Well, we've known the answer for almost the same amount of time, but it's only just now - because we're ticking closer to Armageddon Day and Trump isn't floundering in the polls like he should - that we as a nation are able to openly discuss it. Because it's getting to be desperation time and dammit there's still too high a probability that in November this con artist could win.
Let's be blunt. Just who is a Trump voter?
- A Trump voter is that guy at the drive-through window holding up twenty other cars because he's arguing over the nickels he got back for change instead of dimes.
- A Trump voter is that guy dumping his lawn cuttings into your yard even after the nine letters from the Homeowners' Association telling him to stop.
- A Trump voter is that guy you remember from the fifth grade who punched that special needs kid whenever the teachers weren't looking, and then blamed it on the black kid who got suspended for a month.
- A Trump voter is that guy who puts in "Coal Rollers" into his tank-sized Confederate-flag festooned pickup truck just so he can spew pollutants at everybody he thinks is a wimpy damn dirty librul tree-hugging socialist. This is real, and it's insane: you have to intentionally install one of these things to your diesel vehicle, and you end up wasting fuel and paying more out of your pocket just to do this. IT IS LITERALLY GOING OUT OF YOUR WAY TO BE A DICK.
- A Trump voter is that guy who's voting for a goddamn ignorant, tiny-fingered, Cheeto-faced, ferret-wearing shitgibbon just to say "Fuck You" to the entire planet.
It's long past the time to discuss the insanity of Trump supporters in any civil, polite way. We're at the point where Drew Magery - he of the very vocal, very insulting Deadspin articles on the evils of Pro Football Teams (while openly admitting to the hypocrisy of being a Vikes fan) - can write a commentary for a major publication like GQ like this:
Regardless, in the end, people are still gonna vote for this man. Maybe not enough to get him elected, but still: it’ll be in the tens of millions... Nothing that Trump says, no damning piece of Trump reportage, and certainly no opinion piece like this one will stop his voters from pulling the lever. Nor will anything stop Trump from being the officious, brain-dead goon that he is. He will never answer for his crimes, and there’s a frighteningly large portion of the electorate that will always love him for that.
And so I’d just like to say to that portion of the electorate: Fuck you. No, seriously. Go fuck yourselves. I’m not gonna waste any more time trying to convince you that you’re about to do something you’ll regret forever. I’m not gonna show you old clips of Trump saying rotten things. I’m not gonna try to ANNIHILATE Trump by showing you records of his hypocrisy and greed. I’m not gonna link to a John Oliver clip and be like, “THIS. So much this.” Nothing’s gonna take down Trump at this point, so I’m not gonna bother. No no, this post is for ME. I am preaching to the sad little choir in my soul here.
Because while Trump is a miserable bastard, YOU are the people who have handed him the bullhorn. YOU are the people willing to embarrass this nation and put it on the brink of economic ruin all because you wanna throw an electoral hissy fit. YOU are the people who want to revolutionize the way America does business by voting for its worst businessman, a disgusting neon pig who only makes money when he causes problems for other people instead of solving them. YOU are the thin-skinned yokels who clutch your bandoliers whenever someone hurls the mildest of slurs at you (“deplorables”), while cheering Trump on as he leaves a bonfire of truly hateful invective everywhere he goes. YOU are the people willing to overlook the fact that Trump is an unqualified, ignorant sociopath because DURRRR HILLARY IS BAD TOO DURRRR.
There are those Republicans fully aware of the damage Trump will do to the nation and the world and still vote for him because they're too hardwired in to vote Republican no matter what. Those I have some sympathy for, because they're like those Borg infectees who're still free-thinking enough to understand the fate dooming them, and there's still that part of them begging for mercy as they uncontrollably pencil in the ballot with what they know is death for everyone.
Then there are those who are jumping into this with eyes opened and minds closed. They've been given every warning that Trump is a failed businessman with more bankruptcies and bad deals to his brand name (tm) than most people have had hot dinners. They still cheer him. These are the people who go to his rallies and cry out "Jail the bitch!" as loud as possible.
Trump voters are those super-sized pick-ups with the expensive polluting exhausts. They are coal rollers. And they revel in it.
They are not driven by economic anxiety. They are driven by their hate and by their eagerness to make everybody else as miserable as they are.
Trump voters know. They know exactly who and what they are voting for this 2016.
And they don't care.
3 comments:
About the coal-rollers. I'm opposed to violence, but if I were king this would be a hanging offence. However, it does occur to me that it might be more than just a big "fuck you" (even if the offenders do not realize it). They are graphically demonstrating a truth of our world that needs to be addressed: other people, that you do not know, have and are exercising the power to screw up your air, and there is nothing you can do about it. A coal-roller is therefore a synecdoche for every factory out there that dumps smoke in the air or chemicals into the water...
That article reminds me of something my friend Jack used to say sometimes: This isn't about justice, this is about satisfaction.
-Doug in Oakland
As a Prius driver, I'm lucky not to have been a target of the coal rollers so far. However, the Republican candidate for Michigan's U.S. Senate seat in 2014, Terri Lynn Land, had an elevated SUV with coal roller exhaust pipes that she used as her vehicle in parades. I saw it in a parade I marched in two years ago. So, yes, the disease goes all the way to the top and has for years.
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