Trump Supporters

I've talked about the man himself so much, but I've been thinking lately about the more endemic issue that's going on, and that's all of the people surrounding him that will be carrying along his message and rhetoric long after he's gone, so I feel that they're definitely worth talking about. Trump supporters are both interesting and infuriating, but they represent a large portion of the population and that's just an unfortunate fact that I've had to come to terms with. It seems as each new political generation comes about, so too does a unique strain of conservative. The most recent strain is just flat out bizarre. I can't say that I've ever been particularly fond of republicans or conservatives in general, but the Trump crowd is by far the most irritating. Here's a few things I've noticed about a good amount of them. For one thing, they're fanatical. They love their leader to an idolatrous and disturbing degree, and that degree is one where they prefer him over logic and reason. I've found that for the most part it's a waste of time to try to change their minds with articles, charts or graphs, no matter how well sourced, because they'll just brush them off as more "fake news". They don't take to that sort of thing because, when you present them with it, you're speaking to them in a language that they either don't understand, or simply refuse to speak in. Something else many of them seem to have in common is that they get a great deal of satisfaction out of knowing that they can get underneath peoples skin. The knowledge that they were able to "trigger" someone appears to give them a lot of joy. This shows a degree of immaturity that Trump himself is infamous for and they adore him for it. It's a kind of "school yard bully" mentality that a disturbing amount of Americans seem to have, making Trump naturally appealing. When I was a child, like many other kids, I dealt with bullies here and there, and one of the best pieces of advice my father ever gave me was that those people were after one simple thing; a reaction, and by giving them that reaction, all I was doing was emboldening them and encouraging the repetition of the same behavior. Unfortunately, it seems many people either weren't given that advice about not falling for bait, or just choose to ignore it. Either way, "getting your goat" as my dad called it, is something that many Trump supporters revel in. Another thing about many of them is that they're obsessed with "masculinity". I put that in quotes because it isn't really masculinity that they're all about, rather everything societally associated with it. They love the clichés; guns, motorcycles, big cars, beards, aviators, beer, and what have you. Just look at one of the seemingly countless social media profiles of self proclaimed Trump supporters and you're bound to check off a few things on that list. While none of those things really make anyone masculine or tough, they're what society associates with masculinity and that's what they seem to have confused with what is actually genuine. I think this trait in particular is indicative of a deeply rooted insecurity, one that they feel driven to make up for by such overcompensation and so naturally, an overly bombastic figure like Trump resonates with faux tough people like that. Another trait that seems to be prevalent among those privy to the Donald is an affinity for conspiracies. The conspiracy theorist stock is absolutely booming under this presidency, and I think the reason for that is the overwhelming wave of disconnection with reality and rationality that Trump has brought with him. Not only does he not deny conspiracy theories, he's been known to fan and feed into them giving theorists reason to believe that their ideas are true. The result is them eating up his every word like ravenous wolves. Many people who love Trump tend to love another thing, and that is memes. While memes themselves aren't inherently directed towards any particular ideology, it seems that Trump supporters are especially enamored with the use of short quippy humorous pictures and videos as a means of conveying their message. I think this is because memes, very much like Donald Trump, are very simplistic. Trump cruised through a large field of republican rivals back in 2016 by being the master of sound clips. While others unsuccessfully tried to establish an understanding of complex policies with their allotted time, he instead threw out simple catch phrases that drew roaring applause and this is very similar to how memes work. That ties into the whole absurd internet culture surrounding 45 which is where things get just plain weird. In many corners of the internet, those obsessed with anime seem to have taken a liking to Trump. Honestly, they're such a strange demographic that I can't completely discern if they genuinely support Trump, or if they don't even care about politics at all and just think he's some kind of interesting cultural thing to adopt. I'm sure some are just using him as a fad, while others are sincere, but that's just my guess. Then of course many Trump supporters are the super rich elites that know his policies stand to benefit them the most, and they're the demographic that definitely makes the most sense to me as to why they vote the way they do. They're a pretty loyal republican voting bloc that really aren't anything Trump brought about. All of what I've mentioned up to this point has