Twenty years ago President George W. Bush was running for a second term against Sen. John Kerry. The US was a year into our invasion of Iraq. Casualties were high, especially for Iraqi civilians caught in the crossfire between the invaders and the invaded. I remember how I felt about the election as if it were yesterday. I hadn’t been too critical of those who voted for Bush in his first election, but I was incredulous that any informed person of average IQ could vote for him again. The Iraq invasion was, by the time of the 2004 election, obviously a reckless foreign adventure. Bush and his lieutenants sold us a bill of goods to justify it — remember all those WMDs that Saddam was supposed to have? They left out the part about military contractors and Big Oil getting very rich off this new war of opportunity. 

 

So my opinion of the “wisdom” of the US electorate suffered a huge blow when W won his second term. I was disgusted with about 50 percent of the nation’s voters who put Bush back in office despite clear evidence of his malfeasance and venality. I didn’t think it was possible for the US electorate to be so clueless.

 

But, boy oh boy, was I wrong. Here we are, 10 days before the election as I write, and the Trump v. Harris race could go either way, according to all pollsters and almost every commentator. Half of the voters are blind to the stark differences between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. Those same voters seem to ignore the mountain of evidence that proves Trump’s total unworthiness for any public office. How astounding. How very disheartening. Who are these millions of voters who could cast a ballot for a man as despicable as Trump?

 

In my disgust and anxiety, I’ve come up with categories of Trump voters and what I think motivates them. Here they are:

 

• The MAGA flag waver. Since 2015 Trump has wrapped himself in the American flag. He is without peer in proclaiming America’s potential greatness. He is our No. 1 chauvinist. For those who are seduced by rabid chauvinism, he is their catnip. They delight in Lee Greenwood’s God Bless the USA being blasted over the sound systems at his rallies. Trump’s enemies — everyone who understands that true patriotism demands more than flag waving, sloganeering and belting out patriotic songs while wearing a MAGA hat — are socialists, leftists, communists, and fascists. 
• The Racist.  Long before Trump rode down that escalator to denounce immigrants as murderers and rapists, he had established his credentials as a racist. He’d taken out full-page ads to pillory the Central Park Five, who happened to be innocent. He’d cooked up and promoted the phony “birther” attack on Barack Obama. He’d condoned the racist demonstration in Charlottesville. For the subset of US voters who look down on and resent people with brown or black skin, he sent all the right signals. He has proven he is one of them. 

• The Immigrant Hater.  This group is similar to The Racist, but so central to Trump’s dogma that it deserves its own category. Trump’s political persona has been framed around demonizing immigrants. He directs his most virulent denunciation of immigrants toward Latinos, spewing venom that his supporters find intoxicating. They remember when Hillary Clinton dismissed them as “deplorables;” Trump affirms them by saying that the real deplorables are invaders from across the southern border. He repeats ad nauseam every bogus conspiracy theory ever concocted to turn Americans against immigrants. He constantly lies about their numbers and their criminality. For voters looking for someone to blame for their lot in life, Trump provides a scapegoat. Trump’s anti-immigrant hectoring is all they need to pledge their allegiance to him. 

• The Misogynist/Homophobe. Trump’s entire life is a tribute to the type of male we should hope is a vanishing species. His snickering, groping disrespect for women is well documented. It endears him to a certain type of male that pines for the days when groping women and treating them as objects was de rigueur for the manly man. He has locked in the Neanderthal vote with his demonstrable misogyny. But the gender shaming doesn’t end with women. He has also shamed people who are other than cisgender men or women, especially those who are transgender. This endears him to voters who look down on the entire LGBTQ+ community as “the other.” 

• Christian Sheep.  I have written so much about the WECs (white evangelical Christians) that I fear being redundant. But WECs are such a significant part of Trump’s base that they can’t go unmentioned. They blindly follow the dictates of whichever superstar pastor they tune in to. They substitute the gospel of prosperity for the gospel of Jesus, thus excusing Trump’s amorality at the behest of a well-coiffed, snake-oil salesman who calls himself a pastor. I discussed this at length in my July 5 post, The American Difference. You can find it in the archives at www.thequixoticdeacon.com. 

• Amoral Business People. This group includes business people who put amassing personal wealth above all else. I’ve said in the past that it suggests amorality. Here are some examples: 

• The oil executive who, ignoring the warnings of 98 percent of the world’s scientists, keeps drilling for more and more oil as the climate crisis worsens. Trump is his man for sure. 
• The hedge funder or private equity mogul who got a windfall tax cut under Trump 1 and wants another under Trump 2. 
• The billionaire tech mogul who knows cozying up to Trump can enable him to make more billions.
• The private citizen who mindlessly votes for Republicans because he/she thinks it will be good for the stock market.
• And perhaps the most odious: CEOs of large corporations who simply won’t criticize Trump or support Harris because they want to keep their options open in case Trump wins. Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan comes to mind. So does Jeff Bezos whose Washington Post suddenly decided not to endorse a candidate for President this week. 

• The single-issue abortion voter. While I disagree with being a single-issue voter on principle, this election boils down to one thing for some voters — abortion and how to stop it. They will ignore all other issues and questions about Trump’s character. 
• Republican members of Congress and Governors.  They will excuse any offensive and anti-democratic act by Trump in order to be reelected by their base. They are morally bankrupt cowards. You hear me Lindsey?

 

I’m sure I’ve overlooked other categories but I thought it might be cathartic to catalog these eight. Obviously, I’m trying to tamp down my anxiety through analysis/reason. But it’s not working. 

 

I need to get one more thing off my chest. Trump has done literally hundreds of things that should eliminate him from running for any office. But something he and Vance did recently is positively unforgivable. They promoted a lie about Haitian immigrants living in Springfield, Ohio, and continued doing so even after the rumor was debunked. That’s something that moral people should not excuse or pardon. It hurt innocent, peaceful people trying to make a life for themselves. It was evil. And not one Republican elected official said a damn word about it. Unforgivable.

• Top