A typology of Trump supporters

A typology of Trump supporters

Over the past few months I have heard my friends and Harris supporters say “I don’t understand it.  I just don’t get how someone could vote for that man.”  Actually there are a number of reasons why people vote for Donald Trump.

They will make a lot of money.  This is a relatively small but important group that anticipates tax cuts for the top 1%, government contracts, or both.  It includes people like Peter Thiel and Elon Musk.  It also includes crypto-currency investors and certain Wall Street types like hedge fund operators.  Another subgroup is social media company execs who are worried about anti-trust breakups.  Never overlook financial reasons.

They are mad at college graduates.  They think college grads look down on them and make fun of them.  Sometimes when they talk about tariffs providing revenues or “Jewish lasers setting forest fires,” it is hard not to make fun of them.

They are racists.  Not all Trump supporters are racists, but all racists are Trump supporters.  

They are Nazis.  Again, not all Trump supporters are Nazis, but all Nazis are Trump supporters.

They don’t have many friends.  The Trump cult gives them a warm feeling of belonging to a large purpose.  When low-income people spend large sums of money on Trump merch, they are probably in this group.

They fear immigrants.  They believe in the “great replacement” theory, or they don’t like the idea of white people being in the minority.

They get their information from limited sources.  Fox, of course, but also right-wing conspiracy theorists and sites like “Truth Social.”

They have always been Republicans.  Believe it or not, they think that since they registered Republican, or their “family has always voted Republican,” or “the Republican Party is the business party,” that is the way they must vote.  I believe this is the largest single group of Trump voters.  While changing parties might be easy in theory, it is part of many voters’ identities.

They have masculinity problems.  This is the reason that some of the “bros” are attracted to Trump.  They need to feel like real men in a world where they are largely superfluous.

They are religious fanatics who think Trump is on their side.  This would include many anti-abortion people or followers of religions that believe women should be subservient to men, like members of the Taliban or some Christian fundamentalists.  

They are angry at inflation and think Trump’s policies will stop it.  

It takes about a year for people to realize economic conditions have changed.  If they had noted the record payments to stockholders and CEOs, they might blame the business class, but it is easier to blame Biden.

They can’t imagine a woman president.  Especially a Black/Indian woman president.  I believe this isn’t more than 2 or 3%, but elections can be won on 2 or 3%.  

They don’t understand how the government works.  This would include members of the Supreme Court who think a president can have unlimited immunity for official acts and people who think a “temporary dictator” would be a good thing. 

Of course Trump supporters can be in more than one category.  

What I find scary and depressing is that I never thought so many of my friends, neighbors, and even relatives would be willing to roll the dice and support a candidate who has proven deficient in knowledge, empathy, and decency, and who has already done great harm to what I consider to be the best country on earth.  This is what many of us are finding so difficult to accept.

Americans don't know how to behave

No, I’m not writing about the incivility of Trump followers, their obscene signage, the threats they make against election workers, or the cult-like parroting of lies.  I’m writing about Red Lobster.  

In June 2023 Red Lobster, which was still trying to recover from Covid, announced that it was beginning a program called Ultimate Endless Shrimp.  You could have as much shrimp as you wanted for only $20.  

Instead of behaving like normal adults, people launched into amazingly greedy behavior.  They sat at their tables for hours and stuffed themselves.  They boasted on TikTok how many shrimp they ate.  “Hi, I’m Jimmy, and I am planning to eat 65 shrimp tonight.”  They demanded doggie bags to fill with shrimp.  They brought Tupperware containers and hid them on their laps and dumped their plates of shrimp into the containers.  They made selfish pigs of themselves.  Employees, pushed to keep up with the orders and serve the shrimp, began to quit in large numbers.  

In May of this year the Red Lobster chain filed for bankruptcy.  

Some of the information for this post is from David Segal, “Tracing the Downfall Of a Seafood Giant, New York Times, (Sept, 22, 2024), pp. 6-7BU.

Crank letter from Lehighton

I received a crank letter today.  It was hand-addressed and anonymous, but I knew it was a crank letter because the return address was “Your Friends, Lehighton, PA”  I don’t have any friends in Lehighton, PA.

I did, however, learn a great deal from the letter.  For example:

Harris is a Marxist.

She wants to control our food supply.

She will collapse the power grid.

She is part of a movement to reduce the world’s population from 8.3 billion to 500 million.

She wants Medicare for all.

She will impose a tax rate of 70-80%, and finally, 

the media is hiding the truth from us.

I didn’t know any of that.  

Dad jokes for scientists

A proton walks into a bar and asks the bartender for a Coke.  “Are you sure you want a Coke and not a beer?” the bartender asks.  The proton replies, “I’m positive.”

A neutron walks into a bar and asks how much for a drink.  The bartender replies, “For you, no charge.”

The optimist sees the glass as half full.  The pessimist sees the glass as half empty.  The engineer sees the glass as twice as large as it needs to be.  

I recently read a book about anti-gravity and helium.  I couldn’t put it down.

