How did Trump win?

This post is for all of the people who voted for Hillary Clinton, and don’t understand how this could have happened. Who now think the country is populated by racists and misogynists. How could “the Deplorables” have won? 

So, how did Trump win? To answer this question, it’s important to understand that there is a difference between people living on the coasts and large cities, and everyone else. If you look at a map of this, or any of the recent presidential elections with county by county voting, you will see a staggering illustration. The heart of America, Fly Over Country, ‘murica, Deplorables is largely conservative. Even in states like California, Oregon and Washington you can see that outside of the cities, people are conservative.

On the coasts there are population centers; 80% of the population lives within 65 miles of the coast. So take the 20% of the population that lives inland and you have people who by and large, work for a living. They are not uneducated or ignorant, and what they lack in a college degree, they make up for in common sense. They get up early, get the kids to school, drive to work or get on the tractor, and at the end of the day, come back together. Their towns are small, so they’re more likely to know their neighbors, work with them, bring them a casserole when their spouse is sick, bring their dog back to them, and go to church with them. Their values are defined by how they live their life; work hard, raise a family, go to church, go camping for vacation, look out for your neighbors. These are old values, the ones that defined societies before the industrial age and growth of cities. These are the values described in the Bible, Declaration of Independence and Constitution. These are things that you talk to your neighbor about when you’re getting the mail. These are values based on self-evident truths, as our Founders pointed out. And that’s where I believe liberals have a difficult time. Trump/conservative voters' way of thinking based on the how things are, not on the way we wish them to be.

As an example, God (or nature or …) created animals and plants with male and female parts. (Don’t get caught up in the fact that some frogs can change sex, this self-evident truth is valid over 99% of the time.) Male and female exist for the purpose of procreation. Therefore, the natural relationship of things is between a male and female. Period. No social pressures argument. No traditional society argument. No patriarchal dominance argument. Simple. Occam’s Razor – in the presence of multiple, competing theories or explanations, the simplest one is preferred and usually correct. There is no “gays are bad” or “God hates fags” or other pabulum. Just basic logic founded on a self-evident truth. The negativity in this comes from elsewhere, in this case a lot of press has focused on Christian fringe groups. As an ordained Orthodox Priest, I can tell you that “God hates fags” is as much a Christian approach as saying that someone who is against abortion is for rape.

Another example pertains to debt. The total debt owed by all US government agencies is about $20 trillion. That’s unsecured debt, analogous to credit cards, lines of credit, and student loans, as opposed to car loans or mortgages. Total GDP is about $17 trillion. So if we knock off some zeros, it would be like owing $200,000 on credit cards when you earn $170,000, or if we divide by two for a more realistic number, it would be the same as you owing $100,000 on credit cards, while your take home pay is only $85,000. That’s an irresponsible number for anyone’s budget, the government just has bigger numbers. But it’s still irresponsible. What would you do if you owed this kind of debt? You’d cut expenses, put yourself on a strict spending plan, and pay off the credit cards. Extend that to government programs and you have the conservative, not living near the coast approach. In a word smaller government; the spending is unsustainable, so cuts have to be made.

The last thing to understand about Conservatives, is that we are mostly about honesty and truth. The country was founded on principles. We still adhere to those, oftentimes literally and they are enunciated in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution. Freedom of speech is freedom to speak your mind, not withholding your opinion or certain words because someone might be offended. Children in school get offended by mean words, not adults. When questions are consistently raised about lying and criminal activities, like Hillary’s emails, mishandling of classified information, Pay for Play with the Clinton Foundation, and caucus manipulation, we wonder about her integrity. Maybe it’s nothing, maybe it’s something. But we know a lot of people in government have issues with integrity and it’s nagged the Clintons for decades. So even if some of it were true, we have an issue with her honesty and truth.

So when you wonder how Trump could have won, the answer is that as more and more people become unemployed, see inflation eat up our income, and opportunities flicker and die, those who live on the coasts start to question their assumptions. And some start to think. And when they think, and try to understand why the old rules are not working, they often start to see lies and deceit.

