After hearing Iowans talk about Trump to an NPR reporter I wondered, once again, why people support him. I am not going to straw man his supporters and say that it is because they are all stupid or racist. Rather, I want to consider reasons why people back Trump.
To start with the easiest and most obvious, there are people who largely agree with his actions and policies and like him—their support is no mystery. Given that they agree with his actions and polices, it is rational that they support him—though some might argue that supporting some of his actions and policies is problematic.
There are some supporters who express dismay about some of what he says, usually in his intemperate rage tweets. This seems to imply that if their only expressed criticism is about such things as his word choices, they largely agree with his policies and actions. This is certainly rational—if the only dispute they have is that he sometimes gets salty or a bit rough, then these are hardly reasons to abandon him when one is in favor of the substantial things he does.
Some supporters do express concern about some of his policies and actions; this is what the “moderate” Republicans sometimes do in feeble and futile ways. For example, they might agree that the Ukraine incident was bad, but they still back him. In most cases, their motivations seem to be pragmatic: they get something from Trump or would pay a high price for not supporting him. For example, a Republican politician might get taken out in a primary if they earned Trump’s ire for daring to offer criticism or opposition. As another example, a wealthy person might loath Trump and dislike many of his policies and actions, yet really like the tax breaks and de-regulation that increase their wealth. This involves setting aside certain values for others, but this can also be quite rational. We all must make such judgments and it need not be foolish or wrong to select one value over another. This notion leads nicely to the next part of the discussion, how Trump supporters try to persuade others to support him.
When I and others are critical of Trump, his supporters who are willing to engage us in discussion will generally make the argument that Trump should be supported (or at least not loathed) because of the economy. For example, one might make the assertion that because the stock market is doing well, my retirement investments are doing well and because Trump is responsible for this, I should support him. Or at least stop attacking him. His supporters also respond to those who are critical of the racist policies under Trump by contending that African Americans ought to support Trump (or at least shut up) because their employment is said to be at an all time high. They are obviously making use of the basic principle most eloquently put by James Carville’s “the economy, stupid.” While Carville originally presented this as a talking focus for Clinton campaigners, it has become a general claim that what matters the most is the economy.
From a factual standpoint (that is, what has the strongest causal influence), this claim does have merit: people often claim to be most influenced in their voting by economic concerns and a president’s approval rating tends to be influenced by the economy. The first George Bush is often taken as an example of this: his approval rating was sky high after the victory in the first Gulf War; but crashed in correlation with the recession.
But what matters most can also be interpreted in terms of values: not simply what happens to have the most causal impact but on what should be regarded as most important, independent of its impact on voting and approval. When Trump supporters make claims about the economy being great and contend that these claims show that others should support Trump (or at least not attack him) they are not reporting on how people do or will act. Rather, their argument is that Trump should be supported because of the claimed economic success occurring during his administration.
From a factual standpoint, there are obvious problems with the premise of this argument. First, while the economy is relatively good, it is not as good as Trump claims in his lies. But is comparable to the economy under Obama—so not bad. Second, the economy is mostly good for the wealthy and not so good for everyone else. This is also comparable to the economy under Obama. Third, the influence of the president on the economy is often exaggerated. In good times, supporters of the president give him the credit, in bad time his opponents assign him the blame. As such, an honest version of the argument would be that the economy is about as good (and bad) as it was under Obama and Trump probably has little positive impact on the economy, so people should support Trump. Not a very strong argument. Naturally, Trump supporters will dispute these claims and assert (as Trump does in his lies) that the economy is the best ever and that it is mostly (or all) due to Trump. Let these claims be granted for the sake of argument. The Trump supporter version of the argument would be:
Premise 1: The economy is great.
Premise 2: This is because of Trump.
Conclusion: You should support Trump (or at least stop attacking him).
