Build the wall.
Deport 11 million “illegals”
Ban all Muslims
In the days since the election, I’ve read countless articles and heard endless discussions of just how angry, disillusioned and disappointed many of Trump’s more manic followers will be when it suddenly dawns on them that none of those grand schemes he promised as he went barnstorming around the country can or will actually come to fruition. They’ll be so demoralized at the realization that they’ve been the victim of the greatest con ever perpetrated on a “poorly educated” populace that they will crawl back into the little spidey-holes from which they came, leaving the rest of us to rebuild a modern, functioning society out of the smoldering ruin they ’ve left behind them.
But suppose it doesn’t work out that way? Suppose it was never really about actually doing all the outlandish things Trump promised to do on his way to the White House? What if it’s really more about tribalism, about having a guy who looks like us and speaks like us occupying the highest office in the land and the most powerful position on Earth, giving voice to our values and finally putting all those PC, multi-cultural elitists in their place? Will they really be all that eager to relinquish their position of power and prominence once they’ve got it just because a few pesky promises went unfulfilled?
Well, now there’s some evidence that Trump’s supporters never actually took all the malarkey he was spewing on the campaign trail seriously, that it was never really about that wall, that ban, that mass deportation order after all but just about having one of their own in charge to wipe away the foul stench of Obamaism forever, and that they will be more than forgiving of their Orange Overlord if he doesn‘t do all the myriad things he promised when he gets into office.
An article by Selena Zito in the Washington Post tends to confirm this possibility.
Here are some of the Trump voters she interviewed on the topic:
Shelley Sullens, a Trump supporter from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, has high hopes for the president-elect but not ridiculous expectations. “I have a pretty good idea how Washington works. It was designed to move at a snail’s pace,” she told me in October. The small-business woman said she never particularly agreed with Trump’s call for a wall on the border with Mexico or a ban on Muslims entering the country. “What I am looking for,” she said, “is a serious approach to picking jurists, working with Speaker [Paul] Ryan on fixing our health-care system and tax reform.”
And another:
Robert Hughes of Bulger, Pa., also said Trump should work with Congress. “I’m not looking for drama, I am looking for him to get behind closed doors and work with Ryan on taxes, regulation reform,” the retired military veteran said. Hughes also wants a Republican president making Supreme Court appointments.
Interestingly, infrastructure — something that was routinely ridiculed and stymied by a Republican Congress when Obama tried to do it — was high on the list for some of these people.
Also, the high cost of Obamacare premiums came up in the discussions.
For a lot of Trump supporters, Obamacare contributed to a sense that Washington was no longer looking out for them. They believed their concerns burdening some people with new costs for the benefit of others wasn’t heeded.
I think that last part cannot be stressed enough, this feeling that “undeserving people” are somehow benefitting at their expense (which is why I think Bernie would have had a harder time with his universal health care and free-college-for-everyone proposals than many of us would care to admit).
I say this not to depress us but to make us realistic in our expectations, that we won’t be able to rely on millions of Trump supporters suddenly experiencing epiphanies about what a deceitful scoundrel their fearless leader really was and then suddenly switching over to our side. We do, indeed, have a lot of work ahead of us these next four years.