Donald Trump, according to exit polls, won more support from non-whites than any Republican president since 1960, despite four years of unending “white supremacy” from the White House, as the left media constantly tells you. If you are not white, and/or not straight, and you voted for Trump this year and/or in 2016, please share your story and your unfiltered views below. (If you’d prefer to remain anonymous, email us at dish@andrewsullivan.com with “A reader writes” in the subject line and we’ll post it here for you. It’s a safe space!)
The way I am seeing things right now is that the media has spent the last 4+ years publicly prosecuting Trump, which led to Biden's apparent victory. I am not a Trump fan. I think he's disgusting as a person. That said, I voted for him this time (though I voted Clinton last time and Obama twice before that) because I think it's bad for democracy to have the news media, political media, sports media, social media, and arts & entertainment media, as well as pretty much all educational institutions from elementary schools up to universities siding with one political party. The way these entities ignored the terroristic actions of BLM and Antifa and the communist ramblings of major figures on the Left also speaks to their putting politics above truth. This seems exceedingly dangerous to me, edging closer to what we see in China, Russia, and Venezuela.
Despite his many, many, many personal flaws, Trump did manage to pass a tax cut, boost the economy, and was supportive of Israel in ways recent Presidents before him have not been. He has gotten a bad rap on COVID, considering the only success worldwide has been in Sweden, which took a more hands-off approach than Trump. And, he did everything Fauci said he should do, while leaving much decision-making up to the States ... a plus for conservatives. He also represents the very real concerns of poor and working-class rural Americans, who our ruling classes in education and the media have completely abandoned for affirmative action style "urban" concerns. He has been their only figurehead voice.
I did not vote for Trump and think he is despicable and dangerous for the country, but it is so refreshing to hear from readers like the one above, who make rational, cogent observations and help me understand more about why sane people still support him. You don't get this from The New York Times. I just found 'the Dish' and I'm immensely grateful for a place which fosters true diversity of thought.
Nov 16, 2020Liked by Chris Bodenner, Andrew Sullivan
I supported Biden solely because of Trump’s immoderation and lack of temperament. But I supported Republicans everywhere else down ballot (after spending most of my adult life as a registered Democrat).
My family immigrated to the US from Bangladesh when I was 5. This country has given us boundless opportunities. Not only that, but people have been warmly embracing. I grew up in Virginia when it was a red state, in a county that voted Republican until after I left for college. I went to school in the south and have been to rural places all over the country. I live in a precinct that voted for Trump 2:1 in 2016. And in all of these places I’ve been warmly embraced. I married into a family that went over to the west coast on the wagon trains. Plenty of my family live in rural areas and plenty support Trump. And each one has warmly embraced me and our mixed kids without a second of hesitation. Four years of hearing Democrats slander and libel half the country—including members of my family—was too much.
I don’t want my half-white kids growing up thinking “white supremacy” is out to get them. I don’t want people like Robin DiAngelo telling them to “be less white.” Even my parents, who are stalwart Democrats, are alarmed and upset. They think Biden will usher in a return to normalcy, but they don’t realize how deeply these ideas have taken hold among progressives. This strain of progressive ideology is particularly alarming because I’m an immigrant. When I hear progressives like Ilhan Omar say “assimilation is racist,” or that “hard work” is “white supremacy” or devalue marriage and family as the bedrock of society, all of that flies in the face of what my parents socialized me to believe.
I watched the 2020 RNC convention. Yeah, it was pandering and over the top. But when I hear Nikki Haley speak about her American experience it resonates. And if in 2024 I’m voting between that and what progressives have to offer, it’s not even going to be a contest.
I am so happy that the Dish is back. I enjoy Andrew’s thoughts and give due consideration to even those that trouble me. But, honestly, this ongoing suggestion that the “woke” progressives are the moral equivalent of the well-funded, huge (representing at least 30% of the electorate) deranged right wing has got to stop. Rachel Maddox a disgrace? Really? I can understand why one might find her tiresome. But to treat her fact-based commentaries accompanied by interviews with serious journalists as the equivalent of Sean Hannity is well over the top.
