A Tribute to Trump Supporters by Richard Sale

Whatever their class or station in life, everyday people  have a right to live normal life that has its moments of satisfaction and pleasure and peace. So many people live lives of quiet desperation, and over time,  if the conditions of their life continues make them suffer, they will feel alarmed, oppressed and cheerless.

Trump supporters are very aware of these things: the vast wealth that has infiltrated politics, the closing of the doors that were to help them rise in life,  the flood of consumer goods, that they are being ignored by the TV news.  All this funds indignation and anger that social evils that make them miserable are allowed to continue without efforts to alleviate or change them for the better. They believe it is entirely unjust that they have to suffer from needless misery all their lives.

Many people don’t have time to reflect on the meaning of their lives. Their lives consist of strenuous exertions, back breaking efforts, and for many the rewards for those efforts is piddling. They are fated to work like oxen and their pain only ends when they die. No respite, no encouragement, no praise or honors are theirs.  For the majority life offers noting but the  slavery of work.   

President-elect Trump said he loved uneducated people. His aim was to reach people through their feelings. I may disagree with many of the stances of such people, but uneducated people are still people. They are proud, they fearlessly confront suffering, they provide for their families and children, but without rewards and new incentives, providing for others becomes a thankless task.

People who lack education, who aren’t cultured, who have no knowledge of history are still human beings, and they still have rights. The goal of any political system is to provide the means for people to pursue happiness in any way they can under the law. We all have a right to be happy and contented and proud, They work to expand the benefits and pleasures earned by their efforts. We used  to respect “the “common good” as an ideal, but the common good isn't common any more. The common good these days belongs to the elites. If you don’t belong to an elite, you feel betrayed and left behind. No enjoys second place.

Tedious, poorly paid work  which offers no prospects, strangles ambition. Human beings must have certain prospects before them or they wither under ceaseless drudgery. A hopeless life is a dismal one.  To try to improve your lot, when the social and political conditions denies us any feeing of real worth, is the worst fate imaginable.

When people are trapped in that kind of life they will choose to change it.  They hope for escape, and the hope of change helps them to endure  their lot. That is what Trump supporters feel. Patrick Henry wrote, “we have it in our power to create the world new.”   President-elect Trump campaigned on this idea. He told his supporters that he would build a better, more just order of human society. He said that certain evils had no right to exist, and that he would combat them.

No human being should die feeling that his or her was basically a disappointment.

In 1925, a British clergyman noted these things as enemies of the common people:

Wealth without work.

Pleasure without conscience

Knowledge without character.

Commerce without morality.

Science without humanity.

Worship without sacrifice.

Politics without principle.

 

Perhaps the battle against such things can begin anew.

Comments

[plantman]

Well stated.

I would call myself a leftist, but I think the Democrats have completely betrayed their working class base and tried to conceal their treason with fake tributes to gender and race issues that barely conceal their utter hypocrisy.

This campaign to topple the elected president by confusing electoral delegates with circumstantial evidence served up by the obfuscating CIA is the last straw. The democratic party is a corrupt Mafia of special interests, over-educated think tank toadies and groveling politicos. We should be thankful that they are hastening their own well-disserved demise.

Good riddance!

[Dorothy108]

With all due respect, Mr. Sales; it was not just the 'uneducated' that voted for President Elect Trump. College educated women, did prefer Mrs. Clinton, however, only 39% of college educated men voted for her.

http://tinyurl.com/djt-support

Secondly, I live in California. From what I saw at the San Jose rally, and elsewhere, the anger is not on the Republican side. It is the Democrats who rioted, and harassed Trump supporters. I was a life long Democrat, until I witnessed the insanity of the slanted media, and the malicious behavior of the Democrats. Their behavior this election cycle showed no respect for laws or other people. You can expect vandalism here if you put up so much as a Trump bumper sticker on your car. The real violence in this election cycle is and was on the left. Perhaps Republicans are angry, but the violence from BLM to shooting police, to beating up Trump supporters was on the left.

[mike allen]

Meanwhile Trump himself is declaring he will establish "safe zones" in Syria. This is the same thing Clinton wanted to do, and the reason many commenters here feared a nuclear war with Putin. But I guess the logic is that it's OK if you are a Republican.

[turcopolier]

mike allen

I am inclined to think this foolishness is a tactic to get Tillerson confirmed. pl

[Annem]

It is worth considering that Trump doesn't realize or doesn't care about the contradictions in his public statements and his nominations and the tendencies of the Republican Congress. He wants to cooperate with Russia but confront China and Iran, two countries that are working on a Central Asian trade network and which cooperate on many things, including Syria.

Safe zones, meanwhile, mean that the "rebels" can regroup and continue to harass the Syrian regime, with new training and weapons.