This argument is advanced, as noted above, to convince people who oppose Trump’s policies and actions to support Trump or at least stop criticizing him. I oppose many of Trump’s policies and actions. These include his racist immigration policies, his Ukraine debacle, his lack of support for the CDC, his tax cuts, his putting incompetent grifters into positions of power and so on. While Trump’s supporters would dispute my views on these matters, the economic argument is that I should set aside my moral concerns because of his (alleged) success with the economy (though I am actually not better off than I was under Obama). This sort of argument is an old one and ties into the original sin of America.
The slave owning founders, for the most part, recognized that slavery was morally wrong. They allowed it to continue for pragmatic reasons: profit and political support. Those who supported them but who had moral concerns about slavery were often swayed by similar reasons: slavery was crucial to the economy. People looked away, morally speaking, because they wanted to get paid. This approach has certainly persisted in America: people who have moral qualms often set them aside for economic reasons—and are often persuaded to do so.
I must clearly state that I am not saying that supporting Trump is the moral equivalent of supporting slavery. Rather, my point is that the original sin of America is putting economics over ethics. What Trump supporters are now asking me to do is analogous, albeit not as bad: they want me to set aside my moral concerns about Trump because of his alleged economic success. That is, I should look away because I am getting paid.
One could try to make a utilitarian case for this by arguing that the bad created by his actions and policies are outweighed by the good of the economic benefits of his presidency. But even if it is (wrongly) assumed that Trump is significantly responsible for the positive aspects of the economy it is not plausible to claim that most of his morally problematic actions and policies have anything to do with the economy. For example, his adventures with Ukraine certainly do not help the economy, nor do his racist immigration policies. If Trump did have to do morally problematic things to make the economy better, then one could make the utilitarian argument to justify those actions and policies. But the economy certainly cannot justify the evil actions and policies that do not impact the economy. To use an analogy, one could imagine a spouse who does some questionable things to make money for their family. These could be, perhaps, justified on utilitarian grounds. But this would not justify wrongdoing on their part that had nothing to do with making money. So, if mommy must do some shady business to pay for Timmy’s cancer treatment, then that could perhaps be justified. But the fact that she makes money would not, for example, justify mommy committing adultery, beating Timmy, or vandalizing the local mosque and synagogue. Likewise, for Trump; whatever he might have to do to allegedly improve the economy might perhaps be justified on utilitarian grounds. But this does not warrant his other numerous misdeeds. Those who believe he is a bad person doing bad things should not be swayed by an appeal to money; they should not look away just because they want to get paid.
You are getting paid, Mike.
On Feb. 28, 2017, a little more than 30 days after his inauguration, President Trump signed executive order 13779 that established ‘The White House Initiative to Promote Excellence and Innovation at Historically Black Colleges and Universities.’ Although many people scoffed at the presidential order to empower HBCUs, the historic and tangible results that followed the highly criticized photo-op in the Oval Office speak volumes.
President Trump has given more money to HBCUs than any other president in history for both undergraduate and graduate studies. Federal funding for HBCUs is up 17% under the Trump administration with an increase of more than $100 million, which surpassed the previous record set by President Obama amid the first black president’s tenuous and love-hate relationship with HBCUs.
In March 2018, the Trump administration provided financial relief to HBCUs impacted by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita that struck the Gulf Coast in 2005. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos issued full forgiveness of loans in the amount of $322 million to Dillard University, Southern University at New Orleans, Tougaloo College, and Xavier University of Louisiana under the HBCU Hurricane Supplemental Loan program. The monies saved can be repurposed to provide tuition assistance and expansion of curriculum, where feasible.
To comply with President Trump’s executive order for more strategic partnership investments in HBCUs, Congress has drafted the HBCU PARTNERS Act (Propelling Agency Relationships Towards a New Era of Results for Students). HBCUs are in 19 states which gives those academic institutions greater access to compete for more than $52 billion in state-based federal agency research and development investments.
https://www.blackenterprise.com/senate-bill-funding-historically-black-colleges-and-universities-trump-support-hbcus/
This is the kind of statement that I fundamentally don’t understand. I understand each word, and each sentence, but not the feeling behind the whole.
If the argument is that you should be free to criticise some actions of a politician even though they are credited, even over-credited, with doing something good …well, you are.
