Thursday, December 8, 2016

The sordid truth about Trump supporters



I was lounging in a fast food restaurant nursing slowly a comestible from the “value” menu when a tall, lean, mean-looking white man entered the place and started a conversation with another white man while waiting in the service line. He started rambling on in an excitable manner, like he was off his medication. He was talking about how “Obama” had “given away” jobs to Mexico, and claimed to have himself been forced to “train” his own “replacement”—something that I remembered reading that someone said on a major news outlet’s website, although naturally out of context. He went on to say that he proudly voted for Donald Trump, and seeing the people working behind the counter, he admitted that what he was saying would not be very “popular” here.

Sitting there listening to this I was right on the edge, but when he confessed that he thought it was a “smart” thing Trump was not threatening China with “retaliation” because it might cause a “war,” that was just too much hypocrisy for my blood not to reach the boiling point. I called over to him that this statement proved that he was just an ignorant, racist bully and coward. There was a brief respite in the rhetoric, followed by some incoherent mumbling. 

After the man picked up his order he approached me and threatened physical violence if I called him a coward again; he was no “coward,” him taking on someone half his size. While I didn’t really want to invite violence on my person, I know that bullies who pick on people smaller than they are do tend to be cowards when it comes to facing their own failures as human beings. I retorted “Well, you are a coward, aren’t you?” This of course had the effect of forcing him to “think” for a few seconds, which proved an impossible challenge. He “invited” me outside to “discuss” the matter further, which of course I did not take him up on. He did however accuse me of not “paying taxes” which is typical right-wing  propaganda; I told him he was just being ignorant again, since the principle tax in the state of Washington is the 10 percent sales tax (there is no state income tax), and besides being a regressive tax (those making $20,000 a year pay a far higher percentage of their income in state taxes than, say, the $2 million a year set), no one is immune from paying it. 

Of course the truth goes way over the head of bigots like this. The man was really rattled (off his medication?), and I could tell that he just wanted an excuse to beat-up one of the “others” like we’ve seen Trump supporters do at his various campaign rallies. He again suggested we go outside, and having enough of him I told him to just get the hell out, you Nazi, which kind of unnerved him. I called him a Nazi again and he walked out of the place, balling his fist at me. This is your typical Trump supporter. This is kind of person that Trump wants to “serve.” This is the kind of person Trump claims is “all Americans” regardless of race, color or creed. He is full of cow-pie.

The difference between holding a “conversation” with “liberals” and those on the right is that former try to convince you that they are right and you are wrong, and the latter just want to beat-up people they disagree with and call them stupid names. You want further evidence of the kind of people respond to Trump’s “brand”? Trump—after lying about the exact nature of and the jobs that supposedly would be lost in the “deal” he made with Carrier—tweeted a comment critical of its union leader Chuck Jones. Jones claims that since then he was received numerous anonymous phone calls from people threatening him and his property, which he chose to brush off. But the president of the Indiana AFL-CIO, Brett Voorhies pointed out that Jones receives extremely modest compensation for the hard work he does, and “What he has to put up with is just crazy. Now he’s just got the president-elect smearing him on Twitter.”

Let’s just set the record straight. The Trump bullies only want to beat up on the “easy” targets—immigrants, people who are not “real” Americans in their eyes, and anyone they see as not supporting their hate, mainly of an “ethnic” and racial nature. They don’t see that the real “enemies” are corporate executives who only want to insure their own pocket books, and “easy money” raiders like Trump who have never worked an honest day in their life. They want runaway deregulation so that they can scam the rest of us. Trump is the guy who explained away the 2007-2008 recession as being an “act of God” rather than the result of massive deregulation and the resulting irresponsible behavior of corporations and financial institutions.

That is why when I called the man a “Nazi” it actually “worked.” These people don’t care about facts or the truth. They hate, and that is the fact that they don’t want to face, or for you to know.

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