Why Working People Support Trump
In 2016 I went to vote in the Stokes County North Carolina primary election and got to talking to the man in front of me in line, He said that since he was a Republican, he was voting for Donald Trump in the primary, but that he liked Bernie Sanders equally, and that if both Sanders and Trump made it to the general election, he’d have a tough decision deciding between them.
Which shocked me at the time, since they were just about as opposite as could be on their policies.
The guy explained that for years both Republicans and Democrats had promised to help working people like him, but then simply danced to the tune of their rich donors once in office. He mentioned all the money from Wall Street Clinton was taking — and how Obama had bailed out the big banks that caused the financial collapse, and then put the same bankers back in charge afterward. Sanders had been one of the few who spoke out against getting rid of those depression-era bank regulations, against NAFTA, the growing wealth gap, and was on the side of working people because he wasn’t taking all those campaign bribes.
I told him I agreed with much of what he was saying, and that’s why I was voting for Sanders in the primary, but I pointed out that Trump was taking campaign donations from all sorts of corporations and wealthy special interests groups.
“Trump is so rich, he can’t be bought like all the rest of those politicians,” the guy said. “Him and Sanders are the only ones I trust. They’re on our side. The rest are just in it for themselves and will do and say anything that gets them elected, and then do whatever their wealthy donors say once they’re in power.”
This is why, when Clinton and Trump became the nominees in 2016, I had agreed with Michael Moore about Trump having a good chance of winning. The excitement for Trump in our rural area of North Carolina was like nothing I’d ever seen, so I expected them to turn out to vote in huge numbers. When I admitted that I thought Trump would win despite the polls, most of my friends thought I was delusional. Some called me a “Bernie Bro” even though I was fully supporting Clinton once Sanders was out of the race.
I had the same sinking feeling this year when Susan and I stayed at the National Arts Club for ten days just before the election to see Kathy Anderson’s brilliant show there. Kathy would sometimes introduce me to people as her crazy friend that thought Trump was going to beat Harris. People were indulgent and explained why I was definitely wrong. I said I hoped I was wrong, but was becoming more and more depressed, especially when I learned that one of my good artist friends seemed to have switched to support Trump.
I went to bed at eight o’clock on election night because I expected Trump to win. I woke up the next morning hoping to see that I had been wrong, but wasn’t surprised. I was even more depressed.
Biden had become far more progressive in his term as president. It’s why Sanders, Warren, and AOC all supported him for his second term run. The thing is, a lot of working class people still feel that Biden and all the rest are bought-and-paid-for by the millions of dollars they accept in campaign bribes from these special interests. They suspect that when things go bad, they’ll give in to those rich donors over working class people, just as so many have done in the past.
The majority of Trump’s followers are good people who are victims of our corrupted system on both sides of the aisle that has left so many lower and middle-class people desperate and vulnerable to this con-man and his lies.
If one truly believes Trump’s lie that Biden stole the 2020 election though fraud, that would represent an illegal overthrow of the government. This is why so many of Trump’s followers stormed the capitol and attempted to overthrow the election and execute his plan to substitute fake electors and declare Trump the victor in the 2020 election. They honestly believed they were doing a heroic act because they believed Trump’s lie. Police officers were beaten and traumatized. People died because of this lie. Many of Trump’s followers are in jail because they trusted him.
Of that smaller percentage of Trump voters who don’t believe his election lie, some are voting for purely economic reasons, believing he is going to improve the economy, lower the national debt, streamline government, lower their taxes, bring back jobs that have gone overseas, etc… Some support his plan to deport tens of millions of illegal immigrants and to fix our broken boarder that both parties have failed to fix for decades for many competing economic and social reasons.
The boarder and immigration are real issues, and Trump knows the fear it creates is his best chance for gaining and maintaining power, which is why he tanked the bi-partisan boarder bill earlier this year lest he lose his biggest issue to run on. It’s why he repeatedly lies about the amount of violent crimes immigrants commit (actually less than native-born citizens). Yes, we need to deal with this issue, but not by mass deportations that will destroy our economy and cause unbelievable suffering.
The democrats are not saints either, and our system of allowing corporations and all sorts of wealthy special interests fund political campaigns is insane and has infected both parties. It’s why I feel hope when a few people have actually been elected after refusing to take such legal bribes (Sanders, Warren, AOC, etc.). A large majority of voters agree that this is insane, and I wish there was a national movement by voters to say that they will not vote for any politician of any party that accepts contributions from special interests or the supper rich. (Most in congress don’t even get the majority of their campaign funding from within the districts or states they represent!)
Bill Clinton signed the NAFTA agreement George Bush had negotiated despite Bernie Sanders’ objection that it would undermine American manufacturing by forcing workers to compete with low wage workers in third world nations where Unions were illegal, there were few environmental regulations, and Corporations could avoid paying taxes.
