Episcopal Churches Desecrated

[Fish and Bread]

Here is the thing many don't understand about either Trump supporters or acceptors. The messages people heard and believed were extremely colored by which news outlet you turned to and/or believed. For example, it's not that they accept xenophobia, it's that they don't accept the charge that believing immigration laws should be enforced and improved where necessary is xenophobic.

Respectfully, I just don't buy this explaination of the Trump phenomon. People would have to be awfully naive not to understand that Trump was running on a platform of bigotry. Some people could have been that naive, and others are actual white supremecist neo-nazi skinheads. He was endorsed by David Duke, the KKK, and the "alt-right", one of whom be hired as as a top official in his White House (Steve Bannon). Recently, some of his supporters held a convention where a man at the podium did a Nazi salute and led "Heil Trump" chant alongs with the crowd.

Hate crimes have already gone up a lot. People feel emboldened. Several times I've heard audio of people lashing out at minorities over various incidents and then, even though the disputes has nothing to do with politics or elections, the white person involved just randomly blurts out "I voted for Trump and we won" as if that should self-evidently mean that the racial or religious minority person in the argument no longer has standing. A lot of Trump supporters knew exactly what they were voting for.

Now, I guess, like I said, some were niave. And of course there are always in between cases of people who aren't niave and also aren't really that racist, but who were upset enough at the status quo not to *care* that Trump was running a bigoted campaign, even though they may not have liked that he was. Still, that should be a hard thing to overlook.

You know, I think the biggest area where people legitimately read Trump wrong when voting for him, though, is that working class whites thought he was on their side economically. I do think many of them really believed that he was. Already, though, his appointments suggest that he is going to be very bad for the majority of his lower and middle class voters economically. He is appointing a cabinet that skews heavily in favor of big business interests.

Voters on the right in the US have consistantly have been missing the point of things in the 21st century so far. For example, they got upset at the Great Recession, where government officials deregulated markets to allow large corporations and banks to take advantage of people and do risky things, hurting the lower and niddle classes, and then requiring bailouts so the economy could survive. So, people protest that by... forming the "Tea Party" and pushing for more deregulation and lower taxes on corporations? How does that make sense? It is more of the same that caused the problems in the first place.

Similarly, they've now channeled anger at their economic lot in life and transnational corporations doing things that hirt them (Moving jobs overseas, etc.) Into electing electing a guy who has put forward a former CEO of Exxon-Mobile as his Secretary of State nominee. You know, Exxon-Mobile, the company that was among the first big American companoesnof yesteryear to come out and say that they no longer considered themselves an American corporation.

Truth be told, the economic interests of the average Trump voter would have been far, far better served if they had voted in the Democratic primaries, propelled Bernie Sanders to victory in them, and then voted for Bernie against Trump in the general. Even Clinton would have done better for them than Trump will.

 

[everbecoming2007]

Respectfully, I just don't buy this explaination of the Trump phenomon. People would have to be awfully naive not to understand that Trump was running on a platform of bigotry. Some people could have been that naive, and others are actual white supremecist neo-nazi skinheads. He was endorsed by David Duke, the KKK, and the "alt-right", one of whom be hired as as a top official in his White House (Steve Bannon). Recently, some of his supporters held a convention where a man at the podium did a Nazi salute and led "Heil Trump" chant alongs with the crowd.

Hate crimes have already gone up a lot. People feel emboldened. Several times I've heard audio of people lashing out at minorities over various incidents and then, even though the disputes has nothing to do with politics or elections, the white person involved just randomly blurts out "I voted for Trump and we won" as if that should self-evidently mean that the racial or religious minority person in the argument no longer has standing. A lot of Trump supporters knew exactly what they were voting for.

Now, I guess, like I said, some were niave. And of course there are always in between cases of people who aren't niave and also aren't really that racist, but who were upset enough at the status quo not to *care* that Trump was running a bigoted campaign, even though they may not have liked that he was. Still, that should be a hard thing to overlook.