Which current Supreme Court Justice can you even imagine offering the “woke” equivalent to Samuel Alito’s outrageous recent rant on behalf of the Federalist Society?
Please, keep us abreast of some of the more absurd spouting from the CRT crowd. But to suggest that Kamala Harris is the left wing equivalent of The morally bankrupt Mitch McConnell only undercuts your normally thoughtful assessments. Don’t lose the forest for the trees.
Completely agree. I've never watched Maddow so I can't say anything about there, but the idea that Kamala Harris is anything but a traditional Democrat is silly. She tacked left over the last 18 months because she was trying to win the nomination, but if you look at her career she's anything but an AOC socialist. If something were to happen to Biden, there would be little difference between her policies and his.
While I did not vote for Trump this election cycle or last, this is the first election in which I've voted Republican for congressional races and many other down-ballet races. While I'm skeptical of what could come from Biden presidency, Trump's demeanor and governance are too far outside what I can accept from a public official.
Though I was born in the United States, both my parents and grandparents are came to the US as refugees from Castro's Cuba in the early 1960s. Both families settled in Omaha, NE, where my parents met and where I was born. Though I have grown up listening to my parents converse with my extended family in Spanish, I was raised speaking English, and English was the primary language spoken in our home. I am also a gay man and live openly as one, though my demeanor is more traditionally masculine. Many people who meet me don't recognize me as gay or Cuban (though I apparently look vaguely foreign--I've been where I'm from many times in my life). Despite this, I'm very comfortable with my sexuality and very proud of my cultural heritage. I do not hide either, but if someone were to ask me to describe myself, I'd talk first about my habits and personality before my cultural background and sexuality.
All that said, I've grown wary of the Democratic party over last four years. Shortly after the 2018 midterms, I changed my voter registration from Democrat to Non-Partisan, due to my dissatisfaction with Democrat's embrace of woke cultural politics over sound economic policy. I've attended local political debates and paid much more attention to how current elected officials and candidates from all parties respond to current events.
In the current election cycle, I voted for Republicans Don Bacon and Ben Sasse to second terms in the House and Senate, respectively. I have my criticisms of both--Bacon for too often being an apologist for Trump's behavior, and Sasse for being a little too media-hungry and for his performative angst over abortion. Nevertheless, both have consistently voted for economic and social policies I agree with, and they have both championed a more ethnically inclusive conservatism. Both have also gracefully handled raucous dissent from their constituents and demonstrated an enduring commitment to liberal democratic values.
Bacon's opponent, Kara Eastman, initially ran a moderate campaign when she first tried to unseat Bacon in 2018, but she very quickly pivoted hard to parroting slogans from the Bernie Sanders campaign, in addition to other woke left tropes. Her response to racial justice protests in Omaha that descended into violence and looting during the last days of May this year was, in a word, irresponsible. She called the shooting of James Scurlock, a young man who participated in the rioting that followed one of these protests, a "cold-blooded murder" very shortly after the event, before details of the police investigation were made public. That investigation revealed a complicated series of events that morally vindicated neither Scurlock nor the man who shot him, James Gardner, even though Gardner was not initially indicted (a grand jury later indicted Gardner, and following his suicide after the indictment, the story was briefly taken up as a rallying cry for both the far left and the far right). When the county attorney chastised Eastman for characterizing the event as murder before the facts were made public, she simply dismissed him as "getting political." Ultimately, in her actions and speeches, she seemed like the kind of person who believes she already knows what's best for the country, regardless of what her constituents tell her, and it was this and her response to the protest that ultimately led me not to vote for her.
As for Chris Janicek, the Democratic candidate running against Sasse, the less said about him, the better. He won a crowded primary of six or seven very poor Democratic candidates and then lost the Nebraska Democratic Party's support after sending a series of lewd texts to a female campaign staffer (and then explaining that these texts shouldn't be interpreted as harassment, because "I'm gay, so how can I harass a woman?"). Further, his position on immigration was a bit too left, and he didn't seem to campaign vigorously or try to expand his appeal beyond party loyalists in Omaha. The NDP then supported a write-in candidate over Janicek, a candidate who, while a longtime respected activist in Omaha's African-American community, basically admitted that he didn't want to be elected but thought the party's support of him was symbolically worthy. So when the choice on the Democratic side is between an embarrassment who can't mend fences and someone who flatly isn't interested in running, I decided to vote for a Republican candidate who I mostly agree with.