But it passed with support of both republicans and democrats. Why? Because democrats had started funding their campaigns with the help of corporations and Wall Street after Reagan’s landslide victory. The democrats, once the champions of the worker and middle class, felt they couldn’t compete in this new environment of massive campaign war chests funded by corporations and the mega-rich. So, these “neo-liberals” put out the word that they were open for bribes from business as well.
Which is also why Clinton signed the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act and the many other loosening of regulations put in place after the Great Depression to protect people from a repeat of the banking collapse and wild speculation schemes. Who was pushing these politicians to dump these regulations that protected the consumers and the entire system for so long? Those same investment bankers on Wall Street pouring money into political campaigns and even going into government themselves in a revolving door of corruption — and leading to the 2008 financial collapse and the bailing out of the wealthy bankers (who risked nothing by gambled with working people’s money) while those who lost their houses and savings were left out of the bailout.
And who did Obama put in charge afterward to reform the corrupted system? Elizabeth Warren had, like Sanders, warned of what was happening and explaining how it could be fixed, so many felt she was an obvious choice. Instead, Obama chose to put the very bankers who had caused the collapse to take over and monitor themselves. (To my great disappointment, since I’d taken two weeks off to campaign door-to door to help elect Obama.)
So, yes, both parties have been corrupted, but the corruption and lies of Trump is of a level we haven’t seen before in this nation. Never before has a loser in a presidential election attempted a coup. Or lied and scapegoated and broken laws with impunity.
So, while Trump IS garbage in every way imaginable, the majority of his followers are good people who are victims of him and our corrupted system on both sides of the aisle that has left so many lower and middle-class people desperate and vulnerable to this con-man demagog.
And if democrats and republicans keep nominating only those who raise the most money from corporations, oil companies, insurance companies, and billionaires, people are going to turn to outsiders they think they can trust. This is the biggest reason why so many voted for Trump. They think, mistakenly, that he’s on their side.
The truth is, that Trump is not on the side of average American’s. His core agenda is for himself and his Billionaire Class. As seen by his tax cuts that mostly went to the wealthy and has ballooned our nations deficit and is sending us toward an eventual crisis if we don’t change course. Now that he’s been elected again, he’s proposing even more tax cuts for the wealthy.
In fact, Trump’s economic policies are eerily similar to those preceding the Great Depression in the 1930s — high tariffs, the rich paying little tax, and wealth concentrating at the top in a wealth-gap so large that it collapsed the economy. All the reforms FDR put into place that restored balance, sane regulations, social security, banking stability, and all the rest, would likely never have occurred without the crisis brought about by the greed of those Robber Barons.
It’s hard not to see the parallels occurring now with Trump and Musk following a similar playbook. Even the term “America First” was born around that time and eventually forgotten once the dangers of isolationism became clear with the rise of Hitler and the need for world-wide cooperation to maintain their freedom. The post-WWII system of stable international boarders is now at risk with Trump preparing to give Putin the green light to swallow Ukraine.
Not to mention Trump turning back the clock on environmental regulations, of public health-care, and all the rest of the gains made in past century.
This general distrust in money-tainted politicians is why so many are turning to state ballot measures to accomplish what they know national politicians won’t do because too many of their number are bought and paid for by various special interests that don’t align with the majority of voter’s interests.
Yes, false propaganda is a big part of it, but people would not have accepted all of Trump’s lies if they thought they had an alternative for change. Lies are the most powerful when people are desperate. So, even as Trump gives big tax cuts to the rich and corporations, many suffering working class people see him as their only hope.
I don’t know how to fix this massive trust loss now that it’s taken hold. How can one expect people who were elected by this corrupt system to reform it?
Maybe Trump’s election — with control of the Senate and Congress — is the disaster that will be necessary to wake voters up to demand real change. To refuse to vote for any politician attempting to purchase power. To elect people who actually owe their allegiance to people rather than corporations (who are NOT people, despite what the Supreme Court says!). Maybe then we can elect a whole lot of people on both sides of the aisle who are free of the insidious selection bias that has for so long distorted our democracy into a plutocracy.
I only hope it’s not too late.
My novels can be found lurking on Amazon as well as audiobooks on Audible.
Nihala — God’s Dark Algorithm
https://www.amazon.com/Nihala-1-Scott-Burdick/dp/0996555412
https://www.audible.com/pd/Nihala-Audiobook/B01AIM6D00
The Immortality Contract
https://www.amazon.com/Immortality-Contract-Scott-Burdick/dp/0996555420
https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Immortality-Contract-Audiobook/B075KLGV6B
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