TRUMP? REALLY?

 

Many in the US and around the world are astonished by the estimates of high-functioning Americans who are voting for Trump despite who he is in 2024. They seem to admire and love his smash-your-face style and his misogyny, dishonesty, and all the rest.

Hard to fathom how anyone could put their trust in this man. However, my experience has given me a good perspective on understanding how such a thing can evolve:

 

I grew up in the 1950s in a family of John Birch Society anti-Communist fanatics who loved Herbert Hoover, hated FDR, hated JFK, hated Democrats, hated SCOTUS Chief Justice Earl Warren, hated all social programs, hated taxes particularly (my uncle Jake---a doctor---even chose a year in a federal penitentiary rather than pay his back taxes because 'they would just go to Communist programs!'). My parents loved William F. Buckley, Jr. and devoured The National Review weekly, listened to Paul Harvey daily and eventually Rush Limbaugh, loved Ronald Reagan of course, became affluent, classist (bow ties and champagne please) and closet racists, were hard-working, loving parents with strong family values, went to church as Episcopalians, tolerated Catholics and Jews, and viewed most other religions and denominations with what seemed to be a degree of pity. They despised Hillary Clinton, and my mother thought that the Holocaust received more attention than it deserved, the war being over for so many years and all. The makings for MAGA maniacs filled my neighborhood. The only thing missing was an obsession with gun ownership, although my father owned two hunting shotguns, a .357 magnum and a .38 handgun for my mother when she was home alone, though she had no clue how to use it. 

I fell into line until young adulthood. But of their six children, two became pro-Trump Republicans. I no longer can communicate much with them. One is in finance, the other (now deceased) was a fundamentalist Christian.

 

My parents died of natural causes during W’s presidency. Watching Barak Obama get elected would probably have killed them. They are gone now so I’ll never know if they would be in Trump’s camp today. They certainly would have been in 2016 against Hillary and 2020 against Biden. Hard to believe, when everything else about them was so forthright, accountable and truthful. 

 I wish my parents were still living. I would love to have a political discussion over champagne or a very dry martini. 

In the meantime, remember this: the ultra-rich will still be ultra-rich even after they pay their fair share of taxes!