You all know her. Or him. That person who blames everyone else for the things that have gone wrong with her (or his) life. The missed career opportunities. The troubled relationship. The failure to achieve whatever their goal might be, or even just have a stable family life, or pay the bills on time. It’s all someone else’s fault, or the fault of some sort of “ism” — even though any outsider can see the poor decision-making that landed her where she is, and can see that she never was particularly destined for greatness in the first place. And you watch this resentment, and the conviction that life, and others, have treated her unfairly, compound matters, and lead to even more poor decision-making, and more resentment.
The individual in question isn’t mentally ill. And isn’t stupid, and may in fact be highly educated. But the resentment blinds her to the reality of her life, and leads to one poor decision after the next.
And Donald Trump is tapping into that resentment on a national scale.
Now, there are people who genuinely believe that Trump is the man for them, who are inspired by his proclamations and who genuinely believe him when he says, “vote for me and America will start winning again.” I have a hard time imagining how someone could find that believable, how someone could believe that all it takes is for Trump to simply will the jobs to return to the U.S. and he can make it so, how someone could believe that it’s that simple. But, then again, there are Sanders voters who truly believe that he can will single-payer healthcare, free college, and more, into existence. (And, yes, I know I have Sanders fans among my readers — but surely even you will admit that there’s a segment of the Sanders population that is fantastically starry-eyed about what he can do, no?) So it would seem that a certain share of the population is simply just not particularly smart about politics and public policy, however credentialed they may be or however smart they may be about other things.
But surely even they see how vulgar Trump is, how many times he’s crossed the line? Presumably they just believe that’s just a part of politics, in the same way as others shrug off corruption, with “they all do it.” And perhaps they simply don’t pay enough attention to politics to know that, no, that’s not “what they all do.” Or perhaps they pay so little attention that they don’t even really know what he’s said and done, and write off what little they do hear as not credible.
But you can’t make such excuses for everyone. You can’t just attribute Trump’s success solely due to an ignorant electorate. And there are plenty of people supporting Trump who simply ought to know better. But their resentment, their anger, at slights by The Establishment, is blinding them, leading them towards really bad decisions, more about their perceived injustices than anything rational. It’s appalling to watch this in action on such a large scale, but how else do you explain Trump’s support among all manner of people who ought to know better?
And there’s a third category — the Chris Christies, who simply are so crassly political they think they can find some gain for themselves, and don’t care about the cost.
That being said, how do you “convert” a Trump supporter?
Just a few post-Super Tuesday thoughts. And, by the way, yes, looking at the Real Clear Politics returns this morning, it’s encouraging that it wasn’t a complete blow out in favor of Trump. But what the heck is going on in Massachusetts?
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In