Nicholas Kristof, the preachy New York Times columnist, says we should not look down our noses at Trump supporters, that it’s elitist to demean them, that we should try to understand them.
I used to worry that we were being too hasty to dismiss the millions of Americans who think Trump should be president, that we should appreciate the “economic anxiety” and cynicism that drove millions to the polls for Trump.
Yes, I worried about this.
I worried about this for about five minutes in 2016, and not since.
Call me elitist, I don’t care. I have no interest in trying to understand Trump voters. They’ve all known what millions more of us have known for years — that Trump is a white-hot bigot, liar, con man and narcissist who provoked a violent insurrection against the government — and yet they still support him.
Trump thrives on racism. He said immigrants are “poisoning the blood of the country,” and he doubled-down on that as the Labor Day weekend approached: “Our country is being poisoned … [children of immigrants] are going into the classrooms and taking disease, and they don’t even speak English. It’s crazy.” Of course, these “toxic” immigrants — documented or not — provide a huge amount of vital labor for the country, and many of them have contributed billions to the Social Security and Medicare trust funds. Trump, meanwhile, has made deportation of 11 million undocumented immigrants a centerpiece of his campaign.
As part of my job, I consider rational arguments from people whose views might differ from mine — on immigration, on criminal justice, on public transportation, on foreign policy, on many local issues, on the wonders of cilantro, on a long list of topics. In a conversation just yesterday, the topic of early voting in Maryland came up — specifically, whether having it was worthwhile to the state, based on its per-vote cost. I’m inclined to support early voting, but I’ll certainly consider evidence that we don’t get much bang for the buck.
Now that is hugely different from what we get from Trump — the repeated claim that early, absentee and mail-in voting are to blame for “massive fraud.” He has repeatedly said this, flip-flopped on it, then resumed claiming fraud, with no evidence.
So look, Kristof, I don’t waste time on baseless allegations and conspiracy theories. I avoid serial liars. I despise racists and bigots. I no longer listen to climate deniers. I would never vote for a felon who tried to subvert our long experiment in democracy. So why would I try to understand people who stubbornly support such an indecent and dangerous man? Not interested.
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Dan Rodricks 
Out here in West Virginia, it seems every other house has a take America back, Flag. (Those Trump supporters certainly love fabrics) It does tell us a lot more about the persons inside those homes than it does about Trump. I still want to Understand more about what brings them to their racist, fear driven anger. They will continue to exist amongst us And so we need to come up with some dialogue strategy to help deprogram the cult like behavior and beliefs.
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You want to know what brings racists to racism? Really? That’s something you don’t yet understand?
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My younger brother, who owned a successful burger chain in Texas, was a passionate Trump supporter. I don’t have to understand him anymore because he recently died of a heart attack. Oh well …
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Good point. But, do I give up trying to understand the pro- Trump views of my 70-plus years bff? Or just ignore?
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I think it’s best to avoid it and get involved for the other side. Good luck.
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I completely agree. They are living fact-free. When presented with evidence, they move the goalposts. I do not appreciate the incivility, the nastiness, the vulgarity. Cruelty is the point. I’m done trying to understand. I understand enough.
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I guess we have to outwork them another election. I may not like it, but Trump voters still exist
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Of course. The only thing that will fix this is democracy, the one system that guarantees that Americans get what they want — for both the winners and losers.
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Dan,
Fantastic reasons to NEVER VOTE FOR TRUMP.
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Thank you Dan for expressing what so many of us feel, but are often times reluctant to verbalize. I commend you for these comments about Trump voters.
WF Dave
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BRAVO! Bravo!! bravo!!!
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It is easy to understand why a wealthy corporate mogul would support Trump. This would be someone whose personal economic self interest is paramount, and who does not care about others less fortunate, the environment, and the future of the country in general.
What is hard to understand is why anyone else supports him.
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People who choose him do so because they resonate with his frequency. It is a shrill, harsh cacophony, one that disrupts the soul; for him it is his natural harmonic, for those that choose him, it echoes Dylan Thomas’ “Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
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