The NYT and the Washington Post has profiles of (a) a registered Democrat lesbian (who plans to vote for Trump) and (b) The poor, confused undecided voters who just haven't made up their minds yet. We should feel for them: After all, it's a hard choice.
First, let's meet "Chris"
Chris The Trump-Voting Lesbian
Brett finds this wonder somewhere in New York. He describes her thus:
Chris is a registered Democrat in her 50s who lives in Manhattan. She’s well-educated, well-traveled and well-informed. She has voted for candidates of both parties over the years and was enthusiastic for Bernie Sanders in 2016.
Why Trump for her? Well, why not? She lauds his economy!
“I haven’t seen double digit [gains] in my 401(k) since the internet boom of the late ’90s,” she says. “It went up 19.6 percent” in the year before the pandemic. “Look at the stock market. . .”
She cares about her job and her job's insurance. And Obamacare--was a bust!
“I don’t care about Afghanistan and the Middle East. I care about having a job. I care about having health care through my company. I was out of a job a few years ago. Obamacare priced me out [of private insurance]. It was like, $560 a month. Then Obama’s website blew up. He can’t get the website right?”
The pandemic? Trump's done just fine! After all:
But when this first started, the news media was saying that millions of people were going to die. And look at it: 200,000, compared to the population.”
And she doesn't care about "Grab 'em By The Pussy"--because, hey, there are gold-diggers who'll let them. She didn't believe Brett Kavanaugh's accuser for one moment, and she thinks the Clinton's fingerprints are "all over" Trump Russia and Barr is right to look into it. So, Trump. right?
Trump.
The WaPo Undecides
The first couple, the Boltz's, just can't figure it out--they have a tough decision:
The couple voted for Donald Trump four years ago, but they can’t stand how he’s divided the country and emboldened white supremacists. They like Joe Biden, but recoil at the idea of higher taxes and bigger spending.
We've got George Cottingham, a 25 year old music production student who "leans Trump." He doesn't agree with him on masks but he 'gets it.'
“Honestly, everyone should be wearing a mask, but Trump says things against it to keep people from freaking out, and I get it that he’s trying to keep everything together.”
In the next case we have a Green Party voter who is out of work and is open to either Trump or Biden! He wants to see which guy at the debate will address how "Social Media platforms are warping the country's political discussion by feeding people evermore extreme views!"
No one, he says, is talking about it! (Note: Trump had a specific named list of 3.5 million black voters to intentionally suppress on social media in 2016).
It doesn't get any better from there--The Boltzes, grappling with a terribly hard decision, don't "like" Trump's America First policy--but "they don't want the government to 'be our mum' either." Gosh, Boltz, decisions-decisions. They thought Trump was talking shit about The Wall and that when he got in his advisers would pull him back. They want America to be a proud destination for people who live in oppressive regimes all over the world--but . . .well, gosh. That didn't work out did it? What to do, what to do.
What's Really Going On
What's actually happening here is that these people, if they are not outright lying (and The Omnivore assesses they are probably not) is that they are rationalizing an irrational position concerning their reasons for wanting to vote Trump (or not vote) despite overwhelming data to the contrary--data they acknowledge--which makes their stated reasons sound like intellectual spaghetti.
What does The Omnivore mean? Well, let's start with Chris: she felt the Bern--but when Bernie got smoked in 2016 she felt a narcissistic wound where she was insulted by not being important enough to be listened to about the candidate--so she goes from an anti-Wall Street candidate who would be very left on crime to a law-and-order wall-street deregulator and erroneously blames Trump for the rise in her 401k (huge deficit spending can do that--but it has, erm, drawbacks).
She doesn't like the lawlessness . . . under Trump . . . so she blames the mayor despite Trump having dropped the ball on a massive pandemic and racial justice, both of which have more impact on city crime rates than the mayor.
For the Bolt's we can see that they want to think themselves nice people--proud Americans who understand and respect the American Idea--but 3 years in, Trump has alienated our allies, called all those places "shit hole countrites" and is doing his best to waste billions on a wall his enablers want to help him build. Gosh, that's a toughie.
What's in their heads? Oh, well, they liked their tax cut and they don't really care about racial justice or what happens with their gay son (they have one--even more remarkable). Biden will raise their taxes (guess what income bracket they're in?) and so, erm, sorry: no. Very fine people are just fine so long as I get mah muney.
Cottingham thinks that Trump is trying to "hold things together"? On what planet? George can see that Trump is the cause of the whole "mask debate" but, the tell here is that he favored Trump in 2016 but couldn't vote: so we know his emotional identity is Trump leaning. When Trump is under attack, he feels under attack--and so he retaliates by wanting to vote for Trump--even though everything he knows is against that.
Similar to the Green Party guy: if he's concerned about radicalization through social media there's a clear candidate here and it isn't Trump--but is he that well informed? Well, if not, why's that his "single issue"? Oh--he's a Green Party guy--for those people giving in and voting for the Liberal is worse than voting for the Republican: it's the Liberals that keep The Left down, you know.
So--there may be someone reading this--someone who fancies themselves smart--who is voting for Trump (or not voting--or voted for Trump in 2016 and still holds that dear). You're kidding yourself. You have internal emotional issues that are driving your behavior and you know better--but you can't help it.
The Omnivore finds all of these people repulsive.
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