There were other, broader reasons for these choices, but to put it bluntly, they're not particularly unique and are a bit boring. But then again, I wish politics in this country were a lot more boring. I'm quite sick of political beliefs and preferences being used as a badge of identity or pride, and I see this attitude more often in my friends who align themselves with the Democratic Party than others who more typically support Republicans. Thankfully, based on interviews with voters published in our local newspaper, it seems like there were quite a lot of people who voted for unglamorous, individual reasons like I did. Biden won the Nebraska legislative district I'm a part of (and, under Nebraska law, also earned an Electoral College vote), but both Republican congressional candidates also won by the same margins as Biden. For me, this last election felt like a victory of sanity and decency over ideology, and I hope that trend continues.
Wasn’t the tell when someone like me emailed you weeks ago indicating I was having trouble pulling the lever for Biden when I live in the Northeast, I’m Irish Catholic, a lawyer, married to my lovely non-white wife and have three beautiful bi-racial children. Am I not supposed to be Biden’s target voter? I’m still not a fan to this day, and Kamala gives me the creeps.
Again, I know fapping off to Biden is fun for everyone in any position of authority at the moment (ie yourself) but wouldn’t it be more constructive to attempt to persuade your center-right readers to consider normal moderate candidates for 2024? Only problem is, there aren’t too many left from what I can see and I don’t know how many R’s will tolerate them if they run. Nikki Haley seems like a natural fit but I don’t think the Trumpinistas truly like her. Also a dark horse candidate could be George P. Bush but he’s very young and won’t be the AG of Texas until 2024. Sen. Rick Scott would have made sense prior to the election when it looked like Trump would lose Florida but that seems to be a non-issue now. Republicans definitely have to run a Spanish speaking Presidential or VP candidate next cycle or they’re completely clueless, which is as always a distinct possibility.
Anecdotally, I took an informal poll of everyone I knew who supported Trump and voted for him (a motley crew of Conservative Whites, Hispanics, Asians, Conservative Jews and my lonely Muslim Trump friend) and asked them who they want as the R nominee for 2024. There appears to be absolutely NO consensus candidate at all, a la 2016, which made me think: Is there another Trump-like figure waiting in the wings who we should be paying attention to?
Huge fan of both the substack and the podcast. Is it just me or is it difficult for many people to hear you on the podcast? I think it might be because you're moving your mouth away from the mic while you talk. I do this too during my Zoom meetings and it's hard to get used to but it might help your volume levels in the podcast a lot. Thank you for all of the great content.
I don't get the readers who say "Trump disgusts me but I voted for him". You cherry pick quotes from Democrats to prove they are intolerant but for Trump it's "sure he pandered, but...". How about "Jews will not replace us" and similar statements from "very fine people"? These are your fellow travelers. So your Trump-supporting neighbors are nice to you? Your Biden-supporting neighbors are not? I only hope you all don't wake up one day to find that our democratic system of government has been replaced with a system headed by a guy who breaks the law without consequences and the only standard for public service is fealty to him. It will be too late to reverse the process when the system has been "rigged" in his favor. Some of you will be okay with that, but I hope more of you will not.
I don’t fit into the categories for this thread, so apologies for butting in. I just started reading East of Eden — never got around to it before. Anyway, I came across these three lovely sentences that I think resonate. Steinbeck is writing about the people who in the late 19th century settled on marginal land in the Salinas Valley, and who toughed it out through incredible hardship:
“It is argued that because they believed thoroughly in a just, moral God they could put their faith there and let the small securities take care of themselves. But I think that because they trusted themselves and respected themselves as individuals, because they knew beyond doubt that they were valuable and potentially moral units—because of this they could give God their own courage and dignity and then receive it back. Such things have disappeared perhaps because men do not trust themselves any more, and when that happens there is nothing left except perhaps to find some strong sure man, even though he is wrong, and to dangle from his coattails.”
