We have been talking for hours and this is what I understand from our discussion.
Your life has been less than successful. You have tried many different jobs and even started your own business without the success you think you deserve. Your sense of what you deserve – your entitlement – is inbred, reinforced throughout your youth by how your parents found pride in their accomplishments and in your shared heritage. You grew up in a home. Your family always had cars. You always had food in the house. Even though you were not rich you never lacked for any necessity. You were born into a culture that enjoyed and benefitted from hunting deer and trapping other animals for sport and for food. You see having a gun as one of your “inalienable” rights and foresee a time when your guns will be necessary to protect yourself, your family and your country. Some might call that “gun culture” but you believe it is simply the American way of living, protected by the Second Amendment. You had many friends in your youth. Summers were filled with ATV rides and lake parties, while winters were the time for riding snowmobiles through the wooded expanses near your home. Summer jobs and side jobs during the rest of the year kept spending-money in your pocket.
Throughout your childhood and into early adulthood, and despite the pride of circumstance within which you lived, you never attributed any benefits you had as coming from government “handouts.” Sure, your father was periodically unemployed and was paid “unemployment” benefits, but you always believed your father was simply taking money out from that to which he already contributed. No commie liberal could convince you otherwise. And yes, your father went to college, assisted by the GI Bill, and your family home was subsidized with government backed mortgage insurance, but these were things he deserved as a “patriotic American” who was a “giver” and not a “taker,” like those people who lived in slum neighborhoods or needed welfare in order to survive.
You and your family members always voted Republican, not so much because you believed in them. You voted Republican because, as much as you hated all politicians, you hated Democrats even more. For you and your family, the Democrats were “baby killers” because they supported abortion. Democrats were “snowflakes” because they were afraid of war, were “soft on crime,” and were so easily offended with all of their “political correctness crap,” as you describe it. From your perspective, Democrats take your money and give it to those who are less deserving. Socialists and elitists – the lot of them! And their values and ways of acting were always foreign to you but even more so with all this stuff that goes beyond civil rights and into strange conventions regarding “gender identity,” something you cannot understand and do not want to. You recently saw a podcast on the internet about how a meeting was unable to start on time. It took an hour to get beyond Introductions on the agenda because everyone needed to have sorted out what each one’s acceptable “pronoun” would be for the meeting. Name tags had to be re-issued, not only with the names of each participant, but with each participant’s required pronoun preference. The actual meeting took less time than all of these politically correct introductions. As you like to say, at least Republicans are easier to communicate with and have a clear message — right and wrong, black and white, good and bad — these are relatable as opposed to the convoluted nuances and pathetic excuses of the “woke” crowd.
Growing up there was always an understanding in your household that politics was dirty; that politicians were really not the “public servants” they represented themselves to be. Their efforts were primarily for their own self-interest, which they considered paramount. They were in politics for self-aggrandizement and self-enrichment, not for you or your family. You saw how so many politicians entered office as “regular Joes” and left office as millionaires. It must be because they are all thieves or servants to the rich. Politicians, regardless of party affiliation, were often the subject of derision at family get-togethers. Even so, this was a tolerable situation as long as you were able to do well enough for yourself, as did your family, your friends, and other “real Americans.”.
But now your situation has worsened, becoming more and more frustrating over time, with failed relationships and increasing debt. You saw all around you that others who did not share your background seemed to be doing better. You read on social media that you were not alone in this and “learned” your troubles were due to a number of factors. At the top of the list was affirmative action. Because of affirmative action you believe jobs that once went to hard-working, White Americans were now being given to less qualified minorities – even immigrants were taking your jobs. Besides minorities, women as well were a problem, not realizing their place is in the home taking care of and supporting their husbands. In Church your pastor taught from the bible, citing Corinthians 11:3. That passage, as the pastor explained, stands for the proposition that the man is the head in every household. He necessarily relies on a woman since she represents the supportive neck, but support is where her role begins and ends. The man makes all the important decisions. The woman obeys. You are a person of faith but could never understood why all of your relationships have failed. You have never been able to find what you would consider a “Good Christian woman.”
Besides minorities and women, you also came to understand government programs were destroying the country. For you, it is clear we need to get “government off our backs.” Government regulations are eliminating jobs. Government trade policy is sending jobs overseas to those “shithole countries” as your hero, Donald Trump, describes them and accurately, from your perspective. And when you are asked about corporations and whether, without government regulation, you would be exploited, poisoned, or worse, you reply corporations are not the problem. They are the reason you have a cell phone, the internet, an infinite variety of game apps, designer jeans, hundreds of cable channels and endless choices in beer. Corporations give you what you want. Government takes away your ability to get what you want and deserve!
