Save Your Criticism of Trump Supporters
BY CLYDE HUGHES
For all the Democrats and liberals out there, you have to do me one big favor – stop calling Trump supporters names.
It really is getting out of hand and regardless of what you think of the 45th President of the United States, reducing his supporters to insults and monikers will serve only to drive them to the polls, not discourage them from voting for President Donald Trump again.
Remember Hillary Clinton’s comments in September 2016 about Trump supporters.
“You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right?” Clinton said, according to Time magazine. “The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic — you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up.”
How did that work out for her?
The off-hand comments meant to get a smile out of her base immediately became attack ads for Trump and the Republicans. You cannot directly point to the “deplorable” comment to giving Trump edge among working-class whites that helped him squeak out wins in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, thus giving Trump the presidential election two month later. But you cannot discount it either.
That brings me to July 13 episode of ABC’s “The View” when Meghan McCain, daughter of Republican U.S. Sen. John McCain (and absolutely no fan of Trump), took exception to guest host Tara Setmayer using the proverbial broad brush to call Trump’s supporters a “cult.”
“There’s a large group of people who blindly follow what this man says, that don’t think for themselves,” said Setmayer, former GOP communications director on Capitol Hill, according to Fox News. “That is a cult.”
McCain had a strong response.
“I have made the conscious choice, and I have more reason than anyone in here to dislike President Trump,” McCain said. “I’m sorry but I’ve made the conscious choice to try and understand his voters. I think when we sit here, in studios in Manhattan judging the middle of the country we make no waves whatsoever.”
To put it in the simplest terms possible, McCain is right and Setmayer is dead wrong. While one can argue that they are elements of racists, sexists, etc. among Trump supporters, to paint them all with the same broad brush is ill-advised, unwise and only serves to galvanize his supporters.
We have seen that over the eight years of President Barack Obama. Being the first black president did not immune him to racial slights, insults and downright rudeness not one bit. There were obvious racial slights and those that were thinly cloaked, from the reaction he received after commenting on Professor Henry Louis Gates being arrested, Trayvon Martin, to the baseless and ridiculous attacks on his birth certificate. Yet with each racially-charge meme, social media post, slight and dig, it rallied his supporters over and over again where he was reelected for a second term in office.
One would think Democrats and liberals would have learned that lesson and resist picking the low-hanging temptation of criticizing all of Trump supporters as one. Apparently not so far.
No. Supporters of President Donald Trump are not a cult. But if you want to see Trump win a second term in office, keep calling them one.
About Author
It’s not as though Trump supporters respond to reasonable efforts at persuasion either. The battle is over those in the middle. Such expressions of contempt are meant to isolate the hard-line supporters, not to persuade them.