This is why Trump and the GOP are more dangerous than the left. Leftists are just wrong about some stuff, maybe a bunch of stuff. Lots of people are wrong about lots of things, and the world just moves on. But Trump, the GOP and the right: they love that “men don’t trust themselves any more”; they want to keep them that way, for some to keep them in a state of constant consumer want so they can sell them things they don’t need, and for others so “there is nothing left except perhaps to find some strong sure man.” The left is misguided; the right is malign.
I’m increasingly feeling like I don’t have a party. I’ve been a lifelong Democrat, but I feel they lack the spine or skill to stand up to Republicans and woke culture. On the other hand, it feels like a large and influential wing of the GOP are encouraging a coup. I also feel, a large swath of the GOP has been actively engaged in dismantling our govt for the last decade, and this has made us weak. Between woke culture, greed, and the dismantling of our government...both parties put forward leadership that reliably fails us. Each new crisis is met with insane and irrational approaches on both sides. I can’t tell which party actually cares about this country any longer.
I am another interested reader to whom this prompt doesn't apply--lifelong Democrat, voted for Biden as much because I admire him as because I despise Trump. I want to better understand the appeal of Trump, especially since I fear the identitarian mood he exploits may now be even stronger on the left than it has been on the right. Hopefully, this conversation will attract some contributions from actual "inconvenient Trump supporters". In the meantime, we are left with speculation and punditry. One of the better examples, I think, came from John McWhorter today. But maybe he is missing something, too. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/11/racism-isnt-everyones-priority/617108/
This is not an accurate perception of Democrats. I'm a Democrat and neither I nor Joe Biden is "anti-police." My uncle was a cop, a high school friend of mine became a cop, a girl I crushed on in college became a detective. I lived across from a drug dealer for a while and the cops were on it. We respect the job. Rhetoric aside, our "anti-police" agenda is narrow: When cops kill someone they did not need to, as in the case of George Floyd and Elijah McClain, instead of covering for them, hold them accountable. It is not emotionally simple for cops to arrest other cops, I realize, but -- why should people have to march to get it?
Sure, cops feel the same way about the Floyd case -- but even with plain video it took four days of public outrage before his arrest. Video is why we are here -- both in terms of outrage and in terms of occasional arrest, now. Before camera phones, I would have said no way does stuff like Floyd happen. Now I wonder -- it makes any sensible white person wonder -- how many more of these happened before there were cameras? And of course black people didn't need camera phones to wonder.
So I'll cop to it that the Brown narrative isn't accurate -- but you see there's a reason it stuck, right? The police seem to treat black people differently than white people -- very generally speaking. Probably anyone would admit that. So if "hands up" wasn't what happened in the Brown case -- well, very close to it happened in enough other cases. Tamir Rice and Breonna Taylor didn't even get a chance to say "don't shoot." So when people march saying "Hands up, don't shoot," surely you can see that their meaning is bigger than one case. Right? You can grasp the point being made. So I don't see the value in citing it as an example of "liberals going too far." Brown is the reason cops now have body cams, iirc, and that is a very good result from the protests.
I did not argue "gotta break a few eggs to make an omelet" and I do resent the attempt to pretend I did. I suppose I did miss the 60s, but on Rodney King, please don't misrepresent what I said. I said I would have thought no way does stuff like Floyd happen, and I meant that literally (maybe moreso than was evident) -- I would not have thought that in full daylight, a cop would coolly kneel on a helpless man's neck while that man pleads for his life until he dies, as three other cops let him do it.
And the Taylor case *is* a good example. Because it highlights how your argument comes down to "legally it is definitely not murder" even though they kicked in her door with guns drawn and she ended up dead. I'm not completely unsympathetic in the Taylor case, but we can probably agree that "legally it is definitely not murder" is not the most constructive approach to thinking about policework.
