At this moment, we can concede that former President Trump is cast as the political black hole that influences the entire political galaxy. He is elevated to that status by three forces of political nature – that portion of the political universe that supports him to some degree … those on the left who have a visceral and obsessive hatred for Trump … and finally Trump himself. I will address each of these forces in a three-part series that hopefully will put Trump and his influence in a more realistic perspective than what we get from the national news media. Part one deals with the Trump supporters.
Trump voters – from the loyalists to the pragmatists
The first force that props up Trump is obvious. It is composed of the 74 million folks who cast their ballots for Trump in 2020 – and others who might have if they had voted. They are not a monolithic group. And they are not the two-dimensional monolithic cultists that the left portrays.
A small minority of them represent a solid base for Trump. They love the guy and will support him at every turn. They even love his personality. Mystifies me.
However, that subgroup is not nearly as large as the left contends. I put them at less than 15 percent of the Republican voters. I am talking about those who will not vote if Trump is not on the ballot. But there is a much larger group devoted to Republican and conservative principles. Republican’s turnout will be massive in 2022 because most Republican voters are … REPUBLICAN voters. They are not Trump-only voters.
Many independents and even some Democrats will vote Republican for a lot of offices even if they are not fond of Trump. Even if they hate Trump. When he is not on the ballot, he is not on the ballot for most voters – no matter how hard Democrats try to make every election about Trump. We saw how well that worked in Virginia – and to some extent in New Jersey.
The cadre of Trump super-loyalists looms larger than life because they are the most vocal and active – and that they are given unwarranted publicity because the left-leaning media wants the American public to see all Republicans in that light. But, we also have conservatives (like me) who will support Trump when the binary option is between a Republican in the White House – mostly pursuing conservative policies – and the radical policies that the Democratic Party has come to represent.
Millions of conservatives, like me, voted for Trump in the 2016 presidential election because that was the binary choice – Trump leading a more conservative administration or the disaster of Democrat governance – as we saw it. Not only were those voters vindicated in the choice, but most of us made the same binary choice in 2020 – albeit with less favorable results.
Trump was not my pick on the GOP primaries. In fact, I have often said that of the 16 Republican primary candidates, he was my 17th choice. I never liked his pugnacious personality, and while I was happy to see many of his appointments and the administration policies, his personality was always a problem – a huge problem.
In the 2016, 2020 and 2021 elections, there was more support of Republicans and conservative policies than there was for Trump. That is why it is likely that the Republican PARTY will do quite well no matter what Trump does or does not do – says of does not say. His electoral fate is his own. When voters go to the polls, they do not see Trump in every office on the ballot. That is what happened in Virginia, New Jersey and across the nation in 2021. That is what happened to all those down-ballot Republican candidates who did so well in 2020.
Republican voters – despite all the reservations about Trump – will not join the political lynch mob. Some of that is the result of the dishonesty and viciousness of the Trump haters — and because the left has spread their Trump hatred across the GOP brand. Consequently, many Republicans feel that THEY are being personally attacked in the daily newscasts. Because they personally see and feel the dishonest of the assaults on them – as Trump voters – they are more likely to defend Trump from the assaults directed at him.
Republican voters will be supporting Republican candidates across the nation in November despite Trump – not because of him. But they will keep Trump in the center of the political galaxy as a push back against the mendacious assaults they feel from the left. Republican voters are not the demonized caricature that they left alleges in their constant propaganda narratives. They are not the gullible cultists that the left wishes them to be. They are good people trying to do good things for America. In many ways, they are the mainstream of America’s center-right nation.
In Part Two, we will deal with the second major force that keeps Trump in the political limelight – the Trump haters.
So, there ‘tis.