Why Trump?!

Why? Why? Why?

A good friend of mine moaned to me via text this morning, the Day After: "Biden is winning popular vote - 68.7M vs. 66.1M so far. Why would 66M people vote for THAT? Why would a person of color vote for that racist? Why would a woman vote for a sexual predator? Why would a person with decency vote for an indecent person? Why? Why? Why?!"

Why indeed?

Being in a bubble myself, I think I might be in that echo chamber people keep talking about, where we just speak with people we agree with and roll our eyes at those who completely do not agree with us. Like about climate change, vaccines, gun control, police brutality, white supremacy, social nets, taxes, universal health care, pro-choice, religion, integrity... I could go on, but won't.

A couple of people I respect very much are Trump supporters. They are good people. They are intelligent. They do good things. I like them. But I really, really, really disagree with their stance on how good Donald Trump is as the President of the United States of America, as a leader that impacts the entire world.

Because I like them, even, dare I say it, trust them in some ways, I have made a huge effort to try to get it from their perspective. And it's been hard. The closest I've gotten to seeing a side of Trump I liked was when I once accidentally watched a season of The Celebrity Apprentice - the season with Omarosa. That was the year I realized how much I detested reality shows, but it was also the first time I saw a glimpse of Trump where he actually had heart. He was rough around the edges and misogynist and ageist (in a perverted way), but he showed an authenticity to his decision-making that was actually quite relatable, if not likeable.

Plus, is stability what we really need? Or is it time for HUGE change? Okay, before we get to change, let's talk about HOW Trump.

From Joke to Winner

So much has been speculated about how much Trump hated being the butt of the joke, that he decided to own it and leverage it into being out there in front of crowds and being adored.

This fascination and adoration that people, especially AMERICAN people (sorry American family and friends), have for celebrities is mindboggling, where a person is famous for being famous. And the 24/7 newstertainment industry has created misleading headlines to get people to watch the news and then the commercials that keep trying to sell us things we don't need and have deadly (literally) side effects. And for those of us who no longer want to pay huge amounts of money for cable, we have turned to the Internet, the democratization of information, and well... that hasn't quite been the leveling of playing fields that it promised to be. Talk about echo chamber. Facebook anyone?

Trump ran, not necessarily thinking that he was going to win, but at least get more coverage and fame, thanks a lot Mark Burnett. Really. You created him. You know that. The world thanks you. And as he got out there, more people saw him as an agent of change. And he did his thing. And it worked. He was not your typical politician. He WASN'T a politician. He wasn't trying to be something he wasn't. He was winning based on being himself, warts and all. Grabbing... er... body parts, encouraging vengeful attacks, tweeting at 3 am in the morning, SAYING AND DOING WHATEVER IT TAKES TO GET WHAT HE WANTS. The man does not repress his feelings, thoughts, or impulses. HE JUST DOES WHATEVER HE WANTS, without being PC or thoughtful or careful. HE DOES NOT SECOND GUESS ANYTHING HE SAYS.

Some of these things are characteristics of a winner. Well, it would be nice if he had integrity and maybe some morals. But at the end of the day, his confidence, dedication to his goals, and in a weird way authenticity, is an emotional draw for people who are tired of the doublespeak of mainstream media, public relations of corporations, and of... yup... politicians. Even his failures... they were all in the interest of winning (making money through the art of the deal). So, I guess if one is a supporter of the ends justifies the means, he is the epitome of that.

A huge percentage of Trump supporters say that they don't care about the character as much as they care about the issues. And if they see that he cares about the issues they care about, even doing something about it, then they are going to accept that he may be flawed. Hence the whole "Trump Supporters be like" meme:

Demand for Change

There is a huge amount of pent up anger... about how hard life is getting for most of us, how much systemically harder it is for POCs (Blacks and Indigenous people in particular), and how broken many systems are in this world... but America in particular. I mean, we all grew up watching Hollywood and idolizing heroes who fought against the tyranny of corrupt rulers (Gladiator, Minority Report, Elycium), even willing to sacrifice themselves to do it. That is the American way, isn't it? Do whatever it takes to bring down the bad guys and make it right. In the movies, they always bring down a system, but they never really talk about what happens afterward. Ah, Hollywood.

Depending on what is being measured and who is being impacted and who controls what, we get a story, priorities, and action. The rich get richer, more wars are started than ended, research studies often contradict each other depending on who funds the study, getting an education is not only astronomically expensive but admissions are no longer consistently based on a meritocracy, jobs are not for life, the middle-class dream is dying... it's dead. So, the story is that someone is to blame for this. The priority is that we need to fix it or at least fight it. And the action? Well... you've seen the actions and you've seen what lengths people are willing to go to demand change.

What's Fair? Who to Trust?

Now the question is: Who is the Bad Guy? IS there a Bad Guy? Who can you trust? Who SHOULD you trust? WHAT should you trust? How do you know who is trustworthy? Journalism has changed. (At one point in time, more people watched Jon Stewart for news than the major networks!) How we consume news has changed, although, we are still more likely to believe what we hear in our echo chambers. The internet has opened us up to the anecdote being the story. The mainstream news has always done that anyway, it's not news if it's happening everywhere and normal. But somehow, those things become what we fear, prepare against, and fight about. And once the concept of Fake News became in our vernacular, well, it's an easy attack to use undermine real journalism.

And of course, we then start to transfer our fears of one thing into things that are completely unrelated. The feeling is that data, logic or proof can present anything. So, people believe what they believe and then support their belief afterward. People really don't make decisions based on logic and rationale, do they?

