Connecting the Dots: Question still not unanswered: Why Trump?
Published: 09-15-2023 10:03 PM |
In my last column, I asked “Are there any readers of this newspaper who are up for telling me why they would vote for Donald Trump in 2024? This is not a criticism of your choice to vote for the 45th president again. I just would just like to know what it is about Trump that earns your vote.”
I received a bunch of “good job” email responses but was disappointed to receive only one personal email from a Trump supporter. What was important for him to say was: “In response to your question about former President Trump … and why I would vote for him over President Biden, let me give you an explanation of why … your self-proclaimed elitism is the reason why Trump is so popular.”
And then, on Sept. 7, a letter writer to the Recorder wrote “This list” (of negative assertions) “is almost endless with the incompetence the Democratic Party has created today. But I’m not supposed to vote for Trump because he sends mean tweets? I will vote for the Republicans whether the candidate is under indictment or not.”
I have edited down my original column to make space for the writer’s viewpoint. I am not using my first respondent’s name because it was a personal email. He wrote “Biden handled the departure of Afghanistan that was a total debacle, and I have the right to say that because I was there for a year in 2010.”
My response to him began with “Thanks for your email. You may not believe this, but we are on the same page with respect to the poorly executed withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan.”
“I think,” I continued, “the Defense Department should have managed the withdrawal and not the State Department. Biden was operating on the premise that he thought the Afghan national security forces could step up and fight because we spent 20 years, tens of billions of dollars training them, giving them the best equipment, giving them support of US forces for two decades and when push came to shove, they decided not to step up and fight for their country. But we could quibble about this for a long time to no avail. The one positive result is that Biden ended our longest war that was launched as retaliation for al Qaeda’s assault on New York and Washington … which, in my view, shattered the post-Cold War myth of America as a superpower. No previous president chose to do that.”
I tried to find some common ground by writing “I do not disagree that America’s military/industrial complex needs an overhaul. It has run amok as Republican President Eisenhower warned it might. The DOD needs a political and budget recalibration that would shift some defense department funding to domestic programs. I also share concerns and fears about the CIA’s involvement and political collaboration with authoritarian regimes.”
“I get it that you,” I said, “like many other Trump supporters are angry. I would have preferred to vote for Bernie Sanders back in 2016 because he, like Trump, gave us hope that someone could go to Washington to ‘clear out the swamp.’ But my preferred candidate was blocked by the Democratic National Committee which I am still pissed about.”
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“Ironically,” I wrote, “Biden’s mismanagement of the withdrawal from Afghanistan underscored his core point — that US visions of forging a functioning nation were illusory and that many more years of US involvement would not make any difference. The evaporating Afghan forces and police that the US spent billions building up to fight the Taliban mystified many Washington officials. This encapsulated how top military brass and diplomats were misled by their own preconceptions and the investment of years of US blood and treasure, troops surges, drawdowns, diplomatic offensives, and arbitrary timelines to leave.”
My last question to him was “Putting Trump aside for a moment, do you believe the Republican Party (which he has reshaped) is on the right track to make America great again?” In both instances, my respondents say that they will vote against Biden by voting for Trump. Not for any positive reason.
In closing, I wrote “IF you might want to have a cup of coffee one day and get to learn more about each other, I’d be up for that.”
And then in a P.S. I told him about our Better Angels chapter here in Greenfield that brings people with opposing conservative/progressive views together in a non-confrontational way.
“Connecting the Dots” is published every other Saturday in the Recorder. John Bos remains perplexed by the number of people who would vote for Trump when it is abundantly clear (though not yet proven guilty) that he has broken a number of laws affecting our democracy. Bos is also a contributing writer for Green Energy Times. Questions and comments may be sent to john01370@gmail.com.
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