rigged, the media is still faked and biased, and he started adding that the 2nd Amendment was created for situations like this.

    Well, crap…

    I’m trying to see the world from inside the other person’s shoes, but I keep feeling like the other side has no intention of returning the favor.

    It makes me think that Trump is filling a deep emotional void that half this nation is desperate to have satisfied. It is a hunger that is satiated by a desire to hurt back. Using logic against that pain yields no fruit, and only exasperates the situation.

    What all of this reminds me of is my last job, and trying to get several different departments to work together for the survival of the company. I tried every tactic and trick I knew, from being the first person willing to compromise, to making myself available to any issue or concern they had, but it never worked. The reason was that they never had any intention to work together, or with me. They just wanted to win more than do the right thing. (And in the end, to stave off bankruptcy, the Board laid off half the staff, and cut 1/3 of the departments. Nobody won, and a bunch of good people got hurt.)

    That is where I feel we are.

  • And Waiting

    I pretty much am only thinking about one issue…

  • Watching, Waiting, Hoping

    Just waiting for the final vote counts to come in.

  • America: A Long Way From Great Again

    I know, even as I write this, there is still a good chance that Biden will claw out a win, but that doesn’t make me feel better.

    Actually, I feel worse than I did in 2016.

    I can accept that good people voted for Trump that year because it was a change election, and what the Democrats we’re offering was just more of the institutional same, which wasn’t helping most people.

    After five years of being a public political figure, everyone knows exactly who he is. And still, at this moment, 45% of the voting public wanted four more years of it. Of racism, incompetence, self dealing, corrupt, misogyny, and I could go on, and on.

    That 45% of the country could look at a President like and somehow think a continuation is s as good idea.

    It makes me feel like what I was told about the greatness of America is a lie. That we are not a shining city in a hill, but a people who are giving to our base instincts.

    I now believe that change will come, but not for another generation. The Greatest Generation is gone, and no longer relevant to our body politics. We are dealing with yet another Boomer problem. The Boomers were the last generation to grow up in government sanctioned racism, and though they worked to stop it, a good number of them worked to keep it. It is that upbringing of “acceptable bigotry” is what is holding us all back. We have 20 more years of it.

    Only when Gen-X and the following generations come into political power, will we finally begin to seriously deal with this hate.

    Sadly, I don’t know if America has 20 years left…