You know, I think the biggest area where people legitimately read Trump wrong when voting for him, though, is that working class whites thought he was on their side economically. I do think many of them really believed that he was. Already, though, his appointments suggest that he is going to be very bad for the majority of his lower and middle class voters economically. He is appointing a cabinet that skews heavily in favor of big business interests.

Voters on the right in the US have consistantly have been missing the point of things in the 21st century so far. For example, they got upset at the Great Recession, where government officials deregulated markets to allow large corporations and banks to take advantage of people and do risky things, hurting the lower and niddle classes, and then requiring bailouts so the economy could survive. So, people protest that by... forming the "Tea Party" and pushing for more deregulation and lower taxes on corporations? How does that make sense? It is more of the same that caused the problems in the first place.

Similarly, they've now channeled anger at their economic lot in life and transnational corporations doing things that hirt them (Moving jobs overseas, etc.) Into electing electing a guy who has put forward a former CEO of Exxon-Mobile as his Secretary of State nominee. You know, Exxon-Mobile, the company that was among the first big American companoesnof yesteryear to come out and say that they no longer considered themselves an American corporation.

Truth be told, the economic interests of the average Trump voter would have been far, far better served if they had voted in the Democratic primaries, propelled Bernie Sanders to victory in them, and then voted for Bernie against Trump in the general. Even Clinton would have done better for them than Trump will.

I likewise do not think all Trump supporters were racist because I am acquainted with some, but it is clear to me he largely appealed to bigotry and has disrespected some vets including McCain and many other people.

Hate crimes reportedly received a huge surge in my area, though that is less surprising. People of color and other minorities are at increased danger and have been murdered here. Even some members of my parish have used awful racist slurs in church meetings because they were opposed to helping out a black mother.

What frightens me about Trump's platform is that I have personally witnessed racists here and even in my family that are excited about this and I am not just saying this because of their views of immigration which do not necessarily have to involve xenophobia. A lot of these people some of whom I know really are racists and some of them once campaigned for segregation when that was still a huge issue.

 

[everbecoming2007]

For what it is worth and it may mean little at this point as our political landscape shifts, many Republican groups did reject Trump as truly supporting traditional Republican values and policies across the board.

 

[FireDragon76]

Some people who voted Trump were just in denial. There was a lot of Hillary hatred inspiring Trump's vote, too. Democrats couldn't have asked for a more controversial candidate than Hillary.

 

[Fish and Bread]

For what it is worth and it may mean little at this point as our political landscape shifts, many Republican groups did reject Trump as truly supporting traditional Republican values and policies across the board.

I would be interested in what percentage of Republican voters did not vote for Trump. I am not saying that to demonstrate a point (Well, maybe a little ), I seriously would be interested.

The reason for my interest is this: My impression is, like you, that there were significant Republican constituencies that seemed to reject Trump. All three "top" male Bushes openly said they were not voting for him. John Kaisich wouldn't attend the RNC Convention. Ted Cruz attended the convention, declined to endorse Trump and made a passionate defense of declining to do so in the days following the convention, and then endorsed him later. I don't think Mitt Romney endorsed him, although he did later kind of apply to become Secretary of State. In Utah, a third party candidate running as an independent but presenting a traditional Republican approach (Evan McMullin? I apologize if I have the name wrong, it's not intentional or meant to make fun of him in any way.) ran against Trump, Clinton, Johnson, and Stein; and had the backing of some national conservatives, most prominently Bill Kristol, if I recall correctly.

However, except for Utah, where Trump won narrowly instead of overwelmingly, and the fellow who ran as an independent did get a decent share of the votes, mainly because Mormons, love them or hate them, really do believe what they say and apply it to politics and don't sell out- Trump got, I don't know, what, 46% or 47% of the vote? I don't know what the exact percentage is- I know it was almost 3 million fewer votes than Hillary Clinton, and thus he had a lower percentage of the vote than her, but won due to the electoral college (Which is not something I am trying to argue about here- it's just to establish that he got a lot of votes, even though he didn't win the popular vote).