I did write more, but deleted it, because I can’t connect to the argument.
Dude, he’s an ‘educator’. If you find the statements undecipherable, what does that say?
Naah, that’s not fair. Mike’s writing is entirely clear, as usual, and I understand every point he makes, though I would dispute some of them; it’s the overall direction that I’m missing.
Hey, just following your lead. Personally I can’t read his original writing for the very kind of reasons you state above. I wait until one of you guys break something out that is moderately coherent, usually because one of you guys does the inferencing (I think I just made up a word) to make the nebulous, quasi-thinking somewhat delimited. The logic/thought processes in the OP’s are generally, like I’ve said before, viscerally illogical and effectively immaterial. They don’t say anything that cannot easily be walked away from or argued to not have been said. It’s the sort of writing that wouldn’t even get you the Gentleman’s C in Mrs.Taxis’ 11th grade AP History class. The whole thing would be returned with the numerous and sundry passive voice statements called out with big red pen markings of “By WHOM?”
There is no requirement that you or anyone support Trump if you disagree with him. As for stopping the attacks on him, well, go ahead and have at that, too, if it makes you feel better.
It is disappointing indeed, though, that the attacks on Trump all follow the same theme – personal attacks on perceived personality flaws or “unpresidential behavior”, rather than on ideological grounds.
It all follows the same path – “Trump is a racist”, “Trump is a xenophobe”, “Trump is a White Supremacist”, “Trump tweets too much”, “Trump is a billionaire who grew up as a privileged white male”, and on and on and on.
For example, for centuries the debate has continued regarding the role of government in an economy – whether it is entirely “free-market” and “laissez-faire” or one that follows a more Keynesian model of regulation and direct stimulus. Rather than use the research of Smith, Keynes, and others of the past, or more modern thinkers (there are plenty) but the attacks contain no such research, no such reference, no such thought.
At best, you dismiss economic policy by furthering your hate-filled trope of “Trump is evil, therefore his economic policies are evil”, in some kind of attempt to parry the valid political debate away from anything that might require some thought, or that maybe might be too hard.
Immigration reform is another one. Many of Trump’s policies are merely the mandate to enforce current laws, many of which were passed by Democrats. Others pick up where Democrats left off – as in the support of a border wall, for example. It may be true that there is some distance between what Trump proposes and what Democrats advocated, but rather than address that divide, the power struggle requires that Democrats retreat entirely from their prior stance, create the impression that this is all new, and it is the result of Trump’s racism and white-supremacy. Most recently mainstream, national, and respected news agencies published inflammatory photographs of immigrant children in cages, appealing to public sympathy and attempting to fuel the flames of outrage – until it was revealed that the published photographs were actually taken during the Obama administration, under his immigration policies.
The real truth is that every single immigration policy since the founding of this country has been subject to criticism. It is a problem that has plagued administrations for centuries. The requirement that immigrants show that they have a means of support – a trade, a job, a profession – something that will keep them off of welfare or other public assistance is centuries old. So are health and vaccination requirements, absence of criminal records, and even quotas or limitations based on country of origin.
Trump is nothing more than another president, another administration, who is trying to deal with the issue that has been at the forefront of US policy under a string of presidential administrations.
But despite the history of this issue (and I do not deny there have been racist and xenophobic underpinnings throughout), the narrative is the same. “Trump is a racist.” “Trump is a xenophobe”. “Trump is a White-Supremacist”. “Trump puts children in cages and lets them die”.
Much easier than addressing the past to inform the future; much easier than doing a true critical analysis.
(i.e., research into the actual effect of various immigration policies on various aspects of US domestic objectives, and putting those effects into some historical context).
Our “TLDR” population responds far better to “America was founded on racism by white supremacist racists, and our immigration policy has always been racist. Trump is a racist, therefore he should be impeached”
But it’s your blog, they’re your credentials – and no one says you have to support Trump or stop attacking him. From one academic to another, though, I’d caution you:
Your lack of support for Trump is not only your right but your obligation; this is a country founded not on racism but on ideas; the free and open exchange of which is a right that is not to be taken lightly.