A man walks into a library and asks the librarian if there was a book on the shelf about Pavlov’s dogs and Schrodinger’s cat.  The librarian replies, “The title rings a bell, but I’m not sure it’s there.”

An infectious disease walks into a bar.  The bartender says,” We don’t serve your kind here.”  The disease responds, “Well, you’re not a very good host.”

One more:  What do you get if you divide the circumference of a jack-o-lantern by its diameter?  Pumpkin pi.

I owe a debt to Richard Lederer, “Riddles and Jokes For the Scientifically Inclined,” Funny Times, (June 2022), p. 4. 

Is Social Media a good thing?

Of course I’ll say no.  I’m an old curmudgeon.  What surprised me was the attitude of a much younger cohort.  According to a report in the New York Times on the attitudes of 18- to 27-year-olds, 44% of the women and 31% of the men said social media had a negative impact on their mental health.  

The pollsters had asked 1006 Gen Z adults, ages 18-27about their views on social media.  50% said they wished the social media platform X did not exist; 47% said they wished TikTok did not exist.  

The researchers said that social media use was somewhat like smoking cigarettes.  A majority of smokers say they enjoy smoking, but a majority of smokers also say they wish they had never started.  

See Jonathan Haidt and Will Johnson, “Gen Z Has Regrets.  We Have Receipts,” New York Times, (Sept. 22, 2024), p. SR8.

The "Blue Dot"

All but two states award their electoral college votes on a winner-take-all basis.  To compute the number of electoral college votes a state has, you take the number of Senators (always two) plus the number of representatives.  Since Wyoming has only one representative in the House, it gets three electoral votes.  Two Senators plus one representative.  Pennsylvania has 17 representatives in the House, so it gets 19 electoral college votes.  

If the Pennsylvania results in November are Harris, 49%; Trump, 48%; and the Libertarian candidate, 3%; Harris would get all 19 electoral college votes from Pennsylvania. 

The exceptions are Maine and Nebraska. Maine has two House districts.  The winner of the statewide race would get two electoral college votes and each of the House districts would get one vote.  Since Maine is fairly homogeneous, Maine has never split its electoral college votes.  This fall Maine will be voting for Harris.

Nebraska also splits its votes.  Nebraska has three House districts, one of most of the state, one that represents the southeastern part of the state, and one which represents the Omaha area.  While Nebraska is overwhelmingly “red,” the Omaha district will sometimes elect the Democrat running for President, as it did with Obama and with Biden in 2020.  The district, which is a very tiny piece of Nebraska, is sometimes labeled “the blue dot.”

The Trump people wanted to change that system and go back to “winner take all,” insuring that Trump would get all five electoral college votes.  One state senator, Mike McDonnell, stood in the way.  (Nebraska state legislature has only one house.)  McDonnell said you don’t change the rules with only 43 days to the election. 

McDonnell is a Republican, old school.  He has integrity.  He plays by the rules.  And he has really irritated Donald Trump for doing that. 

Undecided?

I’m always amazed that any voter remains undecided.  New York Times commentator Brent Stephens says he won’t vote for Trump, but he needs to know more about Harris’s economic and foreign policies before he can make a commitment to vote for her.

Here is an answer attributed to David Sedaris for that kind of nonsense.

I think of being on an airplane.  The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat.

“Can I interest you in the chicken?” she asks.  “Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it.?”

To be undecided this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked.

A post on Mark Robinson from Jan. 31, 2023

I have never repeated a previous post, but this was too good to pass up.  Here it is:

Anti-gay, anti-science, anti-semitic, and running for Governor of North Carolina

An old dairy farmer once said, “The hardest thing about milking cows is that they never stay milked. “  We defeat Mastriano in Pennsylvania and Walker in Georgia.  And then we have to go back to the barn, because we have to do it all over again.

Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson will probably run for Governor of North Carolina.  Robinson is Republican and black.

According to a recent article Robinson believes that the United States is a “Christian nation,” abortion is murder, and climate change is “junk science.”  He has referred to homosexuality as “filth” and to the transgender rights movement as “demonic.” 

He said on Facebook that the movie “Black Panther” was created by “an agnostic Jew and put to film by satanic marxist.” [sic]

And he could win.

That was before we learned about his penchant for transgender porn.  That was also before last March when Donald Trump called Robinson “Martin Luther King on steroids.”  Robinson sounds like a Trump kind of guy.

The death of the dairy farm

Greene County, Tennessee, once had over 1000 dairy farms.  Six years ago it had 40.  It now has 14.  In all of Tennessee there are about 125 dairy farms.  

Today 60% of all milk production comes from farms with more than 2500 cows.  A dairy farm with 2500 farms is not a farm, it is an industrial behemoth.  I never lived on a diary farm; we only had two cows and used most of the milk ourselves.  The cows produced manure which we spread on the fields.  There once were other dairy farms in Towamensing Township that specialized in dairy cows, but I know that none had more than 40 cows.  

