In defense of your friends who voted for Trump

Just because I didn’t want the guy to win doesn’t mean I'm refusing to have charity for people who did.

I knew Trump was going to win months ago. If I had any question about that on the morning of July 13, 2024, those doubts were dashed that afternoon when Thomas Matthew Crooks shot a gun into a crowd, barely missing the Former/President-Elect’s head. An assassination attempt was the best thing that ever happened to that guy.

Despite how impressed I was by him having the sense to take that photo just moments after his ear had been shredded to ribbons and my non-strict dislike of JD Vance, I reluctantly cast my ballot for Kamala Harris — even though I thought she was a dud of a candidate.

While I may have joked that I voted for her because I can’t handle another four years of people’s Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS), my real reasoning was much more serious. Trump’s behavior during his first presidency was unacceptable: Bullying Zelenskyy into giving him dirt on his political foes, not accepting the results of the 2020 election, January 6… All of which are unforgivable in my eyes and have no place in a democratic society.

This isn’t to say that the Dems didn’t play their own dirty tricks — they absolutely did. But if all the mistakes they made that lost them this election could be rolled into one criticism, it’s this: They suck at politics, and they are woefully out of touch with everyone living in Flyover Country.

Any hope I had that Democrats might take a long, hard look in the mirror and consider the real reasons they lost this election so badly has dissipated in under 24 hours because they keep going back to the same clownish reasons they have been parroting for the last 12 years.

If you’re anything like me and have mostly liberal friends, you woke up this morning to a barrage of posts with the uncharitable and intolerant refrain, “Unfriend me if you voted for Trump you racist piece of shit!” (Which although I did not vote for Trump, I was more than happy to comply with the requests.)

If you are one of these people who is considering going no-contact with the family that raised you and loved you (even when dinners discussing politics with you were intolerable and your snarky comments in response to your weird cousin’s forwarded emails were absolutely uncalled for), let me break down the reasons your friends and family voted for Trump before you hit the unfriend button.

These are NOT the reasons people voted for Trump

If the Democrats want to win ANY future election, they need to stop assuming these are the reasons they lost. They are poor man’s excuses for being bad at politics and show an absolute lack of curiosity and good faith as to why 72 million people want “Hitler” in office.

(Also, please note that I take absolutely no pleasure in giving the Trump administration any praise, but here we are…)

They don’t actually have any problems with women

I can already hear a chorus of people starting to pipe up to say, “bUt WhAt AbOuT aBoRtIoN!!??!1” This is maybe a subject for another post, but the Dobbs decision was the best thing to happen to pro-choice advocates, whether or not they want to admit it. As we’ve seen in most states that had abortion go to a referendum, people voted to keep open access to it. Even amongst conservative circles, people want to protect access to elective abortions throughout the first trimester.

While a lot can be said about the particulars of abortion policy — what week it should be legal to, etc. — it should be noted a sizable number of women would consider themselves pro-life.

Additionally, despite what Mark Cuban might think of the alleged ding dongs surrounding the President, many of the women on his team and in his family are very smart and capable. I help moderate The Unspeakeasy, a refuge for politically homeless women (about half of which voted for Trump), and among those who voted for him were highly educated attorneys, artists, doctors, and therapists. Usha Vance is a Yale-educated practicing attorney. Ivanka Trump is a successful, albeit sketchy, businesswoman. And if I had the time, energy, and wasn’t fighting a sinus infection, I could list off a dozen more.

They aren’t a bunch of racist goons

In the immediate aftermath of Trump’s victory, I got hit with messages insinuating that anyone who voted for Trump must be some backwater Appalachian who wanted to repeal the 13th Amendment. This stance is completely undermined by the fact that record numbers of Black and Latino voters showed up to vote for Trump.

This is not some kind of mistake or statistical noise. After Mitt Romney lost the 2012 election, the GOP made calculated efforts to win back Black and Latino voters. They softened their messages about immigration and bolstered messages that offered Black and Latino men some dignity (i.e., you don’t need to rely on the government to live independently.) Unemployment went down, and wages increased. Despite the mantra of abolishing the police going around liberal circles in 2020, the GOP caught onto the fact that black communities didn’t actually want to abolish the police.