Popular Vote versus Electoral College System

We also live in a world where many of our systems are old and set up for archaic, outdated reasons.

Did you know that the creation of the Electoral College was in part a political workaround for the persistence of slavery in the United States? It was a cobbled-together compromise so that the slave-owning Southern States would finally agree to a method to elect a President. They gave the owners a 3/5 vote for each slave they owned. For 32 out of the United States’ first 36 years, a slave-holding Virginian occupied the White House! And pretty much everything that the Founder Fathers assumed ended up not being true anyway. The eventual two-party system is now in place and the winner always benefits from this crazy system, so I don't see it changing any time soon, short of a civil w... uh, let's not go there.

Anyhoo, most of the time the popular voting coincides with the outcome from the electoral college (only 5 did not and 2 of them were pretty recent: Bush and Trump). And like I said, winner figures, so I don't see this changing. It's like when our Prime Minister said in 2015 that it would be the last time we had a Federal Election outcome based on First Past the Post (stupid, stupid system really), but once he got into power, the attitude was more like, well, I won, didn't I? The system can't be THAT bad.

Repression Leads to Eruptions

Okay, so here is the main point that I want to make. Just as repressing feelings at a personal level causes us to blow up at something totally inconsequential later, at someone totally innocent and undeserving of our horn honking or middle finger-pointing or snarky comment, that is the same for us as a society. Repression leads to eruptions. And the right has been repressed by the left.

Okay, bear with me as I make my point.

As the world becomes more PC for all the right reasons, a lot of people are being asked to repress their thoughts or behaviours because it's wrong now. Again, FOR ALL THE RIGHT REASONS. But woke scolds have a habit of being a bit condescending rather than educational and it's not a nice feeling to be told that so many things that you are and do are WRONG and BAD. People just dig in and become defensive about their beliefs.

As we know, Americans don't really trust rulers (personally I think it's in their DNA when they left and rebelled against the Brits). So they don't believe government health officials when they tell us to wear masks to protect each other. (That one I find a bit hard to understand, because honestly, for me, it's kind of common sense and I truly think that science has shown that if we work a little harder at preventing germs from transmitting, well, maybe we can protect each other from our germs.) This is a trigger for all the times they feel that the government tells them to do (or not do) things that they disagree with (like speed limits, drinking, gun control, smoking, or whatever).

So... Trump Because...

THE MEDIA GAVE HIM UNPRECEDENTED REACH

The media played a huge role in giving him free publicity. Top executive Leslie Moonves famously said "It may not be good for America, but it's damn good for CBS." He valued profit over what is good for the country as a whole. "Man, who would have expected the ride we're all having right now? ... The money's rolling in and this is fun." So we heard about Trump all the time and they never really showcased people like Andrew Yang, who would have made a much better president.

US VS THEM

It's always easier to win people over when you have a common enemy. And he's a master at making other people the enemy. He knows how to resonate with people's fears and hopes. He knows how to make THEM targets, both verbally and even physically. He makes US very attractive and exciting.

IT'S ALL ABOUT MAKING MONEY

I've heard many people say that Trump is a businessman and would make decisions that are sound for the economy. I'm not sure I believe that, but if they do then I guess I can understand why they would vote for him. Like the way he insisted that Canada had to open up to American dairy. Much like in the old days when the US dairy lobbyists manage to get milk to be one of the 4 four groups so that they could sell more, now they want to sell to Canada. We don't want American milk, because of all the growth hormones and antibiotics. I suppose what is bad for us, is good for them...?

CHANGE FROM THE STATUS QUO

Trump really talked about draining the swamp, because nothing ever changed, not even when Obama was in power for 2 terms. Lobbyists still had the ear of most politicians, the powers that be didn't really want change, and purchasing power of the average person kept going down, down, down. So, a vote for Trump is a vote for change. He handled COVID very badly (IMHO), but if didn't hit, the argument is, he would have done a lot of good for the economy. Again, I don't think that's true, but importantly, the markets do.

THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE SYSTEM FAVOURS RURAL AMERICA

And unlike most of their urban country peeps, there are more MAGA supporters in rural America. Their votes count more and therefore they can win even if the popular vote doesn't correspond. The EC really has evolved into a pretty non-democratic, clunky failure of a system. It sustains the two-party system, which means the voters really do not have real choice in choosing what kind of leader they want heading up the most powerful role in the country. I don't see this changing anytime soon.

HE IS A MASTER STORYTELLER

Trump really is the top conspiracy theorist and tweeter in chief. I say that with a little disgust, but maybe a tad of admiration. He knows what he's doing in terms of making things happen. He doesn't care about the rules, which, in a weird way, makes him interesting. Hence newsworthy. He tweets so that whatever is in his brain goes straight to your brain. There is no filtering, no positioning, no finessing. It's like you're sitting at the dinner table at Mar-a-Logo with him, like he's talking to you, like an ole buddy. An old, rich, white, male buddy. But feels so personal nonetheless.

So... I think I sort of get it.

Personally, I cannot support him, but I think I sorta kinda can see why someone else might.

I would not want to be friends with him, I would not want him to marry my sister, I would not want my female friends to be in a room with him alone, and I certainly would not want to work for him.

But, I sorta, kinda, maybe, moderately understand why nearly 50% of the American people voted for him. Twice.

NOTE: This is an opinion piece that has not been fact-checked, so please forgive any inaccuracies or insults.