So, the question is, even though prominent Republicans abandoned him, he did get enough votes in the right places to win the electoral college. But Republican and Republican-leaning voters registered as independents or with third partys are at best, discounting the Reagan landslide in 1984, aren't really much more than 50% of the country (And probably significantly less than 50%).

So, the point is, long story short- somehow Trump seems to have a vote total that one would associate with getting, I don't know at the very minimum, 85% or 90% of Republican voters.

Given how prominently certain segments of the party seemed to denounce him, how did that happen? A lot of Republican voters willing to vote for Trump even though they don't love him, because... [Fill in the blank: Like Clinton less, party loyalty, whatever]? Blue collar Democrats breaking ranks? Sweeping up swing voters? My sense is that most Republicans voted for the guy anyway in the end. I'm not saying that to defend him, I'm saying that because in the end, when he does well or does poorly (And I think it's going to be poorly from both an ethical and a how well does our country do standpoint, but we'll see), I think Republican voters put him in the White House, so they can take credit or blame for that, to the extent he is better or worse than Hillary Clinton.

Some people who voted Trump were just in denial. There was a lot of Hillary hatred inspiring Trump's vote, too. Democrats couldn't have asked for a more controversial candidate than Hillary.

I'm kind of baffled at why some people think Hillary Clinton would have been some kind of an extremist. Many of we Democrats wanted a real progressive President, and voted for Bernie Sanders in the primary. He lost, and so I was happy to vote for Hillary Clinton in the general, but as someone who I perceived as the sane qualified choice over a dangerous Donald Trump, not as someone who I felt truly aligned with my left-wing values 100%.

I'll admit, though, when I heard about people sticking "I voted" stickers on Susan B. Anthony's grave, I felt a swell of pride and proud to be a part of what I thought would be a historic election of the nation's first female President. I didn't vote for her because she was a woman, I voted for her because I opposed what Donald Trump represented and was scared at his lack of qualifications, knowledge, and general comportment; but when I saw that, it gave me a bit of an emotional boost, maybe being part of something special. But she definitely wasn't the extremist some Republicans painted her as- she was, for a Democrat, pretty conservative (Making her a centrist overall), which is part of why the Democratic enthusiasm for her wasn't where it could have been.

I think she would have been somewhere between Bush and Obama on economics and foreign policy, maybe a lot like George Bush, Sr. (1989-1993). People often forget that in addition to some leftist policies like trying to get universal health care through early in his term and a small tax rate increase for upper bracket earners, her husband Bill also had a lot of conservative and moderate policies that upset the left-wing of his party- "ending welfare as we know it", declaring that "the era of big government is over", deregulation of businesses and banks, signing a repeal of Glass-Steagle, intervening in Bosnia, etc.. One of his big accomplishments was balancing the budget, which isn't really a liberal or a conservative position- you get people from both parties who support that and others from both parties who don't (Some liberals prefer more spending on social programs for the poor and on infrastructure instead, some Republicans prefer tax cuts for the rich and more spending on military instead. Others from both parties want to balance budgets.).

I feel like there is a wing of the Republican Party or the conservative movement and their press outlets that demonizes any Democratic candidate. In my lifetime, there has never been a Democratic Presidential nominee that the right-wing press hasn't trashed for reasons that mostly baffle me. We rarely nominate people who are truly far to the left. I'd say the last one might have been McGovern in '74, which was before I was born. But if you look at FOX News or something, you'd think they were a bunch of extremists who did all kinds of ridiculous things. Some Republican "grassroots" people thought Obama was the Anti-Christ and that Clinton killed her best friend and ran a pedophile ring- it was totally ridiculous. I don't know how people could believe that stuff or how "news" outlets or websites that put forward those types of conspiracy theories could stay in business.