There is pro-Turkish sentiment among some in his entourage, but which Turkey, the one that is looking East to Russia and company or the one that we have pretended is our "ally" in the war against ISIS within NATO.

There is also no reason to believe that Trump plans to be anything but a good friend to Israel and Saudi Arabia that stand on the anti-Iran side of this conflict.

Is the anti-Muslim Trump supportive of the Wahhabis of Arabia who are driving sectarianism and extremism in the region. Will Putin explain all this to him?

[Nancy K]

It is not just the poor and uneducated that voted for Trump. I know many well educated and affluent people who voted for him. I can understand their vote much more than I can understand why someone with little would vote for someone with everything, who surrounds himself with people who have everything. The saying is true the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. If the Pences of this country have their way the saying can revert to the alternate version which is the rich get richer and the poor have babies.

[Stu Wood]

mike allen
I agree with your dismay at Trump's statement on "safe zones" in Syria but really, who can believe anything he says. I would not try to count the number of things he has said and backtracked on.

[shargash]

I'm just hoping it is not a sign he's being rolled by the Borg.

[Eric Newhill]

Mike Allen,
My understanding is that Trump's safe zones are for civilians (especially women and children); sort of a cordon to keep them safe from jihadi predations.

Whereas Clinton's proposal was no fly/safe zones to keep the "moderate" head choppers safe from the Russians and Syrian Army.

Maybe I'm wrong about that, but that is what I gleaned from the news and the candidates themselves.

[Babak Makkinejad]

Richard Sales:

I think your assumption regarding the possible composition of Trump voters is not accurate.

I have met at least one person, a fairly intelligent man, who chose to vote for Trump on 2 items:

1: Roe-vs-Wade - which he opposed as he considered abortion to be murder.
2: Composition of US Supreme Court - which he wished to be coming from the Republican ranks.

He could not be singular.

[BillWade]

Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe "safe zones" are more or less refuge camps for the displaced while Clinton was ready to install "no-fly zones" which would have greatly angered the Russians.

I find the article itself disturbing. My particular county voted 2/3 for Trump and 1/3 for Clinton: "People who lack education, who aren’t cultured, who have no knowledge of history are still human beings, and they still have rights." The people that live in my county are, by and large, fairly well-educated, are certainly cultured to some extent at least, have a more than adequate notion of history and are mostly fairly well-off retires with pensions and savings - they'd like the same for their children. Trump got his votes from the smart among us nation-wide excepting the coastal urban areas.

[MRW]

You have an elegant mind, Richard Sale.

[VietnamVet]

RS

I did not vote for Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. She is the epitome of an enemy of the common people. To her they are deplorable. I am hoping that Donald Trump is not running a bait and switch. If he continues the endless Bush/Obama Wars and does not alleviate the despair of working America; the breakup of the Atlantist West is assured. Global Transnational Organizations by their structure and function to extract wealth do not have consent of the governed. I doubt Americans will be fooled twice in a row.

[ked]

Let's gauge the Pres-elect against the clergyman's standard;

Wealth without work. 50/50
Pleasure without conscience. 80/20
Knowledge without character. 75/25
Commerce without morality. 75/25
Science without humanity. what's science?
Worship without sacrifice. worship? sacrifice?
Politics without principle. 80/20

Mr. Sale, you clearly respect the plight of the common man in America today, and put it very well. I concur, completely. It is unfortunate that a perfect political-cultural storm enabled Trump to demagogue his way to the apex of empire. That's fate for ya. Maybe he'll invert the scores I've given. Maybe he'll become enlightened, personally, about science, worship & (personal) sacrifice. I sure hope so, for the sake of the common folk, our nation & his own soul.

[Lochearn]

I think it was someone on this site who described himself as being of the “hard Grapes of Wrath left” which I took to mean not the PC globalist left, and most definitely not the Marxist left. Simply someone who is conservative in the social sense, but wishes to see more equality in society, both of opportunity and remuneration for work. I sense that there are some like me, who, paradoxically, were very pleased that this conservative billionaire won the election.

I see Marxism as a most evil, insidious ideology, which distorted what working people wanted and usurped their fledgling movement. It described the boss as a capitalist to be hated and destroyed as opposed to an entrepreneur, thanks to whom one had a job. Of course a struggle was necessary in the early days to redress a balance that I see as emanating from English aristocratic snobbery and disdain for the “common man.” After all, what other aristocracy in Europe dispossessed their peasantry of their land and homes as the English did in their “enclosures?” As English aristocratic “hardware” intermarried with Jewish “software” a formidable combination developed (the British Empire, for example) that Americans WASPS imported, rather than the more Germanic conception of work as a contribution of all for the benefit of all.

[Richard Sale]

Nr, Trump said he loved uneducated people. He didn't single out any party.

