By Josh Moon
Alabama Political Reporter
There appears to be a bit of confusion among media folks across the country.
Following last week’s testimony from former FBI Director James Comey, people with cameras and notepads rushed out to interview Trump voters to see if the people who elected The Walking Congressional Hearing had buyer’s remorse.
And they were, expectedly, aghast to discover that greater than 90 percent of those voters held no remorse (Some of this is due to the fact that they don’t know what the word means, but not all of it).
My media friends – from CNN to the Washington Post to MSNBC to even Fox News – were flabbergasted by this.
How could it be?
After all, the facts clearly show that this man the Trump voters elected has been nothing short of a flaming disappointment. Even for them. He’s failed spectacularly to do most of what he promised, and he’s reneged on many of his promises to them.
Last I checked, Trump isn’t even pretending anymore that Mexico is going to pay for the wall, or that Hillary Clinton is going to be prosecuted and imprisoned, or that tax breaks are coming for the poor people who voted for him, or that there was an actual fix for health care that included both coverage and lower premiums.
Trump’s not even lying about anymore.
And then, if you add in the scandals – like the one where he fired the FBI director – well, Trump voters have to have some remorse, right?
But no. They don’t. And the national guys just can’t wrap their heads around it.
They spend hours upon hours every night speculating about the awful Democratic party message and wondering why progressives can’t relate to the middle class and poor. They wonder if Democrats – the same people who sound a whole lot like Ronald Reagan these days – have “moved too far left.” They pound away at vague problems, like “poor messaging” and “inability to relate to working whites.”
It all fills air time, I guess. But none of it hits on the actual problem. Because all of that is nonsense.
Progressives, with their affordable health care, unions protecting workers’ wages and jobs and affinity for job training and accessible social programs, can’t relate to the working class whites? Please. Spare me.
Every day here in Alabama, I’m surrounded by Trump voters. I was surrounded by them long before the rest of the country knew them as Trump voters.
And let me tell you, workers’ issues has never been what sways them. In fact, they’ll vote against their own interests at the drop of a hat when it comes to workers’ issues.
What drives the Trump voter is simple.
Their aversion to change.
This is not the white, Christian country they knew, and they hate it.
Whether it’s the lazy blacks getting all the breaks or the gays taking away their rights to discriminate or the liberal courts telling them they can’t hold church services at the courthouse or the schools stopping Christmas parties because some Muslim got upset, the Trump voter is tired, tired, tired of watching white Christians get the shaft in the country where white Christians have never been forced to deal with anything approaching a level playing field.
Trump, to these desperate and dumb people, is like a beacon in the night. And they cling to him, hopeful that he, along with his Cabinet of Clowns, can restore their lost power and influence.
Let me be clear, I do not use “dumb” lightly. I mean it. And I can support it.
The average Trump voter has no understanding of the political process, cannot explain how Trump might accomplish any of his stated goals and has no factual basis for the overwhelming majority of things they believe.
These are people who will, without provocation, exclaim that President Obama “destroyed this country,” and then fail to provide a single fact to support that proclamation. These are people who HATE Hillary Clinton for her email server that could have allowed Russian hackers to steal information, but who seem perfectly OK with the current administration selling an American election to the same Russians.
Because facts don’t matter. Jobs don’t matter. Policy doesn’t matter.
What matters is that these Trump voters have a voice. They elected a walking, talking Confederate flag.
And they’re going to keep waving it. No matter how much it hurts them.
Trust me when I tell you: That will not change.
