Our cleaning lady, white, 56 years old, living on a shoestring on the New Jersey shore in a Republican congressional district, represented by Chris Smith. Despite being low income, she is a Trump supporter. But she never votes, since, she feels, what difference does her vote make ? I’ve known her for 16 years, and consider her a friend, who has also helped take care of my autistic son, from time to time, and I know her children and her life story. Her mother drank too much and her stepfather was a dentist, but she sank in social status as she was a hedonist in school and ran with a hedonist crowd.
Last year just after he was nominated, she said Trump was the best candidate for President. What she liked about Trump ? Ban refugees from Muslim countries, since some might be terrorists. America first, stop other countries from taking advantage of America. Stop the shipment of jobs overseas. Stop China stealing all our jobs. Trump knows the solutions are all simple. He’s a great businessman. He’s fun. He’s strong. He’s honest about sex, unlike so many hypocrite politicians, and he’s very sexy himself. It just takes a savvy businessman with a strong will to fix things. Would change things in a positive direction. A big thing her book is “Shake things up” — a vague belief that somehow things are stuck, are wrong — need to be torn down and rebuilt by someone who knows what do do. She’s not a racist … has black friends.
Her current evaluation of Trump two days ago when she came to clean, November 2 ? She still supports him. He’s trying hard, she said, but the politicians in Washington are stopping him from getting things done.
Her own situation is actually quite precarious and she’s quite likely to get hurt by Trump. She can only work part time, because she is on disability. She relies on a disability payment of about $1,200 a month, plus Section 8 pays 90 per cent of her rent. Medicare pays most of her medical bills and she is not dependent on Obamacare. She supplements her income with a few odd jobs like cleaning for us 4 hours a week. She does not own a car, having lost her license due to a DUI. So she rides a bike, takes public transport at senior prices, and lives cheap. A good cook, who buys very little takeout, buys nutritious cheap food like dried lentils.
She is a low information voter. Does not read newspapers. Does not watch news much. But, believe it or not, she has a sharp fast mind. But her friends are streetwise and cynical. She is just badly educated, and is poor at filtering fake news from real news. She accepts Trump as a source of real news, and rejects elitist sources.
She’s a sample of one. But I think she represents quite a significant slice of Trump support.
P.S. Last summer I tried to educate her with my version of truth — pointed out how he defrauded people at Trump University, cheated contractors, how he basically is a lying showman and con man, who won’t reveal his tax returns. But all that failed to convince her. I think she felt I was misinformed and a dupe of anti-Trump propaganda.