The people who seem most troubled by Donald Trump’s second term have the least to worry about. Conversely, a lot of his voters are in for a very rude awakening.
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There is a strange dichotomy when it comes to Donald Trump. On the one hand, you have the people who grasp the extraordinary danger he poses to democracy and the country as a whole. And then there are his voters.
Ironically, the first group is the least likely to feel the effects of his most destructive policies. Conversely, millions of his supporters will feel the brunt of them.
You can recognize the members of the first group by the dazed looks on their faces. They still cannot believe what happened in November.
Here are some of the things going through their minds as they are hate-watching the swearing-in ceremony on Inauguration Day:
How did this fraudster get elected again? He is a conman and a fascist!
Just look at this clown with his garish makeup. Why are they adoring Trump like he is a God? He is just gross!
How can anybody believe anything Trump says? He lies every single time he opens his mouth. Just go online and do a factcheck!
Weaponization of justice? You’ve got to be kidding me. He staged a coup and kept highly classified documents in his ridiculous mansion! He is a criminal, for crying out loud!
And there are all his sycophants who are just nodding along and enabling him. Those spineless opportunists know better and yet they keep doing his bidding.
Did you ever look up “malignant narcissism?” We are handing our country over to someone who couldn’t pass a background check or a psychological exam!
Greenland??? Are you kidding me?
Who would ever vote for this man? Don’t they know?
“They” apparently did not. In fact, “not knowing” is one of the most reliable predictors of voting behavior. The less educated a person is (especially a white one), the more likely they are to vote for Trump (and the GOP).
When looking at the results of the election by race and education level, one can see that the only group Trump won was “whites without a college degree.” However, since that is the largest voter bloc and he had a decisive 2-1 edge over Vice President Kamala Harris in that group, that was sufficient to secure his victory.
For all of their fancy college degrees, Democratic strategists never figured out how to reach these voters — or even that these were the voters they had to reach.
Ultimately, it doesn’t matter whether those voters know what a fascist is, or whether they would vote for one anyway if they believed that he would make milk cheaper, the border safer, and keep men out of women’s sports.
That was reflected in the campaign’s messaging.
Harris and other leading Democrats kept focusing on Trump’s unique unsuitability for the nation’s highest office. And they are not wrong. He should not be president.
However, to them, making a convincing case that Trump was a fascist and a threat to democracy should have sealed the deal… and they never understood that it did not.
For example, to Democratic consultants, getting former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) or other establishment Republicans to endorse Harris was supposed to clinch the election for the vice president. Their thinking was that, if even a staunch conservative like Cheney felt that it was more imperative to stop Trump than to vote for a candidate whose positions aligned ideologically with hers, then surely regular GOP voters would realize that the situation was dire.
Unfortunately for Harris, they either did not or they simply didn’t care.
Ultimately, it doesn’t matter whether those voters know what a fascist is, or whether they would vote for one anyway if they believed that he would make milk cheaper, the border safer, and keep men out of women’s sports.
Republicans don’t have to bother with explaining things since it’s just easier to lie and/or present “proof” in the form of anecdotes that distort reality but “feel right” to Trump voters.
To be fair, even if Democrats had focused on those issues, they would have had to educate a lot of uneducated people on complicated topics, like the causes of post-pandemic inflation, the benefits of immigration in a society with low unemployment, and a comparison of crime rates between undocumented immigrants and Americans.
Republicans don’t have to bother with explaining things since it’s just easier to lie and/or present “proof” in the form of anecdotes that distort reality but “feel right” to Trump voters.
And they voted accordingly.
For many of them, especially members of the new “Trump coalition,” i.e., Latinos, young Black men, and Americans under the age of 30, it will turn out to be to their detriment.
Because well-educated “coastal elites” aren’t first in line to feel the pinch. In fact, many of them will probably get a tax cut. That isn’t to say that they should be happy with the outcome. Their concerns over what is about to befall the nation are absolutely valid.
However, college professors, programmers, engineers, architects, doctors, and Harris campaign consultants predominantly living in blue states are not going to be affected as much by mass deportations, tariffs, and cuts to social programs — with one notable exception being all of those government officials living in Washington, DC, who must fear for their jobs.
Those are problems that are much more likely to befall Trump voters without a college degree, who, along with everybody else, are about to get an education in what happens when a crazy person with no guardrails but plenty of grievances takes the helm of a superpower.
