I am still basking in the light of Joe Biden’s victory over Donald Trump. It has helped to redeem the difficult year 2020 has been thus far.
I feel good enough, in fact, to turn my attention to trying to understand Trump voters better, and the most logical place it seems to me to begin is to listen to what they say about themselves.
Take, for instance, the Wisconsin man who was sitting in a bar when a reporter asked him if he had heard about Governor Tony Evers’ recent executive order requesting Wisconsinites to wear masks and limit indoor gatherings, including family celebrations of Thanksgiving.
As you know, Wisconsin is on fire with the coronavirus. The Governor would have made his order a mandate, but Trump Republicans and a conservative majority on the state Supreme Court stripped him of that power, thus, his order was limited to being “a strong recommendation.”
The man at the bar responded to the reporter’s question by saying, “Yea, I heard it, but I have nine siblings so for Thanksgiving I think we’ll just ignore what the governor said.”
To understand this Trump voter better, I wish I could ask him why he and all the Trump voters like him think their families are more important than anyone else’s.
Many families in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and other states will sacrifice their desire to have a family Thanksgiving because they don’t want to contract the virus themselves or spread it to others (studies prove family gathering as a major cause of this current outbreak).
So what makes this Trump voter’s family so special that they don’t have to think about getting the virus or spreading it to other people not in their family?
I also wonder if he and Trump voters like him think about potentially making the situation worse for hospitals already running at capacity? Have they given any thought to the rapid spread of the virus placing unbearable stress on already fatigued nurses and doctors like our doctor son?
These are things they can tell me that will help me understand them better because I admit that at this point I don’t have a clue about why 245,000 deaths from the coronavirus don’t seem to concern them or the fact that the month of October alone the U.S. had a million cases of the virus diagnosed.
Yesterday my heart broke listening to the tragic story of a 17 year-old teenager with no underlying conditions who died three days after she was diagnosed, and then today it broke again because of a 13 year-old boy in Missouri also without any underlying conditions dying from the virus.
Did theirs? I need some help here.
But their attitude about the pandemic is only the beginning of questions whose answers can tell me a lot about who these people are.
For example, I am confused about their lack of concern for Trump’s lack of character, his refusal to tell the truth about anything, his ego-centric public statements.
Yes, I know, they don’t believe any of it is true, but I suspect they know more than they say they do.
How could they not when Trump repeatedly said at his rallies that Democrats and the fake press were hyping the pandemic and that the proof would be when it all goes away after the election?
Well, it hasn’t all gone away, as any sensible person knew it wouldn’t. Am I to believe Trump voters don’t see this as an example of Trump having no concern for truth? Answering that question would go a long way in getting a clearer picture of who they are and what values they have.
Trump voters are saying a lot about themselves indirectly, but answering the kind of questions people like me have would allow us to know if what we think they are saying about who they are is in fact who they are.
Unless and until that happens, we cannot even begin to think about ways to overcome the bitter divide the election confirmed that between us.
More on this subject next time.
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