A reader writes:
The way I am seeing things right now is that the media has spent the last 4+ years publicly prosecuting Trump, which led to Biden's apparent victory. I am not a Trump fan. I think he's disgusting as a person. That said, I voted for him this time (though I voted Clinton last time and Obama twice before that) because I think it's bad for democracy to have the news media, political media, sports media, social media, and arts & entertainment media, as well as pretty much all educational institutions from elementary schools up to universities siding with one political party. The way these entities ignored the terroristic actions of BLM and Antifa and the communist ramblings of major figures on the Left also speaks to their putting politics above truth. This seems exceedingly dangerous to me, edging closer to what we see in China, Russia, and Venezuela.
Despite his many, many, many personal flaws, Trump did manage to pass a tax cut, boost the economy, and was supportive of Israel in ways recent Presidents before him have not been. He has gotten a bad rap on COVID, considering the only success worldwide has been in Sweden, which took a more hands-off approach than Trump. And, he did everything Fauci said he should do, while leaving much decision-making up to the States ... a plus for conservatives. He also represents the very real concerns of poor and working-class rural Americans, who our ruling classes in education and the media have completely abandoned for affirmative action style "urban" concerns. He has been their only figurehead voice.
I did not vote for Trump and think he is despicable and dangerous for the country, but it is so refreshing to hear from readers like the one above, who make rational, cogent observations and help me understand more about why sane people still support him. You don't get this from The New York Times. I just found 'the Dish' and I'm immensely grateful for a place which fosters true diversity of thought.
I supported Biden solely because of Trump’s immoderation and lack of temperament. But I supported Republicans everywhere else down ballot (after spending most of my adult life as a registered Democrat).
My family immigrated to the US from Bangladesh when I was 5. This country has given us boundless opportunities. Not only that, but people have been warmly embracing. I grew up in Virginia when it was a red state, in a county that voted Republican until after I left for college. I went to school in the south and have been to rural places all over the country. I live in a precinct that voted for Trump 2:1 in 2016. And in all of these places I’ve been warmly embraced. I married into a family that went over to the west coast on the wagon trains. Plenty of my family live in rural areas and plenty support Trump. And each one has warmly embraced me and our mixed kids without a second of hesitation. Four years of hearing Democrats slander and libel half the country—including members of my family—was too much.
Increasingly, I am unable to square what Democrats would call “my lived experience” with progressive ideology. I think we should help the needy, but I’m not okay with socialism. I think we should help groups that have been historically disadvantaged, but I’m not okay abandoning the idea of meritocracy. This past year, the Dean of my graduate school and a bunch of faculty declared themselves “gatekeepers of white supremacy” in a Zoom meeting: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/northwestern-universitys-interim-dean-admits-to-being-a-racist-during-digital-town-hall. And they eliminated the admissions test at my magnet high school because “standardized tests are racist.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/fairfax-lawsuit-thomas-jefferson-admissions/2020/11/05/b949972a-1f75-11eb-ba21-f2f001f0554b_story.html.
I don’t want my half-white kids growing up thinking “white supremacy” is out to get them. I don’t want people like Robin DiAngelo telling them to “be less white.” Even my parents, who are stalwart Democrats, are alarmed and upset. They think Biden will usher in a return to normalcy, but they don’t realize how deeply these ideas have taken hold among progressives. This strain of progressive ideology is particularly alarming because I’m an immigrant. When I hear progressives like Ilhan Omar say “assimilation is racist,” or that “hard work” is “white supremacy” or devalue marriage and family as the bedrock of society, all of that flies in the face of what my parents socialized me to believe.
I watched the 2020 RNC convention. Yeah, it was pandering and over the top. But when I hear Nikki Haley speak about her American experience it resonates. And if in 2024 I’m voting between that and what progressives have to offer, it’s not even going to be a contest.
I am so happy that the Dish is back. I enjoy Andrew’s thoughts and give due consideration to even those that trouble me. But, honestly, this ongoing suggestion that the “woke” progressives are the moral equivalent of the well-funded, huge (representing at least 30% of the electorate) deranged right wing has got to stop. Rachel Maddox a disgrace? Really? I can understand why one might find her tiresome. But to treat her fact-based commentaries accompanied by interviews with serious journalists as the equivalent of Sean Hannity is well over the top.