They’re not a bunch of backward religious hicks

It is generally true that conservatives are more likely to be religious, although this is increasingly less common than it was in the early 2000s. Since 2007, there has been a steady increase in religiously unaffiliated people, but that isn’t to say that the religiously unaffiliated have suddenly seen the light and wandered off to the left. While religious belief is still a pretty good indicator of where people might land on politics, at least 15% of religious “nones” (including atheists) consider themselves to be conservative, and 40% consider themselves to be moderate.

As for myself, I actually know quite a few atheists who voted for Trump. When I asked why, a lot of it came down to preferring his economic policy, wanting a stronger global presence, and being turned off by the cultural issues of the left.

They’re not stupid, stupid

A couple of years ago, I was on a work trip to a small southern Utah town. I was working for a performing arts organization, and we were putting on classical pop-up concerts throughout the state. One guy showed up — a real character — a shirtless Black guy in his early twenties wearing a MAGA hat and dancing to Beethoven as though he were at a club.

My colleagues (and I hate to admit, myself) were mortified. Didn’t he know that Donald Trump was a racist?!

Looking back on it, I realize this was some pretty patronizing racism on my part. We assumed he was a poor, ignorant Black man who needed the hand-holding of educated white women in order to come to the correct conclusion about who to vote for. In reality, he was probably just an eccentric dude who benefitted from the Trump administration’s economic policies.

I think someone finally found him a shirt to wear.

These are the reasons your friends ACTUALLY voted for Trump

Take a deep breath because your Trump-voting dad is about to sound less insane.

Kamala Harris was a terrible candidate

The Dems made a huge mistake when it came to nominating Kamala Harris. She did not have broad appeal; she could barely articulate any of her policy positions beyond the definition of a Rorschach test; she never attacked the failings of the Biden administration; she dodged questions; she picked a bewildered (albeit nice guy) candidate as a VP pick; she couldn’t identify with blue-collar voters; and the list goes on.

There is an argument to be made that Joe Biden should have gotten out of the race way earlier, but even if he did, she was still an unexciting candidate in a field of Gretchen Whitmers and Josh Shapiros. There were no amount of celebrity endorsements or fundraising or White Women for Kamala Zoom calls that were going to make her a desirable one. And before anyone pipes up in the comments and says, “It was because she was a woman of color!” I honestly think that Nikki Hayley, with her clear policy positions and relatable demeanor, would have wiped the floor with her.

Joe Biden was a terrible president

People are quick to point out all the small victories of the Biden Administration — limited student loan forgiveness, insulin prices, etc. But that doesn’t make up for the massive disapproval ratings he had for the majority of his presidency. Harris was a part of his administration and was not exactly treated like an equal partner on the team. She did PR stunts, ran interference at a very messy border, and was mostly known for her word salad soundbites.

If the Democrats wanted to win this election, they should have pushed Biden out earlier and had an open primary.

They hate being treated like they are weak and fragile because they are an “oppressed group”

For the people who are still reeling over the number of Black and Latino voters who turned out for Trump, allow me to offer some context.

Among liberal social circles, people talk about Blacks and Latinos as though they are victims. I have heard white liberals say truly repugnant things about Black people when they don’t vote or behave in a way they think they should. They advocate for policies, like abolishing the police, which the majority of them do not want. They call them names they do not like. They constantly roll them out to be the quaint mascot of the social cause du jour and wheel them back into the closet once they talk too much. Then, they have the audacity to say they do this because they are tolerant and empathetic.

In reality, they are so far separated from the poor and communities of color that they don’t realize they have progressively less in common with them each and every election.

They’re scared of the current geopolitical threats

A friend confided in me recently that although she was disgusted by Trump’s personal behavior, she voted for him because she was worried we wouldn’t have a strong enough presence on the global stage. This wasn’t necessarily because she thought he was a strong leader but rather because he was a bit of a loose cannon, and hopefully, no one would test him that much.

With Russia encroaching on Ukraine, Israel under threat of being wiped off the map, and China flexing its muscles, national defense is a high priority, and Harris did not project that strong image.