Richard

[ISL]

Richard Sale,

your well-targeted musings reminded me last week when I was listening to a Sirius program where an author suggested voting should require a test, with the progressive interviewer agreeing. The underlying assumption is that only folk who reach the right answer deserve a say in their future, else their rights are those of my dog (or less).

The liberal elite have betrayed more than just the working white class, they are betraying America.

[Pitch Pole]

ked -

You're being generous with your percentages, most like. Maybe he will become enlightened, perhaps he'll bring the change the world and so many inhabiting it need. His administration picks don't portend well for the start or his current state of enlightenment. Maybe he'll make them all dance on a string and damned their views. He'll be mighty busy contravening his appointees if the welfare of the planet and the common man is his prime intention.

I remember GWB's bemused puzzlement when the chickens really came home to roost during his 2nd term. I'm sure he rationalized it all away in the end and our elite culture of no accountability let him fade with little consequence. In some of the late photos it seems like he got it - a simple man, for all his silver spoon upbringing, with a sentimentality under it all....? I don't know as our current president elect has a humanistic sentiment underlying his character. The stress of the office, the serial crises, the weight of it all fall on a man whose character is so far outside the norms not only of our leaders but our general populace - get your tray table stowed and your seat in fully upright position.

What's more interesting and perhaps most critical will be how the people who voted for him react if things go sideways. So far we just have a cabinet to point to - goldman sachs alums, industrial plutocrats, science deniers and creatures of the environment destroying extractive industry. Just appointments so far... In the latest pres elect speech I saw, he appeared to be trying to tamp down the fires he'd stirred in his supporters ("all in good fun, we all wanted to win, right???"). But if his administration brings on a crap storm to dwarf that of the GWB years, who will the common man trump supporter blame? And how will our president elect channel that energy?

Interesting times....

- Pitch

[DWhite]

"...We all have a right to be happy..."
I thought we only had the right to pursue happiness

[mike allen]

Colonel -

We agree that it is "foolishness".

What you suggest about the crafty old businessman Trump just using a 'safe zone' as a bargaining ploy is the same thing my neighbor claims. As opposed to the menopausal Hillarybeast who wanted to use it as a ploy to start a nuclear holocaust. I am gobsmacked that politics can induce such incongruities.

In any case, if he goes forward with his so called 'safe zone', I am hoping it is to keep the Turks and their flunkies from bombing and shelling Kobani. And the Kurds in Afrin too, that IMHO would logically be the next target for al-Nusra headchoppers that Assad evacuated to Idlib.

[Bandit]

Unfortunately, then Trump is in the same position as was Obama who contradicted every campaign promise he made, and we, many of us anyway, were stupid enough to believe the first time around. My expectations of Trump are severely limited. If the only thing he does is keep the US from fomenting war with Russia, China or Iran, then anything he does to positively affect the lives of US citizens would be icing on the cake. I expect he will do no worse than Obama although I think many areas of domestic policy will adversely affect those who voted for him.

[Bandit]

"Maybe he'll become enlightened, personally, about science, worship & (personal) sacrifice. I sure hope so, for the sake of the common folk, our nation & his own soul."

Dream on

[TonyL]

Richard,

A very thoughtful post, and I understood and agreed with the sentiment by heart. The Democratic party has abandoned them once by going so far to the right. But I am afraid they will be disappointed again when finally realized that they have been conned by a snake oil saleman. As ked said above, just look at Trump's appoinments to the future cabinet, I don't see any sign that he is going to honor his promises to the working poors while campaigning.

[crf]

Yes.

During the election campaign and continuing post-election some vocal Clinton supporters have not only criticized Trump, and that is quite fair play, but also criticized Trump supporters in general.

The reams of polling and analytics, which have continued post election, allow one to "construct" typical Trump voters, often with very unflattering characteristics. It's made more real by reams of stories profiling actual Trump supporters, often in ways that reinforce these constructions. So it is not just Trump behaviour and policies which are deplored by many Liberals, but the "average" or "typical" traits of his supporters, which are then assigned or applied by liberals to individuals. (For example, is any guy wearing a red hat a legitimate political target?)

This is just not proper: in most any other social scenario this would (correctly) be seen as prejudiced thinking, and prone to error.

In addition to not being proper it is politically suicidal. What's the Democratic message going forward to be: "So, many of you voted for Trump, and our analysis suggests that you're probably pretty deplorable, but vote for us next time."

My suggestion would be to attack Trump's policies, and attack his character. But leave his voters out of it.

[Tyler]

Richard,

You're calling me uneducated? LMBO

From the comment section there's some people mad af Trump won.

Mike Allen,

Would you like to make another bet that Emperor Trump will not get us into a hot war in Syria?