Which current Supreme Court Justice can you even imagine offering the “woke” equivalent to Samuel Alito’s outrageous recent rant on behalf of the Federalist Society?
Please, keep us abreast of some of the more absurd spouting from the CRT crowd. But to suggest that Kamala Harris is the left wing equivalent of The morally bankrupt Mitch McConnell only undercuts your normally thoughtful assessments. Don’t lose the forest for the trees.
Completely agree. I've never watched Maddow so I can't say anything about there, but the idea that Kamala Harris is anything but a traditional Democrat is silly. She tacked left over the last 18 months because she was trying to win the nomination, but if you look at her career she's anything but an AOC socialist. If something were to happen to Biden, there would be little difference between her policies and his.
She’s a political opportunist who may have shown her true colors in her recent, oddly timed equality vs. equity video.
While I did not vote for Trump this election cycle or last, this is the first election in which I've voted Republican for congressional races and many other down-ballet races. While I'm skeptical of what could come from Biden presidency, Trump's demeanor and governance are too far outside what I can accept from a public official.
Though I was born in the United States, both my parents and grandparents are came to the US as refugees from Castro's Cuba in the early 1960s. Both families settled in Omaha, NE, where my parents met and where I was born. Though I have grown up listening to my parents converse with my extended family in Spanish, I was raised speaking English, and English was the primary language spoken in our home. I am also a gay man and live openly as one, though my demeanor is more traditionally masculine. Many people who meet me don't recognize me as gay or Cuban (though I apparently look vaguely foreign--I've been where I'm from many times in my life). Despite this, I'm very comfortable with my sexuality and very proud of my cultural heritage. I do not hide either, but if someone were to ask me to describe myself, I'd talk first about my habits and personality before my cultural background and sexuality.
All that said, I've grown wary of the Democratic party over last four years. Shortly after the 2018 midterms, I changed my voter registration from Democrat to Non-Partisan, due to my dissatisfaction with Democrat's embrace of woke cultural politics over sound economic policy. I've attended local political debates and paid much more attention to how current elected officials and candidates from all parties respond to current events.
In the current election cycle, I voted for Republicans Don Bacon and Ben Sasse to second terms in the House and Senate, respectively. I have my criticisms of both--Bacon for too often being an apologist for Trump's behavior, and Sasse for being a little too media-hungry and for his performative angst over abortion. Nevertheless, both have consistently voted for economic and social policies I agree with, and they have both championed a more ethnically inclusive conservatism. Both have also gracefully handled raucous dissent from their constituents and demonstrated an enduring commitment to liberal democratic values.
Bacon's opponent, Kara Eastman, initially ran a moderate campaign when she first tried to unseat Bacon in 2018, but she very quickly pivoted hard to parroting slogans from the Bernie Sanders campaign, in addition to other woke left tropes. Her response to racial justice protests in Omaha that descended into violence and looting during the last days of May this year was, in a word, irresponsible. She called the shooting of James Scurlock, a young man who participated in the rioting that followed one of these protests, a "cold-blooded murder" very shortly after the event, before details of the police investigation were made public. That investigation revealed a complicated series of events that morally vindicated neither Scurlock nor the man who shot him, James Gardner, even though Gardner was not initially indicted (a grand jury later indicted Gardner, and following his suicide after the indictment, the story was briefly taken up as a rallying cry for both the far left and the far right). When the county attorney chastised Eastman for characterizing the event as murder before the facts were made public, she simply dismissed him as "getting political." Ultimately, in her actions and speeches, she seemed like the kind of person who believes she already knows what's best for the country, regardless of what her constituents tell her, and it was this and her response to the protest that ultimately led me not to vote for her.
As for Chris Janicek, the Democratic candidate running against Sasse, the less said about him, the better. He won a crowded primary of six or seven very poor Democratic candidates and then lost the Nebraska Democratic Party's support after sending a series of lewd texts to a female campaign staffer (and then explaining that these texts shouldn't be interpreted as harassment, because "I'm gay, so how can I harass a woman?"). Further, his position on immigration was a bit too left, and he didn't seem to campaign vigorously or try to expand his appeal beyond party loyalists in Omaha. The NDP then supported a write-in candidate over Janicek, a candidate who, while a longtime respected activist in Omaha's African-American community, basically admitted that he didn't want to be elected but thought the party's support of him was symbolically worthy. So when the choice on the Democratic side is between an embarrassment who can't mend fences and someone who flatly isn't interested in running, I decided to vote for a Republican candidate who I mostly agree with.
