There's a part of me that I don't really know what to make of when it comes to wishing the absolute worst for the country during the next four years so people who voted for Trump suffer. In order for this to happen lots of good people will also suffer. In fact it is the good people will initially suffer more than the typical Trump voter. I don't want to see people suffer, not just know they are suffering, but literally see them suffering on television. But for the country to turn around this has to happen.
I offer for your consideration my Trump Tesla analogy.
I know that the people who thought Trump would usher in a a world of bluebirds and happiness for them personally are going to at some time be poleaxed with the realization that they bought the lemon of all lemon cars from a slick psychopathic salesman. The Trump car, let's say for obvious reasons that it is a Tesla, looked great in the showroom. Maybe they took it on a test drive and were impressed with the head snapping acceleration (one model will do 0-60 in less than two seconds and has a top speed of 200) and all electonic gewgaws.
Perhaps in time these buyers will eventually discover the transmission had a nasty habit of freezing up. They might discover the hard way that there were faulty airbags, that the navigation system didn't know north from south, that the air conditioning is faulty, and there's a glitch in the automatic locking system that may engage trapping them inside. Back to the consequences of this at the end of the blog.
Here's what led me to think of this:
I read an article in yesterday's NY Times, These 14 Voters Think Trump Has One Mandate Above All, and It’s Not About the Economy. It is by Patrick Healy, Margie Omero and Adrian J. Rivera. Mr. Healy is the deputy Opinion editor. Ms. Omero is a pollster. Mr. Rivera is an editorial assistant in Opinion.
I was stuck by some the impressions which these people who voted for Trump had of him.
For example these three were at the start of the article:
I can see the person why one person said "change" in response to the question "What’s one word that describes how you see Donald Trump today?" However common sense and patriotism, give me a break. Where are the heads of these people if not in the sand or some other place where the sun doesn't shine?One word in the following got to me. Can you guess what it was?
If you guessed "compassion" (which I assume you did) you are right. This comes from a 62 year old Black truck driver. He expanded on this as follows answering the question about why he voted for Trump.
I served in the military. I’ve been a police officer. We spend lots of money in countries that most people couldn’t find on a map, and we have people that are starving in the streets of L.A. Trump believes in this country. He believes in Christ. He loves this country.
Of all the people I would like to talk to of the 14 people interviewed for this article it is Kenneth. I want to understand what characteristics he sees in Donald Trump that he would see as demonstrating that he is a compassionate person. I would remind him that the definition of compassion is sympathetic pity and concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others. I want to ask him what makes him think Trump believes in Christ.
This was Kenneth's view on supporting Ukraine: "I don’t think we should be focusing on a country that has nuclear warheads, as Russia does, in the name of defending Ukraine." Where, I wonder, is his compassion for the people of Ukraine? How is this Christian?
Eight of the 14 interviewed said they supported mass deportations of undocumented immigrants. Kenneth was one of them. Again, I wonder about his feelings of compassion.
He was asked specifically about Jan. 6th and Trump pardons. He seemed to make more sense regarding this.
I’m kind of in the middle. The ones that were actually lawbreakers shouldn’t be pardoned. When they went into the Capitol building, some were just there, peaceful protesters. Maybe those people can get some type of pardon or commute their sentences. They shouldn’t be serving 15 years for just walking into the Capitol building. The ones that were violent and actually went in and took over in the Capitol building, they shouldn’t be pardoned.
Of course nobody was sentenced to 15 years for just walking into the Capitol.
I hope that the authors of this article continue to interview their subjects on a regular basis. I want to see what they say when they see their optimism is shattered into pieces.
Fasten you seatbelts, here's my Trump Tesla vacation analogy:
I want to see Trump supports take off for a vacation on a sweltering hot day in their shiny Trump car. I want them to have the transmission give out suddenly while they are driving on the crowded expressway to a destination in the opposite direction that they wanted to go because of faulty navigation, have the air conditioning stop, and the locks on the car engage trapping them inside barely on the shoulder while other cars are speeding by. Let's add that their blinker lights aren't working and a torrential rainstorm has just begun... and to add insult to the fears of serious injury the radio is stuck on high volume on a station that plays nothing but Chinese opera.
I like to think I am a kind and empathetic person, albeit with some lapses which I later regret. These fantasies don't sit well with me. It bothers me that I enjoyed thinking about my Trump Tesla breaking down in traffic analogy and that I enjoyed writing about it.
The pragmatic part of me knows that for the country to change and for compassionate democracy and a moral society to be embraced by enough voters to swing the next two elections to Democrats things have to go very very badly for those who voted for Trump. The Trump promised shiny new Trump Tesla has to be expossed as a junker. Things not only have to go so badly that the Democrats take control of Congress in two years and the presidency in four, but enough of the conservatives on the Supreme Court also must realize what evil they have enabled and the court has to take steps to put America back on course.
There... for now I got this out of my system.