However, the manner in which you (and plenty of others) choose to oppose these ideas – with personal attacks and a very clear and obvious avoidance of addressing ideological foundations is extremely tiresome – and it continually detracts from your credibility, the source of your credentials and your ethical sense of how to use and display them, and any faith in your abilities as a critical thinker. But it’s not just you – it’s everyone in your tribe.
I will not dispute your claim that Trump may be a despicable human with many personal failings. I won’t agree with it either, necessarily, but in a historical context I would suggest that this is nothing new. The biggest difference between Trump and those before him is that Trump is “in our face”; he makes no secret of his opinions and does not control his emotions; nor does he rise above petty personal arguments that, unlike those before him, can easily be instantly made public through technology that has not existed before.
“I look away because I want to get paid” is not an unfamiliar idea for me. I can also relate to your feelings about Trump – I had (and still have) much of the same seething anger, suspicion, and contempt for Bill (and Hillary) Clinton. The documented string of personal abuses of women during his governorship of Arkansas far exceed the misogyny that Trump is accused of. Clinton’s abuse of power in using the Arkansas State Police to bring women to him, and the accusations of rape or sexual coercion rival any of the accusations against Trump – or Kavanaugh or Weinstein or even Epstein.
My moral outrage boiled over during the Clinton impeachment hearings, and the whole Monica Lewinsky ordeal. I’m sure you can understand. At the time, I was working for a high-tech company with stock options in a market that was surging. The company was expanding exponentially, making hundreds of millions of dollars – and much of that money was trickling down to key employees like me. Lest you think that it was only the white guys who had had the privilege of an education that were making money – everyone down the line all the way to the maintenance guys had high salaries, great benefits, and bonuses.
And when I voiced my moral outrage at the un-presidential behavior of Clinton, the reflection on the US of his dalliances with and without cigars in the Oval Office, and the fact that his bad behavior (and the secrecy it might demand) could lay him (and the country) open to extortion, my colleagues advised me to look at the bigger picture. This bigger picture of course was based on “We’re making money, we’re successful – the stock market is high, the economy is booming. Why do you expect your president to be some kind of moral example for the rest of the country? This kind of behavior is far more common than not, all throughout history – what do you care? Your kids are going to college …” etc, etc.
And then Clinton did something really good. In the face of strong Republican unity under the leadership of Newt Gingrich, and under the threat of a series of government shut-downs, he did what a president is supposed to do. He listened, and he compromised – and he worked with the entire Congress toward the implementation of a comprehensive Welfare Reform package that drastically reduced the number of people receiving benefits; but rather than leaving them out in the street, this reform stimulated the economy and provided opportunity for them to work. “Workfare” laws forced abusers who were able-bodied to find work, drastically reducing fraud and other abuse, reduced unemployment, and helped to balance the budget by taking the strain off entitlement spending, which is the largest segment of any budget.
History has analyzed that compromise; I don’t mean to infer that it was the Greatest Thing That Ever Happened in this country, but you can bet your ass that Clinton crowed about it in SOTU addresses, and that it has been recognized as a major part of the Clinton legacy.
And as for me – I realized that in a historic context, Clinton was no more or less despicable a human being than say, Lyndon Johnson, a born and bred racist whose everyday language was fraught with the “n-word” and who begrudgingly passed civil rights legislation because he knew it would be politically expedient. Or JFK, who (because it was a different time and place) had the support of Secret Service agents who let his women in the back door of the White House, and whose affairs with Marilyn Monroe, Mimi Alford, Marlene Dietrich and dozens of others were well known, but kept secret (“If I don’t have sex every day, I get a headache” he once said).
If Donald Trump were to appoint his brother Attorney General, would anyone ask if he had the right credentials?
In addition to their mutual infidelities, JFK also followed in the footsteps of FDR in hiding his health problems from the public – often too stoned to work because of the effects of the narcotics he took for his back. (Reagan is similar, I suppose, in hiding his Alzheimer’s in his later years, but I’d give him a pass on that and put the blame on the administration and party – he probably was unaware of a lot of it, and therefore gets a bye on the “despicable” scale.