There were other, broader reasons for these choices, but to put it bluntly, they're not particularly unique and are a bit boring. But then again, I wish politics in this country were a lot more boring. I'm quite sick of political beliefs and preferences being used as a badge of identity or pride, and I see this attitude more often in my friends who align themselves with the Democratic Party than others who more typically support Republicans. Thankfully, based on interviews with voters published in our local newspaper, it seems like there were quite a lot of people who voted for unglamorous, individual reasons like I did. Biden won the Nebraska legislative district I'm a part of (and, under Nebraska law, also earned an Electoral College vote), but both Republican congressional candidates also won by the same margins as Biden. For me, this last election felt like a victory of sanity and decency over ideology, and I hope that trend continues.
A reader writes:
Wasn’t the tell when someone like me emailed you weeks ago indicating I was having trouble pulling the lever for Biden when I live in the Northeast, I’m Irish Catholic, a lawyer, married to my lovely non-white wife and have three beautiful bi-racial children. Am I not supposed to be Biden’s target voter? I’m still not a fan to this day, and Kamala gives me the creeps.
Again, I know fapping off to Biden is fun for everyone in any position of authority at the moment (ie yourself) but wouldn’t it be more constructive to attempt to persuade your center-right readers to consider normal moderate candidates for 2024? Only problem is, there aren’t too many left from what I can see and I don’t know how many R’s will tolerate them if they run. Nikki Haley seems like a natural fit but I don’t think the Trumpinistas truly like her. Also a dark horse candidate could be George P. Bush but he’s very young and won’t be the AG of Texas until 2024. Sen. Rick Scott would have made sense prior to the election when it looked like Trump would lose Florida but that seems to be a non-issue now. Republicans definitely have to run a Spanish speaking Presidential or VP candidate next cycle or they’re completely clueless, which is as always a distinct possibility.
Anecdotally, I took an informal poll of everyone I knew who supported Trump and voted for him (a motley crew of Conservative Whites, Hispanics, Asians, Conservative Jews and my lonely Muslim Trump friend) and asked them who they want as the R nominee for 2024. There appears to be absolutely NO consensus candidate at all, a la 2016, which made me think: Is there another Trump-like figure waiting in the wings who we should be paying attention to?
Huge fan of both the substack and the podcast. Is it just me or is it difficult for many people to hear you on the podcast? I think it might be because you're moving your mouth away from the mic while you talk. I do this too during my Zoom meetings and it's hard to get used to but it might help your volume levels in the podcast a lot. Thank you for all of the great content.
I don't get the readers who say "Trump disgusts me but I voted for him". You cherry pick quotes from Democrats to prove they are intolerant but for Trump it's "sure he pandered, but...". How about "Jews will not replace us" and similar statements from "very fine people"? These are your fellow travelers. So your Trump-supporting neighbors are nice to you? Your Biden-supporting neighbors are not? I only hope you all don't wake up one day to find that our democratic system of government has been replaced with a system headed by a guy who breaks the law without consequences and the only standard for public service is fealty to him. It will be too late to reverse the process when the system has been "rigged" in his favor. Some of you will be okay with that, but I hope more of you will not.
Anyone who believes that liberal democracy is a current GOP goal is fooling him or herself.
I don’t fit into the categories for this thread, so apologies for butting in. I just started reading East of Eden — never got around to it before. Anyway, I came across these three lovely sentences that I think resonate. Steinbeck is writing about the people who in the late 19th century settled on marginal land in the Salinas Valley, and who toughed it out through incredible hardship:
“It is argued that because they believed thoroughly in a just, moral God they could put their faith there and let the small securities take care of themselves. But I think that because they trusted themselves and respected themselves as individuals, because they knew beyond doubt that they were valuable and potentially moral units—because of this they could give God their own courage and dignity and then receive it back. Such things have disappeared perhaps because men do not trust themselves any more, and when that happens there is nothing left except perhaps to find some strong sure man, even though he is wrong, and to dangle from his coattails.”
