What if...

As the presidential election looms terrifyingly near, Donald Trump, desperate to avoid both losing and home confinement, has become even more shrill, even more insulting, and even more…there is no other way to put it…stupid.  As bad as he was in 2016 and 2020, between Haitian migrants eating dogs and cats and boasting at a rally that he has a hot, sexy body (ugh), there is a new level of dark absurdity to Trump’s attempt to again become the most powerful person in the world. 

But despite a lack of fitness for office so obvious that it has compelled Dick Cheney to vote for a Democrat, Trump’s support among his devoted MAGA acolytes has not eroded.  Never have so many in and out of government advocated annulling fair elections, appointing political hacks to oversee those elections, allowing voting rights to be an afterthought, and packing the courts with rubber-stamp judges who end-run the Constitution in the name of preserving the Constitution. 

In addition, as the Haitian episode sadly demonstrates, not in many decades have so many white Americans, with—incredibly—a few Blacks and more than a few Latinos sprinkled in, favored a candidate and a party that no longer feels any compunction about being openly racist and committed to turning back the clock on torturously won equal rights guarantees. 

And so, Democrats wonder, “What can they be thinking?”

Still, despite their repugnance for Trump and his perversion of what the United States was supposed to stand for, many on the left and the middle-right have been hesitant to condemn ordinary Americans who support him.  Trump voters are often portrayed as misguided, conned by a master salesman, or hoodwinked into voting against their economic interests.  Even Bill Maher, hardly a person tolerant of those who disagree with him, said, “I've preached, and still do, that you can hate Trump, but not all the people who like him.”

Democrats, on the other hand, are accused of failing to get their message across, unable to demonstrate to Trump-friendly demographic groups—especially white, blue collar, non-college, and rural—that theirs is the party that will protect their rights, help them through hard times, and give them the best shot at prosperity. 

This would imply that the problem is not endemic, but rather inept communication, and the Harris campaign has attacked it as such.  They seem convinced, or at least hopeful, that if only they can break through the Trump/Fox News stranglehold on sensationalist journalism, working class Trump supporters will realize the error of their ways and embrace genuine democracy as their best hope.  

To give them credit, not since 2008 has a Democratic campaign been run so professionally, with clear targets and effective strategies to hit them.  Many thought Harris erred in passing on Josh Shapiro in favor of Tim Walz, but if the party is to make inroads with Trump-aligned voting blocs, Walz is much better suited to get it done.  The relentless focus by the Harris campaign on the middle-class is based on the conviction that Trump voters are decent, patriotic, and essentially fair-minded, but, alas, ultimately misguided. As such, the Harris team has convinced itself that effective persuasion can succeed in prompting some blue-collar Republicans to help save the constitutional norms that now teeter so precariously on the edge of an anti-democratic cliff.

But what if the Harris folks are wrong?  What if all this broadmindedness is misplaced, and those who defend their support of Trump with seemingly reasonable explanations are perfectly willing to destroy democratic institutions if that is what it takes to remain in power?  What if this minority, which wields influence far exceeding its numbers, insists on its definition of religious liberty, women’s rights, and the Second Amendment not because of Trump’s salesmanship, but because of unshakeable sentiments they previously dared not voice publicly, but now can because they have discovered they are part of movement…a movement that rejects required vaccinations against a pandemic, carries deadly weapons in the supermarket, refuses to allow women to end pregnancies under any circumstances, sneers at measures to protect an increasingly fragile environment or those gender non-conforming, and voices acceptance of violence as legitimate, even patriotic, political expression.

In other words, what if Donald Trump has not conned these voters at all?

What if he has liberated them? 

If this is true, the core motive of many of these blue-collar Trump voters becomes clear.

Revenge.

Whether the slights are perceived or real, these working-class MAGA voters, many now doing remarkably well because of the post-pandemic policies of the Biden administration, feel marginalized by the “coastal elites,” scoffed at and belittled; they see their contributions to the nation as unappreciated, their values ridiculed, their needs unmet.  Their faith is mocked, their music is mocked, their clothing is mocked, their military service is mocked, and their child-rearing is mocked.

In 2016, they began to get even.  So what if Trump is a felonious sex offender, a man who has spent his career cheating and betraying people just like them?  So what if he is the crude son of a slumlord, a tax cheat who has a string of business failures that left both investors and customers holding the bag?  So what if he preached “drain the swamp” when he is the swamp?

He gave them back their country and allowed them to say what they had been waiting forever to be able to say.

It's our turn.

So drive through working class neighborhoods across the country and you will see giant American flags flying from the back of shiny new pickup trucks emblazoned with “Trump 2024” on the side, cheered on by pedestrians and other drivers, all waiting breathlessly to again stick it to those smug, effete, trans-loving, NASCAR-hating liberals.

There is only one problem. 

These MAGA happy warriors do not realize what—and who—they are actually voting for, and that Trump will sell them out the second it is in his interest do so, just as he has done to so, so many others.

For example, one of the cornerstones of their movement is getting the boot of an overly intrusive federal government off their necks.  Why should hard-working, church-going Americans who ask nothing from Washington pay taxes to support a bunch of lazy loafers and illegal aliens who contribute nothing but demand everything? 

The only thing wrong with that accusation is that it is aimed at the wrong people.  As the Wall Street Journal just reported, there has been an eight-fold increase in the number of counties relying on government assistance since 2000 and almost all of them are Republican.

This assistance goes to support hospitals and schools, provides care for seniors, food for children, disaster relief, and a panoply of other services that these red counties, many of them rural, have come to count on without realizing who is footing the bills.  If Trump and the Republicans get their way and federal services are drastically slashed, it could well be the MAGA people and their families who pay the steepest price.

The Harris campaign is desperately hoping to peel away enough Republican votes to squeak through in what every prognosticator predicts will be one of closest elections in American history.  Trump voters don’t realize it, but they will be far better served if she succeeds.

Otherwise, their sweet revenge may turn very bitter indeed.