With mechanical milkers and a few large fields, a farmer, the kids, and maybe a hired hand can keep the herd and do the milking.  When you have 2500 cows the manure will end up in a lagoon.  You will hire people to take care of the milking.  They will probably speak Spanish.  (70% of agricultural workers in the U.S. are Spanish-speaking.)  Equipment will be costly.  Processes will be computerized.  You may mix antibiotics in with the feed.

I suppose I sound like a home spinner during the Industrial Revolution after the spinning jenny was invented and thread began to be made in factories.  So be it.  I think we are losing something precious, and I don’t like it.  I might even throw in a “dagnabbit” here. 

Some of the info for this post came from Elizabeth Eckelkamp, “America’s Dairy Farms Are Disappearing, Down 95% Since the 1970s,”  Lancaster Farming, (Sept. 21, 2024, p A8.

Teaching a pig to dance

I know the rules.  I wrote the instructions for our volunteers at the Democratic booth at the County Fair.  Don’t argue with Trumpists.  Don’t try to convince them.  Just smile and say nothing until they get frustrated and walk away.  Arguing with Trumpists is like trying to teach a pig to dance.  It annoys the pig and wastes your time.

So, when we were registering voters in Lehighton and this guy comes in and I ask him if he is registered and he says, “Yes, Republican,” and then goes into a screed about how terrible Harris is and how she will wreck the country and how she lost the debate, I say nothing.  

But then when he starts in about gays, and how Harris will support them, and how they will go to hell because it says so in the Bible, I snap.  I tell him he is ridiculous and make a few other remarks.  He leaves after explaining that I will also end up in hell.  

Then a minute later he comes back.  I did some deep breathing and was calm.  He then told me he was a Christian, and he would pray for me.  Now I followed the instructions.  I just smiled and said nothing.   

The Teamsters

I was once was a proud member of the Teamsters Union.  I worked as a warehouseman in Oakland, paid my dues for years, and was proud to be a Teamster.  I did have some differences with the union, though.  My co-worker Bart and I went to a meeting in Oakland about 1971 to ask our local to endorse an anti-war march in San Francisco.  We did not succeed, and our presentation was accompanied by shouts of “Peace of What?” and “Sit down, you damn hippies.”  Bart and I marched anyway; we made a banner that said “Teamsters against the war.”

When I finally left my warehouse job (I qualified for a pension and was paid well for a blue collar job), I took an honorable withdrawal from the union.  

Now I’m not so proud of my Teamster membership.  If the union can’t decide between Kamala Harris and the union-busting strike-breaking billionaire suck up Donald Trump, screw them.  I’m burning my “withdrawal card.”

Violence on the campaign trail

Trump and Vance are blaming Kamala Harris and Joe Biden for the recent attempts on Trump’s life.  For years Trump has been preaching violence against immigrants, the press, demonstrators, and his opponents.  If you want to know who to blame for threats of violence, consider this.

I have been distributing Harris signs around Carbon County.  Over 100 people have taken signs for their front yards or windows.  However, five people so far have turned down the offer of signs, even though they are strong supporters of Harris and Walz.  The reason:  They are afraid of being fire bombed, shot at, or harassed in other ways.  

I doubt if any Trump supporters in Carbon County have been afraid to take Trump signs because they worry that Harris supporters will attack them.  We don’t do that.  We don’t ride around in motorcycle gangs, threaten Trump supporters, or generally act like butt holes.  I think we all know where the talk of violence and retribution originates.

Eagles lose their tail feathers

As Linda said, “the defense is porous.”  While it was exciting to see Jalen Hurts on some long runs, Hurts should not NEED to do long runs.  He should be able to stay in the pocket and pass or hand off the ball to someone besides Barkley.  All those missed opportunities.  The “tush push” is fun, but it happens because the Eagles always seem just short of a first down.  

I am definitely not a happy camper tonight.  

I did get orders from seven more people for Harris yard signs, so the day wasn’t a complete bust. 

General Custer and Trump

My friend John from Santa Cruz recently sent me a note that I thought worth repeating.  Here’s what he wrote:

Why hasn’t anybody compared Trump with Custer?

George was a popular hero too, made famous by the media after a couple of charges in the Civil War.  He had a cult following continually fueled by the media; he was a narcissist he was demoted and sent out to pasture at least once; and he regularly ignored orders and advice, and he nurtured funny hair.

And finally, he ignored his “experts,” some of whom were Indians who had fought the 5,000 plus Sioux, Cheyenne and others in the camp Custer was eager to attack.

His Crow scouts told him,”don’t go down there.  There’s a whole shitload of Indians.”  Did he listen?  He went down there.  

Not a perfect parallel but amusing enough to mull.

Is crypto-currency a scam?

It is.  If you have had any doubts, this should convince you.  Trump’s sons Eric and Don Jr. are starting a crypto company.  Trump himself is very friendly to the crypto community ever since he started to rake in large contributions.  This is a system which puts a huge drain on the electrical grid and serves basically one purpose–to facilitate criminal activity.  Of course the Trump family would be involved.