This is why Trump and the GOP are more dangerous than the left. Leftists are just wrong about some stuff, maybe a bunch of stuff. Lots of people are wrong about lots of things, and the world just moves on. But Trump, the GOP and the right: they love that “men don’t trust themselves any more”; they want to keep them that way, for some to keep them in a state of constant consumer want so they can sell them things they don’t need, and for others so “there is nothing left except perhaps to find some strong sure man.” The left is misguided; the right is malign.
I’m increasingly feeling like I don’t have a party. I’ve been a lifelong Democrat, but I feel they lack the spine or skill to stand up to Republicans and woke culture. On the other hand, it feels like a large and influential wing of the GOP are encouraging a coup. I also feel, a large swath of the GOP has been actively engaged in dismantling our govt for the last decade, and this has made us weak. Between woke culture, greed, and the dismantling of our government...both parties put forward leadership that reliably fails us. Each new crisis is met with insane and irrational approaches on both sides. I can’t tell which party actually cares about this country any longer.
I wouldn't buy that, exit polls are highly inaccurate this year
I am another interested reader to whom this prompt doesn't apply--lifelong Democrat, voted for Biden as much because I admire him as because I despise Trump. I want to better understand the appeal of Trump, especially since I fear the identitarian mood he exploits may now be even stronger on the left than it has been on the right. Hopefully, this conversation will attract some contributions from actual "inconvenient Trump supporters". In the meantime, we are left with speculation and punditry. One of the better examples, I think, came from John McWhorter today. But maybe he is missing something, too. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/11/racism-isnt-everyones-priority/617108/
This is not an accurate perception of Democrats. I'm a Democrat and neither I nor Joe Biden is "anti-police." My uncle was a cop, a high school friend of mine became a cop, a girl I crushed on in college became a detective. I lived across from a drug dealer for a while and the cops were on it. We respect the job. Rhetoric aside, our "anti-police" agenda is narrow: When cops kill someone they did not need to, as in the case of George Floyd and Elijah McClain, instead of covering for them, hold them accountable. It is not emotionally simple for cops to arrest other cops, I realize, but -- why should people have to march to get it?
Sure, cops feel the same way about the Floyd case -- but even with plain video it took four days of public outrage before his arrest. Video is why we are here -- both in terms of outrage and in terms of occasional arrest, now. Before camera phones, I would have said no way does stuff like Floyd happen. Now I wonder -- it makes any sensible white person wonder -- how many more of these happened before there were cameras? And of course black people didn't need camera phones to wonder.
So I'll cop to it that the Brown narrative isn't accurate -- but you see there's a reason it stuck, right? The police seem to treat black people differently than white people -- very generally speaking. Probably anyone would admit that. So if "hands up" wasn't what happened in the Brown case -- well, very close to it happened in enough other cases. Tamir Rice and Breonna Taylor didn't even get a chance to say "don't shoot." So when people march saying "Hands up, don't shoot," surely you can see that their meaning is bigger than one case. Right? You can grasp the point being made. So I don't see the value in citing it as an example of "liberals going too far." Brown is the reason cops now have body cams, iirc, and that is a very good result from the protests.
I did not argue "gotta break a few eggs to make an omelet" and I do resent the attempt to pretend I did. I suppose I did miss the 60s, but on Rodney King, please don't misrepresent what I said. I said I would have thought no way does stuff like Floyd happen, and I meant that literally (maybe moreso than was evident) -- I would not have thought that in full daylight, a cop would coolly kneel on a helpless man's neck while that man pleads for his life until he dies, as three other cops let him do it.
And the Taylor case *is* a good example. Because it highlights how your argument comes down to "legally it is definitely not murder" even though they kicked in her door with guns drawn and she ended up dead. I'm not completely unsympathetic in the Taylor case, but we can probably agree that "legally it is definitely not murder" is not the most constructive approach to thinking about policework.