Watch News coverage of Trump rallies, and you will see Trump
supporters portrayed as white, poor and stupid.
There certainly are Trump voters who are poor and stupid,
but I have not met them. I have only seen them on the News.
The Trump voters I know personally have college degrees, are
very wealthy, and believe the world started falling apart in the 60s and 70s when
they were kids. The college degrees of
the Trump voters I know are technical and professional. I have not met a Trump voter with a degree in
arts or literature.
I recently met a tall, energetic engineer named Tom. He is
retired but still works as a consultant.
He owns a dozen cars, eight of them show-quality American muscle cars of
the 60s and 70s. He has a home that
would house a village in much of the world, no kids, and enough garage space
for his entire car collection.
He has lived in Houston for more than 30 years, but grew up
in suburban Chicago. As a high school
student in the late 60s he was bussed to a different suburban school as part of
affirmative action—desegregation. He
hated it. He seethes with resentment
when he talks about it almost 50 years later.
He says he is a minority in his adopted city of Houston and
is angry that cars with Mexican license plates can drive his streets. He is angry that Houston is not a majority
white city. When he says Make America Great Again he means make it white
again.
He is also a very proud, technically trained guy who does
not own a cell phone or a laptop computer.
He has two landline phones and a desktop computer. On that computer, he runs high-tech
simulations for his consulting work. So
he is not against technology, he is against people who do not understand technology
having access to technology. He is very
proud of not needing the technology that others around him depend on. He uses paper maps. He sends email on his desktop computer and
does not need to check his desktop constantly as smartphone users do.
Like Trump, he wants America to have a strong military, and just like Trump, he did not serve in that military.
He went to college. When he
graduated, the draft was near its end. He got the deferments he needed and did not volunteer--though he is happy to bomb, drone or invade. He isn't going.
After college, Tom got a good job and started a lucrative career while those
who served in the military earned $168 a month and delayed the start of their
less lucrative careers.
He mentioned that in 1960s Chicago he was subjected to many Polish jokes. He remembers with
some pain what it was like to hear jokes about Poles. He does not remember the 50s and 60s as an
era when every racial slur was part of normal speech.
Part of Tom’s resentment is that political correctness has
removed hazing ethnic groups as an acceptable part of American life. He was subject to terrible Polish jokes for
years. He should be able to treat the
latest waves of immigrants the way he was treated.