As I read heartfelt, agonized posts and texts this morning over the results, I started asking myself why there is such an emotional, visceral response. I do not pretend to understand or fully appreciate the depth of these emotions, but they are real. So why? What is different about the liberal/Bernie/Hillary/progressive perception that leads to so much pain? I have a couple of thoughts. First, words matter. Politicians and activists throughout history have turned words on their head so they no longer have their intended, traditional meaning. History gives us the “German Democratic Republic” and “Peoples Republic of China,” both terribly oppressive, communist countries that by their actions were neither democratic nor caring for their people.

To pick a particularly inflammatory word, but one that illustrates the misuse of words consider homophobia. I did a quick search on Google, and came up with the following:

Arachnophobia (noun) – extreme or irrational fear of spiders

Agoraphobia (noun) – extreme or irrational fear of crowded spaces or enclosed public places

Claustrophobia (noun) – extreme or irrational fear of confined places

Homophobia (noun) – dislike or prejudice against homosexual people

In our English language, nnn-phobia is an “extreme or irrational fear of” something, not a dislike or prejudice. So homophobia, by normal usage would be defined as “extreme or irrational fear of homosexual people.” But it is not used that way. It is used to describe someone who is “against” homosexuality, but it is an emotionally charged usage. How do we feel about someone who is agoraphobic? We judge this as an irrational person who has a mental health issue. Referring back to the example of gay marriage, people of this opinion do not have an extreme and irrational fear of homosexual people. But the word is used pejoratively as an accusatory bludgeon.

This leads to the second observation, again my perception based on violence against Trump supporters, many people in protests and the media commenting on current events, and posts on social media. A political strategy of alienation, discourages any reasonable discourse. That is, anyone who disagrees with an opposing opinion is labeled or viewed as being the extreme, irrational opposite.  A post from a Clinton supporter stated, “America, you are so much more racist and misogynistic than I ever imagined,” in effect saying that the half of the country that disagreed with this person’s preference for president are racists and misogynists.  Clinton’s deplorables. Her quote is actually, (my highlights)

You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic -- you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people -- now 11 million. He tweets and retweets their offensive hateful mean-spirited rhetoric. Now, some of those folks -- they are irredeemable, but thankfully they are not America."

An article linked in social media made the case that many people are not only misogynists, but actually hate and oppress women based on Hillary’s defeats in 2008, 2012, and now. Is this a reasonable conclusion? Is it possible that her politics and lingering questions of illegal activities made people prefer someone else as opposed to them hating or despising women? Coming from the conservative side, this would be akin to me “concluding” that people who support non-traditional sexual relationships are pedophiles.

So to the question, How did Trump Win? Enough people thought that his ideas of restricting immigration, reducing unemployment, and addressing corruption and undue influence were a better option than someone with questions of integrity who had ideas contrary to their reasoned conclusions. And someone whose supporters, painted them as horrible people.

Trump’s supporters did not vote for him because they hate women, they did not vote for him because they hate people of color, did not vote for him because they hate gays, and did not vote for him because they hate Muslims. The fact that she was female had no bearing. They realize that unenforced immigration laws have a financial and social cost. They prefer traditional families and don’t like being labeled as a bad, mean-spirited, evil person because of those values. And they realize that most terror attacks are committed by people from countries that say they hate us, so it makes sense to ensure we’re not welcoming those who might do us harm until they’re vetted, seeing what is happening in Europe.

What they did not take into account was anyone’s feelings, possibly offensive language, the reason people sneak into the country, or a consideration that everyone has the right to behave as they please and not have anyone challenge them. 

They took into account Trumps deplorable language towards women and loud, brash demeanor. Understood that building a wall allows us to make sure people coming into the country do so legally, just as our grandparents did. Listened to what he actually said, versus what was often reported on issues.  They realized that he made and lost and made and lost and made a lot of money. And on the balance, agreed with much of what he said, detracted the negatives. They compared it to what Hillary offered and didn't offer and drew a conclusion that they are better off with him as president. They understand that words have meanings, their traditional values are important, honesty is essential, and they don’t like being called names.

So I understand, although admittedly cannot completely empathize, with your unhappiness. But please understand that those who voted for Trump are not women hating, racist, Islamaphobes. They are people with traditional values, who believe in the kind of America the Founding Fathers gave birth to.