There’s Really Only One Question the Press Should Be Asking Trump Voters

During the campaign, the press published hundreds of interviews with Trump voters — you know, real Americans.  People (mostly white men) who lived outside of our urban centers, who didn’t have too much of that elitist book-learning, who longed for the good old days when America was “great” because women and minorities knew their place and every man was free to pollute and despoil to his heart’s content.  There were three million more people in this country who supported Hillary Clinton, but one rarely heard about them.

Now that Trump is President, nothing’s changed.  We’re treated to near-daily articles about Trump voters:  those who still support him, those who may be beginning to have some qualms, those who were sure he’d bring back coal jobs but not deport their friend, or take away their health care, or continue to act like an ill-bred jackass.

I, for one, agree with Charlie Pierce:  I don’t feel any sympathy for these people.  They had access to the same information about Trump as did the rest of us:  that he sexually assaults women and brags about it, that he wants to use nuclear weapons, that he hates Muslims and immigrants, that he surrounds himself with Nazis, that he lies more often than he tells the truth, that he got rich stiffing contractors and investors, that he can’t be bothered to prep for a debate or to read reports, that he blurts out the most inappropriate things in the most inappropriate places, that he was clearly playing footsie with Putin, that he’s a weapons-grade narcissist, that he’s likely in the throes of dementia.  In short, that he was, exactly as Hillary Clinton, dozens of life-long Republicans, tons of retired military experts, and nearly every editorial board in the nation said, temperamentally unfit to the the President.  And still, they voted for him.

And here’s what I have to say to the Trump voters who are now beginning to see the error of their ways:  “Sorry” isn’t good enough.  When you fuck something up really, really badly, it’s on you to fix it.  You owe the rest of us, who are now having to live with the results of your fuck up.  (Third-party voters and those who couldn’t bother to vote, I’m looking at you, here, too.)

If you caused this omnishambles, you have an obligation to be at every protest.  You have a duty to be on the phone to your elected representatives every damn morning.  You need to write a big check to the ACLU.  It’s your job to register voters and knock on doors for every special and interim election between now and 20 Goddamn 20.  When you see someone attacking people because of their color or religion, you’re the one who needs to get up and stop it.  You better be volunteering to repair the gravestones in Jewish cemeteries.  Sitting at the diner and telling that big city reporter that, gosh, gee, you were a-hopin’ Trump would magically bring back the buggy-whip factory, er, AOL office, um, coal mines so you can’t really be blamed for the fact that immigrant parents are being ripped away from their children just isn’t going to cut it.  The smart lady in the pantsuit had an actual plan to bring green energy jobs to your town — jobs that wouldn’t have left you with black lung — and you yelled “Trump that Bitch!” and “Lock her up!”

And, by the way, American media?  If you’re going to go out and do an interview with every single one of these damn fools, how about asking them what they’re going to do now to fix the mess they made?  That’s something I’d actually care to read.

Picture found here.