FDR, of course, blocked the immigration of Jews to the US during the 1930’s, enforcing far stronger quotas than Trump. And speaking of “putting children in cages”, let’s not forget the interment of millions of Japanese-American citizens of this country and their families
The list goes on, of course. We have had moral, upstanding Chief Executives – Carter, Truman, Coolidge, Lincoln, others – but the moral failures, overt racism and personal elitism are far more common traits.
Don’t get me wrong – I do not forgive any of these people their moral failures (That said, as far as we know, Trump has not carried on affairs in the White House, he has not leveraged his power to enrich himself or his family like Clinton, Biden, and others; his policies on immigration and travel are far, far tamer than those of any of his predecessors), nor do I point out the activities of previous presidents in some act of “what-aboutism”, or to lobby for forgiveness for our current POTUS.
Rather, my personal experience and my understanding of US History demonstrates that Trump’s behavior is not any different – not only from US presidents but of other world leaders. I don’t like it, I wish I could change it, but history shows that policy is what counts. I was told on no uncertain terms that Clinton’s failures did not matter as much as the state of the economy, the stock market, and the balanced budget during his term. I know that LBJ was a horrible, despicable Texas-born Southern Racist with appalling views on African Americans, Mexicans, homosexuals, and women – but what matters is his efforts toward the Equal Rights Amendment and his notion of the “Great Society”. I disagree very strongly with Johnson on much of what he supported – but my criticism of his presidency does not once mention his racism.
Same with JFK – staring down Kruschev in the Cuban Missile Crisis, cutting taxes across the board, committing the US to reaching the moon before the end of the decade – I remember my mother watching Kennedy on TV with utmost disgust – barely able to stomach him. I was too young to know why, or how his policies might affect the US, but I know now.
So if you want to oppose Trump – have at it. Don’t like tax cuts? Fine. How about a conversation about what these tax cuts have done for the entire population. JFK said when he proposed his, “A rising tide raises all ships”. How about a discussion about that, instead of that tired old saw about the 1% and the politics of envy, or your perception of the “evil motivations” behind them?
What, exactly, do you see as “evil” behind the replacement of NAFTA with the USMCA? The new agreement demands that living wages and other workplace reforms be paid to Mexican workers as qualifying conditions of import. The USMCA protects American farmers by curbing tariffs and restrictions on the import of American dairy products, with reciprocity for Canadian exports. How is that “evil”?
Much of NAFTA is outdated, lacking a prediction for the boom in technology, Internet, and modern protections for intellectual property. USMCA addresses these “upgrades” which protect US intellectual property and the expansion of digital trade.
At the time it was written, environmental standards were not as much of a concern as they are today; the USMCA requires stricter standards for Mexican trucking and transportation as well as for fishing practices designed to protect marine life.
Many of these provisions are central to Democrat ideology – fair wages, workplace safety, environmental regulations, a curb on foreign “slave labor”, tariff-free international trade among allies …
So do you really see “evil intent” behind this, or is this an exception? And if you are able to construct some kind of nefarious underpinnings to the USMCA, does that then negate the benefit it represents to all parties? And in that context, how do you reconcile Trump’s evil intent as President with the fact that he has been talking about this and other American trade agreements since the 1980’s?
There are other examples – the Iran Nuclear deal (and the “payback” of millions in cash in a briefcase on a tarmac to a government in Iran that has nothing to do with the one behind the frozen assets), the support for Israel and the recognition of Jerusalem as the official capital of the country, the incremental victories in the trade war with China, who has been raping this country for decades and stealing our intellectual property, the tax cuts (mentioned above, which I know you hate). He has established the “Space Force”, which has been widely ridiculed based on the imagination of critics, but is intended to be a branch of the military tasked with protecting our assets in space. (How damaging to the US economy and global communication, including and especially that of our military, should there be an attack on our satellites?)
