As with any other "interview with a swing/Trump voter", I don't think I walked away with a single new insight about their supposedly nuanced or diverse perspectives here. Everything sans "I voted...
As with any other "interview with a swing/Trump voter", I don't think I walked away with a single new insight about their supposedly nuanced or diverse perspectives here. Everything sans "I voted for Obama" was the most stereotypical possible response I would've expected of a two-time Trump voter and my only conclusion is that he's… an asshole? I'd do the same thing in Fred's shoes.
I know this will sound like a loaded question but I promise it's sincere: Could someone suggest a meaningful takeaway from pieces like this, other than it being just another reminder of how incredibly unintelligent the "typical" voter is? Just as with Galen's interviews with swing voters, I simply feel dumber for having read this article.
That is exactly why I wanted to post this. I find that a lot of people expected that Trump supporters had somehow woken up after his failed campaign last election and that his support had waned....
Could someone suggest a meaningful takeaway from pieces like this, other than it being just another reminder of how incredibly unintelligent the "typical" voter is?
That is exactly why I wanted to post this. I find that a lot of people expected that Trump supporters had somehow woken up after his failed campaign last election and that his support had waned. In reality, if you sit down and listen to these people you’ll quickly realize that their capacity to think politically is at a level that allows them to continue to support him as president. I.e. nothing has really changed since 2016.
You may understand this and I applaud you for it but a lot of people simply don’t know what is going on in the minds of these people, well here it is, and it’s very important to understand what motivates them
A lot of left-aligned discourse about President Trump shows a great disconnect in recognizing the views of the typical Trump supporter and unsurprisingly so as political discourse has continued to...
A lot of left-aligned discourse about President Trump shows a great disconnect in recognizing the views of the typical Trump supporter and unsurprisingly so as political discourse has continued to grow more fractured and uncivil. Here is a snapshot of the thinking of a "typical" New Hampshire Republican Primary voter, who, anecdotally, sounds very much like a typical Donald Trump supporter
See, New Hampshire people are a special type. The state motto is "Live Free or Die" after all. After his 22 years as a welfare queen in the Army, he gets out and decides to move somewhere with no...
“Everybody’s going to say, ‘Trump is divisive,’” he said, “and he’s going to split the country in half.” He looked at me. “We got it,” he said.
It’s what the Ted Johnsons want.
See, New Hampshire people are a special type. The state motto is "Live Free or Die" after all. After his 22 years as a welfare queen in the Army, he gets out and decides to move somewhere with no taxes (He's not even a native! I wonder if he 'moved' while serving so his LES didn't have income taxes taken out.) and works from home. He lives in New Hampshire and is deeply worried about... The Mexican border, obviously.
“I’m a black-and-white guy. You break the law, you break the law,” he said. “If I go out there and break the law, ain’t nobody going to help Ted Johnson. I’m going to jail.""
He says, while advocating for Trump to go after the 'corrupt' DOJ. Is the law the law, sir, or is it corrupt? For lack of a better word, he's a complete idiot and even if you explained this to his face he wouldn't get it.
“That’s right. I swore an oath,” he said. “I believed in that oath.”
“When did you stop believing?” I asked Ted Johnson.
“About when Trump became president,” he answered.
I feel sorry for any Soldiers under his command over his career because this isn't the first time he's been a complete walking contradiction.
The author is really adept at juxtaposition his narratives to show the cognitive dissonance as it happens. There's a number of these instances where he states a claim, and then is illustrated to...
The author is really adept at juxtaposition his narratives to show the cognitive dissonance as it happens. There's a number of these instances where he states a claim, and then is illustrated to do something showing that best case he doesn't understand the talking points:
“If I go out there and break the law, ain’t nobody going to help Ted Johnson. I’m going to jail.”’
Then he proceeds to help Trump:
“They started prosecuting Trump for a bunch of crap. And I’ll be honest. I started feeling for the guy. I says, ‘Holy shit, what are they doing to this guy?’”
Then there is this:
And Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, the part of the Constitution that prohibits people who tried to overthrow the government from running for office? “He didn’t do that,” Johnson said. “There was no insurrection. He said,
Then he proceeds to detail how Donald Trump is literally going to work to dismantle and overthrow the mechanisms of power in Washington.
“They’re afraid as hell, because this time around he’s going to take the DOJ, he’s going to take the bureaucracy of the FBI, the CIA, all the stupid intel agencies that don’t do shit, and he’s going to upset the apple cart,” he said.
I referred to the argument Trump is now making over and over that he’s going to go after them because he says they’re going after him but really they’re going after you — his supporters.
As far as I can tell from this article alone, he knows what Trump did in his term, which was dismantle a bunch of things and get a bunch of suits who were previously very comfortable in their...
As far as I can tell from this article alone, he knows what Trump did in his term, which was dismantle a bunch of things and get a bunch of suits who were previously very comfortable in their positions very nervous. He wants more of that, more of the folks taking advantage of these established, mismanaged and corrupt institutions to be very uncomfortable, a proper shakeup of the status quo that isn't possible under any other current candidate.