been merely the irritating aspects, but there's also a much more malevolent side that needs to be mentioned. As it's been consistently pointed out, many radicals are drawn to Trumps rhetoric, and I'm talking of course about all of the racist groups. While they're not as large of a demographic as they're made out to be, I find that to be irrelevant as it's been made perfectly clear that there's more than enough of them spreading their toxic rhetoric around to cause substantial harm that has even lead to death. There has been a fierce debate about whether or not Trump is racist, but I think the simple truth is that it doesn't matter. The reason I say this is because if the extremist faction of his supporters simply BELIEVE that he is with them, that's all they need to justify everything that they do and the filth that they spread. And it should be said that he hasn't done a spectacular job of rebuking them, which just furthers their notions that he supports them on the down low. Yes he has made official statements denouncing them, but only after significant pressure and even when he made those statements there was a certain reluctance, almost annoyance, that he had to clarify his stance. I believe this hesitation and moral equivalency he has shown has further emboldened radicals instead of pushing them back into the holes from which they crawled out of. Alright, so far I've gone over a lot of the bizarre and extreme examples of Trump supporters, which is what many like to focus on, but if we really want to get the entire picture of his base, we need to recognize that those are not the whole thing. Many Trump supporters are actually pretty normal people who are just fed up with the status quo. They're farmers, coal miners and all other manner of blue collar working folks who have this idea in their head that they've been left behind and forgotten about. They're people who wanted to see some significant change, and unfortunately they got what they wanted. However, those Trump supporters are the most tragic cases in my eyes, because the fact of the matter is that they've been used, played by the aforementioned wealthy demographic in order to further causes that don't actually benefit them. It's those conservatives that I really wrestle with my feelings on. While they tend to be just as frustrating as everyone else, there's a sad undertone of knowing what they're going through that makes them the way they are. I want to help them, but they're so thoroughly convinced that this is the way things need to work if their situation is ever going to improve, that whenever someone tries to tell them that Trump is actually hurting them, they just get angry and double down. To be fair, this isn't entirely their fault. I'll admit that there's a prevalent perception that urban liberals have been talking down to blue collar rural people and basically think they're dirt. Meanwhile, conservatives like Trump cozy up to them and put them on a kind of pedestal that makes them feel the sense of importance that they crave and feel they deserve. The problem is that while Trump does this, he screws them over in the process and I'm honestly not sure how to fix that endemic issue. Now for the final demographic, which is where I'm pretty sure the rest fall under; the reluctant supporters. Those that aren't actually fully on the Trump train, but have been republicans their whole lives and no matter how distasteful they find Trump to be, they just can't palette voting for anyone without a big red R next to their name. These people I don't feel the least bit sorry for, because they're the most aware of what they're doing. These people are the ones that are quietly sitting on the sidelines while all of the chaos is going on. They wont out right say they support it, but neither will they do anything to end the madness. These spineless cowards are by far the worst of the bunch in my eyes. Yes the internet trolls are bad, but in a twisted way they deserve some credit for at least being out in the open with everything, unlike the silent coconspirators. But that brings us back to one of the key aspects of what Trump has brought about, which is the aspect of openness. I think many people give Trump far too much credit by saying he "created" all of this nonsense. From what I can see, he's created very little, rather all he's done is simply made it chic to be open and brazen with it. Racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, and all other forms of bigotry aren't anything new. These thing have been around since the dawn of time, but for a long time in recent years there was this idea that you had to keep it under wraps, that it was in poor taste to be so brazen with your views. When you really get down to it, Trump is nothing more than a snake charmer who has lured the snake into the light; it was always there, just under the surface. In a twisted way, I think this is actually a good thing, since now we as a society are forced to confront this ugliness head on, which is what we've been seeing going on. Many in the United States have been made aware of the disease and now we're all scrambling to fight it. The one problem might be, that I'm not sure how bad the disease has really gotten. Can we actually cleanse the nation of this ailment, is the best we can hope for a containment, or has it gotten to the point where it will do us in? I believe that's the unfortunate spot we've found ourselves in.