What Do Trump Voters Look Like?

 

This week I talked to a guy I have known for three decades--a lifelong conservative Christian. He is a retired professor of literature.

We like some of the same books and authors, but never agreed on politics.  From things he said, it seemed he did not vote for Trump in the last two elections. He certainly did not vote for the Democrat. But this election he is voting for Trump. Enthusiastically.  

When we spoke he was parroting Trump's lies about President Biden, about VP Harris, and despite his comfortable suburban life is willing to say the country is a disaster with 10 million illegal aliens killing Americans.   

Like his hero, this Trump voter dodged the draft.  He did it more artfully than Bone Spur Deferments, but he, like so many Trump lovers, is a Never-servative. He and Trump and other rich kids stayed home. Poor kids went in their places.  

Thirty years ago the professor felt a little bad about dodging the draft. Not now. He has been justified by his orange god.   

In 2016, I met a Trump voter with a 12-car garage. Also a draft dodger.  

A Veteran Talks About His Family at the Dick Winters Leadership Memorial

Dick Winters Leadership Memorial, Ephrata, Pennsylvania

On Memorial Day I visit the grave and the memorial statue of Major Dick Winters who commanded Easy Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne, from D-Day to the end of World War II.  I wear my Army Dress Blue Uniform, one of two days each year I wear it--the other is Veterans Day.

This year, a couple about my age were walking by and took a picture of me in front of the statue. We talked for a while about the draft, national service, and  what an amazing guy Dick Winters was.  As we spoke another veteran showed up. He wore a hat indicating he served in Korea during the Cold War.  As it turned out from 1962-64.  When the couple left, the veteran, Don Kitchen, said he wanted to tell me a story, but he needed to sit.  

Donald Kitchen

There are commemorative bricks in front of the statue. Don pointed at the row of bricks near where I was standing.  Four were men with the name Kitchen:

Don talked briefly about his Dad the WWI veteran and a little more about his brothers who fought in WWII. One was a paratrooper, the other flew 35 missions in a B-24 Liberator bomber.

But he really wanted to tell me about going to the 50th anniversary of the landing at Normandy on June 6.  He went as a member of the Pocket Testament League, a group based in Lititz, Pa., that distributes the Gospel of John and other Bible books to soldiers and students and others around the world.  

As he talked about the ceremony, he mentioned the many world leaders were at the ceremony, including the American President at the time, whom he referred to only as "Clinton." 

In 1994, a chorus of Conservatives and Evangelicals said President Clinton was unfit for office. Character was all that mattered and Bill Clinton was a draft dodger and had paramours.  The Falwells, the Grahams, Dobson, Robertson and lesser lights of Christendom condemned Clinton incessantly. 

The Perfect Moral Relativist

In 1994, the conservatives, Don Kitchen among them, were right about character. When Edmund Burke defined conservatism the character of the leader was at the center of what was necessary for a well-run city, state or country.  

So I asked Don about Trump and utter lack of character he demonstrated by cheating in business, paying off porn stars, saying on camera he was entitled to grab women wherever and whenever he wanted to, and then he bragged on TV about dodging the draft: according to Trump, Don and I and all who served during the draft were idiots. 

Don responded that Trump did "have some problems" (the same problems as Clinton, plus more, with the amplifier turned up to 11), "but his policies are pure gold."

Fifty years ago, I heard from Evangelicals I served with that Moral Relativism was the poison that caused the wars in Europe, the rise of the Nazis and the Commies, and that those who follow the Gospel believed in an absolute standard of righteousness.  

My first roommate on active duty, Don Brandt, told me that.  I would have sworn on a stack of his Bibles that he believed what he said.  But like Don Kitchen, when we talked in 2020, Don Brandt supported Trump completely. His immorality was not an issue. 

The moral relativism that was the greatest danger to America in the last century according to conservative Christians, is the public position of Trump-worshipping Americans who call themselves Christians. 

January 6, 2021, the End of Democracy in America

 

Trump horde ending democracy in America

From the beginning of my military service nearly 50 years ago, until the last my last day in the Army in May 2016, I attended dozens of change of command ceremonies. After the flag is passed the new and out-going commanders often make a speech.  Probably one in three of those speeches made a sincere nod to the American tradition of the peaceful transfer of power.  

For the mostly conservative officers taking or relinquishing authority, they linked themselves to a 200-plus year American tradition--a hallmark of American exceptionalism.  

But that ended one year ago today when the 45th President sent a mob to overturn the election he just lost.  The coup d'etat was mere minutes from success.  Hundreds of Trump supporters were screaming to kill Mike Pence.  If they had managed to stop the vote, the election could have been thrown into the House of Representatives. That is the last possible place in which a disputed election can be decided according to the Constitution.  

With one vote per state, Trump would have taken the election.  

All of my adult life I had an implicit belief in progress in America: more rights for more people.  The racist rednecks would recede, I believed.  

With Trump's nomination and election, my belief cracked.  After Charlottesville it was shattered. With January 6, it was gone. The end of democracy was only a matter of when.  

America no longer has a tradition of the peaceful transfer of power.  I voted for Joe Biden and hoped normal order could be restored in America.  One year later, the democratic party is fighting about infrastructure and social programs and has done nothing to fix the electoral count act or secure voting.  The Republicans are running MAGA candidates all over the country to get control of election counting.  How much does voting really matter if the Republicans are in charge of counting.  

In 2016, 63 million Americans voted for a failed casino owner who played a business man on a game show.  In 2020, 74 million Americans watched a lying buffoon for four years and said they would like four more.  The people who claim most publicly to be followers of Jesus (Love your neighbor; Love your enemies; turn the other cheek) worship Trump much more fervently than they follow anything Christ ever said or did. I have read and re-read the New Testament. Few people who have ever lived are less like Jesus than Donald Trump.

January 6, 2021, was a dress rehearsal.  The command performance is three years away. In 2025, there will be no need for a mob to attack.  The criminals will be in the building. They will use the power entrusted to them by the Constitution to end democracy. 

The Roman poet Horace fought to preserve the Republic during the Civil War after Julius Caesar took power and was murdered.  The Republicans lost. Horace was wounded and lost everything.  When he recovered, he knew the Republic was gone, so he made peace with his circumstances and became a poet, living the best life he could. 

I hope to be like Horace, to do my best to preserve the Republic, and when that fails, to protect my family and live as well as possible.