The problem is, Trump's actions are far more egregious than domestic decisions that changed the status quo, which in reality didn't even do that and only made things even less efficient in some cases (e.g. the whole postal service debacle). The ass-kissing of foreign tyrants like Putin and Kim Jong Un, the open support and/or refusal to condemn radical white nationalist groups, the very shady deals happening in the cabinet that may have resulted in classified state intelligence being sold to foreign powers (what did the Saudis give Kushner $2 billion for?), the hundreds of thousands of dead Americans as a result of possibly the most incompetent handling of a pandemic ever? Do none of these things appear as red flags to Ted, a man who has served 22 years in the Army and yet doesn't seem to acknowledge the fact that Trump openly mocked disabled veterans and clearly doesn't care about him?
Hell, I agree that we do need someone to shake up the status quo (maybe not all the deep state conspiracy stuff), but burning the country to the ground or selling its secrets to our enemies is most definitely not the right way to go about it.
As with any other "interview with a swing/Trump voter", I don't think I walked away with a single new insight about their supposedly nuanced or diverse perspectives here. Everything sans "I voted for Obama" was the most stereotypical possible response I would've expected of a two-time Trump voter and my only conclusion is that he's… an asshole? I'd do the same thing in Fred's shoes.
I know this will sound like a loaded question but I promise it's sincere: Could someone suggest a meaningful takeaway from pieces like this, other than it being just another reminder of how incredibly unintelligent the "typical" voter is? Just as with Galen's interviews with swing voters, I simply feel dumber for having read this article.
That is exactly why I wanted to post this. I find that a lot of people expected that Trump supporters had somehow woken up after his failed campaign last election and that his support had waned. In reality, if you sit down and listen to these people you’ll quickly realize that their capacity to think politically is at a level that allows them to continue to support him as president. I.e. nothing has really changed since 2016.
You may understand this and I applaud you for it but a lot of people simply don’t know what is going on in the minds of these people, well here it is, and it’s very important to understand what motivates them
A lot of left-aligned discourse about President Trump shows a great disconnect in recognizing the views of the typical Trump supporter and unsurprisingly so as political discourse has continued to grow more fractured and uncivil. Here is a snapshot of the thinking of a "typical" New Hampshire Republican Primary voter, who, anecdotally, sounds very much like a typical Donald Trump supporter
See, New Hampshire people are a special type. The state motto is "Live Free or Die" after all. After his 22 years as a welfare queen in the Army, he gets out and decides to move somewhere with no taxes (He's not even a native! I wonder if he 'moved' while serving so his LES didn't have income taxes taken out.) and works from home. He lives in New Hampshire and is deeply worried about... The Mexican border, obviously.
He says, while advocating for Trump to go after the 'corrupt' DOJ. Is the law the law, sir, or is it corrupt? For lack of a better word, he's a complete idiot and even if you explained this to his face he wouldn't get it.
I feel sorry for any Soldiers under his command over his career because this isn't the first time he's been a complete walking contradiction.
The author is really adept at juxtaposition his narratives to show the cognitive dissonance as it happens. There's a number of these instances where he states a claim, and then is illustrated to do something showing that best case he doesn't understand the talking points:
Then he proceeds to help Trump:
Then there is this:
Then he proceeds to detail how Donald Trump is literally going to work to dismantle and overthrow the mechanisms of power in Washington.
Now, can you imagine him being a Colonel in charge of military assets? I'm willing to bet 'arbitrary' had been used to describe him in the past.
That headline.
What the hell does he think Trump did in his term and how can he be fine with Trump's record?
As far as I can tell from this article alone, he knows what Trump did in his term, which was dismantle a bunch of things and get a bunch of suits who were previously very comfortable in their positions very nervous. He wants more of that, more of the folks taking advantage of these established, mismanaged and corrupt institutions to be very uncomfortable, a proper shakeup of the status quo that isn't possible under any other current candidate.
The problem is, Trump's actions are far more egregious than domestic decisions that changed the status quo, which in reality didn't even do that and only made things even less efficient in some cases (e.g. the whole postal service debacle). The ass-kissing of foreign tyrants like Putin and Kim Jong Un, the open support and/or refusal to condemn radical white nationalist groups, the very shady deals happening in the cabinet that may have resulted in classified state intelligence being sold to foreign powers (what did the Saudis give Kushner $2 billion for?), the hundreds of thousands of dead Americans as a result of possibly the most incompetent handling of a pandemic ever? Do none of these things appear as red flags to Ted, a man who has served 22 years in the Army and yet doesn't seem to acknowledge the fact that Trump openly mocked disabled veterans and clearly doesn't care about him?
Hell, I agree that we do need someone to shake up the status quo (maybe not all the deep state conspiracy stuff), but burning the country to the ground or selling its secrets to our enemies is most definitely not the right way to go about it.
I'm sad to see my state with a headline like this, but apparently half our state still wants this guy. Both now and potentially later this year.