Why Do (Some) People Still Like Trump?
The news out of Washington about the Saturday rally to support the ‘political prisoners’ is exactly what it needs to be. Because what it consists of is Trump defending both the putzes who are going to show up on Saturday, as well as the even bigger putzes who were arrested on January 6th.
Here’s what Trump had to say: “Our hearts and minds are with the people being persecuted so unfairly relating to the January 6th protest. In addition to everything else, it has proven conclusively that we are a two-tiered system of justice. In the end, however, JUSTICE WILL PREVAIL!”
So, here is the President of the United States, who in order to become President had to take an oath that he would defend the Constitution which, in case you didn’t know it, means enforcing federal laws, and this guy is saying that people who were seen breaking some of those laws are being persecuted ‘unfairly.’
I’m beginning to think that if you’re a public official, it really doesn’t matter what you say. In particular, it doesn’t matter what you say if you say it to some stupid, internet-based outfit which claims to be reporting ‘news.’
On the other hand, anyone who believes that the continued whining and complaining about unfair treatment, which was Trump’s narrative from the day he took office in 2017, is an effective way to whip up the passions and strength of his so-called ‘base,’ is also someone who believes in the existence of that so-called ‘base.’
Will Trump draw some kind of crowd to a rally he’s planning in Perry, Georgia on September 25th? Of course, he will. The town of Perry is the county seat of Houston County, which is in the 8th CD, which is represented in Congress by Austin Scott who always votes ‘no’ on anything having to do with abortion ‘rights,’ same-sex marriage ‘rights,’ LGBTQ ‘rights,’ and all those other Communist or Socialist ‘rights.’
Which doesn’t mean that Scott is opposed to all Constitutional ‘rights.’ He also always votes ‘yes’ on gun ‘rights.’
Scott carried the 8th CD by a two-to-one margin in 2020. So did Trump. But the Democrats now own both the Georgia seats in the U.S. Senate because they also own Fulton County, which happens to be Atlanta, which happens to have ten times more people living in that city than live in the town of Perry and the rest of the 8th C.D.
For all the talk about how America is becoming two countries, with one country being urban-suburban communities which politically, socially, racially, and culturally are increasingly different from the other country, which is comprised largely of trailer parks and small, crummy little towns, I don’t think this is how we should look at America at all.
Believe it or not, I think the real difference between red America and blue America happens to be the degree to which people who vote Republican, as opposed to people who vote Democratic, are dependent on the Federal dole. And if you think that all those Republican voters out there are hard-working, independent folks who earn their own livings and resent how the so-called urban-based ‘minorities’ and ‘illegals’ occupy most of the seats on the Federal gravy train, you happen to be wrong.
Back in 2001, my wife and I drove across the Midwest farm belt — Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana. We went through towns like Emporia, KS, Rolla, MO, Decatur, IL and Kokomo, IN. We wanted to see how the ‘other half’ lived. In 2005 we did it again in the northern farm belt — Minnesota, North Dakota, and Montana. Ever been to Beulah, ND? Try it sometime.
These farming communities are as rock-ribbed Republican as you can get. The residents of these towns wouldn’t know how to vote for a Democrat if their lives depended on it. What their lives happen to depend on is the Federal dole. Of course, if the money comes from the Department of Agriculture that’s not welfare, right?
If it weren’t for the USDA Soil Bank program, the good folks in Beulah would be starving in the street.
Next time you have the occasion to drive on Interstate 79 through the western side of West Virginia, get off the highway about 40 miles before you get to Morgantown and take a walk down the main street of Gassaway, a lovely, little spot with a population of slightly less than 1,000 souls, just about all of whom are White, by the way.
The only jobs in Gassaway, where they sell liquor in the drug store, are the few retail stores where the Gassaway natives who spend the paychecks they receive for mopping the floors and cleaning the bed pans in the county hospital down the road. And where do you think the money comes from which keeps this country hospital from shutting its doors? From the same federal government which funds all those soil-bank programs in Idaho, Kansas and everywhere else.
Did the good people of Gassaway vote two-to-one for Trump last year? No. They voted three to one, if they bothered to vote at all.
How do we explain what my dear academic friends would refer to as this remarkable example of ‘cognitive dissonance?’ How is it that people who would be driving around like 21st-Century versions of the Okies were it not for federal transfer payments, harbor such animosity against the government whose largesse is keeping them alive?
Which is exactly the point, okay? The Bible teaches us to give to the poor, or as it is written in Acts 20:35: “You should remember the words of the Lord Jesus: It is more blessed to give than to receive.”
But I know both the Old and New Testaments pretty well, and I don’t see much in the way of how the recipients of all that Biblical largesse should feel about being on the short end of the dole. I think it was another President named Calvin Coolidge who once said, “There is no development physically or intellectually without effort, and effort means work.”
I don’t think the good folks who live in Gassaway, WV or Perry, GA spend one second thinking about how and why they ended up the way they did. But when someone like Donald Trump shows up and tells them that he understands that they’ve gotten the short end of the stick and he’ll do whatever it takes to make things ‘right,’ he’s talking to a crowd that will believe him no matter what he says.
Because the truth is that I’m entitled to everything that everyone else has whether they worked for it or not. Isn’t that what Socialism’s all about?