Lately, you have been reading about the inner workings of those you have come to hate the most. You became aware of the attack on the Comet Ping Pong, a pizza shop in Washington D.C. that you believe was operating as a front for Democratic pedophiles. That was in 2017. You knew while Trump was in office that the “Storm” was coming and that it was only a matter of time before he would expose all of the repulsive, perverted, and subversive actions of the Democrats and those imbedded in the “Deep State.” You believe this is the reason why the Democrats had to steal the election. Trump needed more time but was unable to complete his work. You sympathize with all those who, as real patriots, stormed the Capitol building in an attempt to “Stop the Steal.” You also believe in many other conspiracies that not only hold you back but also destroy our country. You believe that:
- The majority of protests by Black Lives Matter and others over the summer of 2020 were violent and destructive.
- COVID was manufactured in China in a lab.
- Satan-worshipping Democratic elites continue to run a child sex ring.
- Several mass shootings were either staged hoaxes or never happened, just like the holocaust.
- Barack Obama was not born in the United States, so his Presidency was illegitimate.
- The 2020 Presidential election was stolen from Trump by Democrats and RINOs.
You seem to believe that Donald Trump is the savior of our country. And yet, he is from the same class of people, the elite class of billionaires, who have been running things for centuries. Why do you believe in him?
“Look, for centuries, the rich have gotten richer, but successive generations of my ancestors did better with each generation. And while it is true that many others suffered, they deserved to suffer because they were not worthy of the American Dream. They did not even belong here. But lately, as the rich continued to do better, real Americans began to suffer. The implicit contract with Americans was broken and our former partners – politicians, financial and corporates elites – all lied to us, while telling us nothing had really changed. There were so many reasons for our reduced prosperity and prospects, but things would get better soon. They told us that the economy was changing so more people will need college. Go to college and a middle-class life is assured! They told us that job losses were nothing more than temporary “dislocations,” which will be resolved as people are trained for different and better professions. They told us that the liberals destroyed the economy with programs that deprived our economy of investment funds. They said tax cuts for the rich would “trickle down” to benefit all of us because tax savings promote job creation. They told us a global economy is good for us all since the price of goods and services will be reduced, improving our standards of living. They told other lies as well, creating a veneer, a cover, for their deceptions.
When all is said and done, however, do we really care about the lies we were told? No! Not really. What pisses me off is that we were cut out of the deal, while politicians and the rich took in all the benefits. We were put in the same position as those who are not “real Americans.” But why do I support Trump? Trump came on to the political scene and exposed all the lies. He did not hide behind platitudes and empty promises. He told us what the problems were and that he was on our side. And yes, Trump is transactional about everything that he does. And yes, Trump did profit from his Presidency. But so what? Everything about this country is, and always has been, transactional. From the beginning, it was transactional that slaves were brought into this country to work the fields and tend the homes of plantation owners. Our government supported it in return for putting America on the path to becoming a continental and later a world power. It was transactional that indentured servitude was ended in return for giving Whites the tasks of serving as overseers, local militia, local law enforcement, paid labor, and servicers of landed gentry. It was transactional when Lincoln declared the slaves in rebel states free in order to encourage their insurrection. It was transactional when South Carolina relented in 1876, giving its electoral votes to a Northern Republicans in return for their promise to end Reconstruction. It was transactional when progressive New Deal initiatives were approved by Congress, but only if those initiatives excluded Blacks. It was transactional when Civil Rights legislation was passed in the 1960s in response, and in an attempt to discourage, urban rioting. It was transactional when these same initiatives and other progressive policies were dismantled in return for pulling Dixiecrats into the Republican Party. It has always been transactional when elites gain legislative favors that enrich them more and more, in return for a lifetime of financial support for elected and former elected officials. Everything is transactional. I have no problem with the transactions. I am just pissed that I, that we, are on the wrong side of the transactions. Trump is openly transactional. He tells the truth, but also assures me that I am important and I will be restored to a position of relative prominence. That is why I support him. That is why so many of us support him. That is the bargain we have made. That is our role in the transaction. That is why so many elected officials and those who aspire to office kowtow to his every whim. But they are not him and will never be him. He is the real deal. He is “our guy.” All the others are our means to an end, and their own ends will simply be collateral damage once we re-install Trump as the next and always leader of the America that God intended it to be.”