The economy is trash

Critics of this argument will say that inflation rates, overall, are down, and that people need to just relax. It’s a lot harder to argue the feelings of people who can barely afford a house, despite the inventory being available, and who just started driving Uber to make sufficient grocery money. During at least the first half of Trump’s administration, people made some economic gains, and while I can’t fully explain the failings of the Biden administration’s economic policy and whether it was circumstance or his own directives, your average voter is not going to care, but they will remember that they felt less stressed about money during the Trump administration. Moreover, Harris barely touched this issue when confronted by it.

They don’t understand the left’s most unhinged cultural issues

For the longest time, the left has gone completely unchecked on their social agenda and has not had to actually defend beliefs that, to those who don’t share them, seem completely alien. Their rhetorical muscles have atrophied.

Take, for example, transitioning gender dysphoric children. This seems like a straightforward civil rights issue to many on the left. Why would people want to punish children who are just trying to be themselves, right? Especially after the hard-won battle to legalize gay marriage.

In reality, 60-70% of Americans are bewildered by this issue. And while they may be 100% on board with ensuring transgender adults don’t get fired from their jobs or lose their housing when they transition, demanding that insurance companies fund largely experimental procedures on people not old enough to drive a car or drink a beer is a much harder sell. (Especially when the results of said procedures include atrophied genitals, brittle bones, infertility, underdeveloped brains, and the lack of the ability to have an orgasm.)

Too often, when well-meaning non-believers raise questions about this, they are met with either, “Shut up, bigot!” or “The kids will kill themselves if they don’t transition!!” The first is not very convincing, and although the second response is dramatic, it doesn’t bear out in either of the arenas of science or common sense.

Another area where lefty cultural beliefs have failed to gain mainstream traction is with the US defense of Israel and the rising levels of antisemitism. Post Oct. 7, some of the most extreme voices in the party celebrated the attacks that killed 1,200 people. Despite being the #BelieveWomen party, talk show host Briahna Joy Gray effectively demanded rape kits from the victims of the attacks. College campuses erupted into almost nonsensical violence, led by students and teachers who barely understood the history of the region, believing the plight of the Palestinians to be at all similar to what American slaves and native tribes experienced.

I have yet to see anyone getting performatively enraged by Syria’s killing of over 350,000 people. But as soon as Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East and a staunch US ally, launches a defensive attack on a country who wants to wipe every Arab and Jew off its face, the most extreme voices on the left were outraged and crying blood libel.

Now, it’s not that either of the positions above are clear cut or are beyond reproach, but those who can’t understand why people would vote for Trump can hardly see this. And while pediatric gender issues is hardly a top issue for your average voter, the ideological well it was dug from was already tainted and left a bad taste in a lot of voters’ mouths.

I still think democracy is at risk

I woke up the morning after the election to fireworks going off at about 12:30 a.m. It scared my dog under the bed and honestly made me think that a gunfight started outside. I relaxed after hearing that crackle-spark sound, realizing it was just some yahoo celebrating the election (in the parking lot right next to my bedroom window, mind you.)

After I settled down and got back into bed, a sense of dread came over me. I have no judgment for the people who voted for Trump. My friends and family who did did so in good faith and with some reluctance. But I do not hesitate to say that I still think he is bad for democracy, and I think most of my Trump-voting friends agree with me.

More worrisome, it looks like we’ll have a Republican majority in the House and Senate. Not that a Republican-anything necessarily perturbs me, but I am very concerned that the President, Senate, House and Supreme Court will move through unbalanced measures completely untempered by an adversarial point of view.

I worry with JD Vance — who I think is a duplicitous hack who will stop at nothing to obtain power — with his isolationist tendencies, will throw our allies to the wolves and let Russia, China and Iran bully smaller countries.

Most of all, I worry that Trump is out for blood.

Earlier this year, I led my local Republican precinct meeting. I led the group in a discussion about who should be sent to caucuses, and a socially progressive young gay man who stumped for Trump in his first election was one of the nominees. When questioned about his stances, it became apparent that he had grown suspicious of Trump and did not want him to be the nominee. His reasoning? He was only in it to get back at the people who pushed him out of office in the first place.

Trump’s potential hit list is long. A LOT of people criticized him in the interim years, and with a majority GOP legislative body and with his presidential immunity potentially in play, he could be more bulletproof than we think.

But only time will tell, and I hope I’m wrong.