McLarenblog

I received the following e-mail message from an Indivisible activist:

“I’ve moved from despair over not being able to get the goods on Trump to despair over the Republicans and people who don’t want him impeached in the face of ALL the IRREFUTABLE evidence of multiple illegal and impeachable offenses we now have. Sometimes I just get angry and say to myself that THEY don’t deserve Democracy, but of course they take us all down with them!”

My reply follows with some edits:

What you outlined has bothered me a lot also. I am trying to research why about 30 to 40 percent of the electorate support Trump. I do not think there is a single reason. I do think this is rather complicated matter for us to understand. Here are just some of the possible reasons I am trying to put together. They all boil down to prejudice and ignorance. Remember that individuals are naturally self serving.

A significant number of people have given up with this form of government and thus no longer vote. This just might be a partial reason why Trump became popular because he is not the establishment and obviously was going to shake things up. Some citizens do not like this form of government!

White supremacy is an obvious factor probably coming from ego needs and fears of the lesser class taking my job away.

Family influence can be a strong factor where the parents are conservative and instill that viewpoint into their children.

Racism, especially in the former slave states is very powerful. (i.e. red states vote Republican)

Advancement of corporate and rich class interests work against what is best for the nation some times. A prime example is the United States withdraw from Paris Accord for controlling global warming. The oil and gas industries support Trump.

Some religions are against abortion, mixed marriage, and just love the concept of placing Trump into the throne of the chosen one.

Catholics also seem to mildly embrace singular powerful men as rulers. This explains, a bit, why Latin American countries are mainly dictatorships.  And, President Donald Trump is definitely a pending dictator.

Poor education at grade school level is apparent in the United States. Approximately 32 million adults in the United States can’t read, according to the U.S. Department of Education and the National Institute of Literacy. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development found that 50 percent of U.S. adults can’t read a book written at an eighth-grade level.

It is increasingly harder to pay for education beyond high school. For some reason, students who enter junior college fail to enter a four year college and graduate. While about 80 percent of entering community college students indicate they want to earn a bachelor’s degree or higher, only 29 percent of community college students who started in fall 2011 actually transferred to a four-year institution within six years.

Communities that are rural can be backward. Just look at the past elections in England where Brexit was voted for in rural but city dwellers voted no. Look at Turkey where Recep Tayyip Erdogan has support in the rural areas but not in the cities. Cities push people with different backgrounds, different educations, different ethnicity, different views together way more than rural areas. Also, rural typically is singular economic enterprises where cities have way more businesses that throw people together.

There are social media platforms that wish to propagandize. Fox “News”, Wall Street Journal, YouTube. A major new study of social media sharing patterns shows that political polarization is more common among conservatives than liberals.

I think there are more factors but these come to mind right now. I am pessimistic too for the reason that facts fail to matter that much to a lot of people.

Take care,
Do not despair. We have a difficult job to do to save this Democracy.

 

Posted December 16, 2019
Updated December 17, 2019