Trump also signed into law the “First Step Act”, widely recognized as the first major legislative win in decades to address mass incarceration at the federal level. This act overhauls certain federal sentencing laws, reducing mandatory minimum sentences for drug felonies and expanding early-release programs. It also aims to lower recidivism by offering more rehabilitation and job-training opportunities, and it includes provisions intended to treat prisoners humanely — banning the shackling of pregnant inmates, halting the use of solitary confinement for most juvenile inmates, and mandating that prisoners be placed in facilities within 500 miles from their families.
And while there is still a lot of work to be done, and Trump has certainly exaggerated the success of this effort, the caliphate of ISIS has been defeated. The war on terror continues to wear on, and ISIS is still active, contrary to many Trump claims – but there is no question that substantial progress has been made.
Again – I know how good it feels to just let your hate out, especially when there are others who feel the same hate. But accusations of moral turpitude are no argument for policy, nor are they in any way grounds for impeachment.
And while I stand by my statement that you are entitled and in fact obligated to voice your opposition to Trump, it would be SO GOD-DAMNED REFRESHING if you would just use your brain instead of your biased, historically insignificant, and completely uninformed moral outrage to do so.
I said in another post that you, not Trump, are responsible for the divisions in this country. The wholesale disparagement of Trump and the gleeful willingness to read, believe, and promote whatever negative article or spin that is put in front of you and the rest of the left in the absence of any critical thinking at all has been seized upon and exploited by those who would seek to undermine this country – Russia, Ukraine, China – why should they worry about trying to defeat us militarily or economically when with a few well-placed Facebook posts, we are all too willing to destroy ourselves from within?
For our enemies, it is about the destruction of this country. For top Democrats like Pelosi, Schumer, Clinton, and others, it is about regaining power no matter what. You, on the other hand, and others like you, are unwitting pawns who have allowed yourself to be convinced of your own hatred, and have allowed that hatred to consume you and drive you away from your ability to think.
Do NOT get me wrong. I am NOT saying (as you did in your most recent post) that the only way to exhibit critical thinking skills is to stop criticizing Trump and get on board – not at all.
I am saying “Walk Away From Your Tribe”. They are using you. If you want to oppose Trump, do so on the battlefield that counts. Use your brain, not “talking points”. And hate him with all your being if that’s what you want to do – but try to understand the difference between emotion and political discourse, and try to develop a rational, multi-faceted sense of history.
But maybe it’s not as dire as I imagine – I think the watchful eye of Putin and others is not to be dismissed, nor is his involvement; I do believe that the DNC is totally consumed with a return to power – but rather than making a contribution to this, you may actually be on our side.
Trump’s popularity surged after the impeachment hearing/trial; the Democrats have been widely criticized for their hate-based efforts to impeach without real credible evidence and their apparent ignorance of any Constitutional basis for impeachment. Vocal critics of Trump – yourself included – somehow refuse to address ideology and policy, resorting every time to the same old saws – racist, White Supremacist, “loose cannon”, moral bankruptcy, and on and on and on. But behind all of this is real accomplishment – some of which is exactly in alignment with Democrat ideology – but ALL of it is rejected because of this hatred. And I will say that from my perspective, this rhetoric is really getting old and tired.
So maybe your essays are just contributing to this – that the more we read of it, the more ridiculous it seems; the lack of any substantive ideological opposition continues to chip away at your (meaning the entire left, as well as your own personal contribution to the narrative) credibility. Listening to Pelosi and Schumer, listening to AOC, Omar, Tlaib and the other vocal members of our Legislative branch all I hear is virulent but unsubstantiated criticism, attack, hatred. And when listening to the top contenders in the Democrat debates, I hear NOTHING of any substantial direction or vision they have for America; and I think that the number of those who see the same thing is growing.
So maybe it would be better for you to just keep it up – the more you present these re-hashed talking points based on nothing but hate and moral outrage, the more you are inadvertently on our side.
“Why do people support Trump” is a valid question. Here’s a very viable answer you may not have considered:
“Just look at the other options!