They have been rumored, and caught in dubious, fuzzy photos, but does an intelligent, rational Donald Trump supporter really exist? The quest continues…
In my constant quest to find someone, anyone, who can defend their support of Donald Trump with a substantive argument rather than the emotional, nonsensical rationalizations I have heard and read so far, I came upon a USA Today essay by “Weekly Standard” contributing right-winger Charlotte Allen—she is kind of like Ann Coulter, but not funny— called “Why a Stanford grad joined the Trump revolt.” I was momentarily thrilled, then my hopes were immediately dashed. The answer to the headline’s question is simply “Because graduates of prestigious schools can be just as irresponsible and ignorant as anyone else.” Her pathetic essay proves it.
To begin with, appeal to authority is a lazy debate fallacy (“Proposition X is valid because Authority A says so”—you know, like “bats are blind because Neil De Grasse Tyson says so”…), but appealing to your own authority is ridiculous. “I went to Stanford, and I voted for Donald Trump. So did my husband. He went to Yale,” Allen begins. The required response: Who the hell cares? The only people who think a degree means you are smart are dumb people, some of whom have impressive degrees themselves.
Now, the essay could have been so dazzling in its pro-Trump logic that it simultaneously redeemed Trump supporters and the two schools the piece embarrasses. It was not.
The essay begins with the boot-strapping argument that it isn’t ignorant and irresponsible to vote for Trump because in Massachusetts a lot of educated people voted for him. “Low-information voter” doesn’t mean uneducated voter, however. It means people who aren’t paying attention, or who filter out information they don’t want to hear, or who are informed in some areas but get their political news from partisan websites and cable stations. Are my Facebook friends who keep posting a viral challenge that “I’m for Hillary and unless you have hard evidence, don’t start with me” not low-information voters because they graduated from first tier colleges? How can anyone paying attention fail to recognize the hard evidence indicting Hillary’s character, trustworthiness and honesty? The same applies to degree-holding Trump supporters. They may have some serviceable gray matter, but they are still willfully ignorant. The fact that they have the capability to be better citizens just makes their conduct less excusable. I have an old friend from college who lost about half his cognitive function to a closed-head injury. I won’t blame him if he’s a Trump supporter. Well, not too much.
Then Allen goes on to rail about free trade and illegal immigration. Yes, we know, Charlotte, but what does that have to do with Donald Trump’s fitness to be President? Nothing. So we end up with this:
“Trump promises to turn America into a country that does what nations ought to do: Put the interests of its own citizens first. That’s why he has promised to build a wall along our southern border and to change our tariff practices to comport with export-import reality. He has also managed to grow the Republican Party, apparently generating record primary turnouts and inspiring thousands of onetime Democrats to switch to the GOP. That’s why my husband and I will be casting our ballots for Trump in November should he become the Republican nominee. Some would call that “anger.” I call it “hope.”
The word you are looking for, Charlotte, is “insanity.” So a candidate proves himself worthy of trust based on what he promises, then? That’s it? That’s your Ivy League-trained rationale? Well, heck, I can find an innocent, honest 14-year old whiz who will make equally attractive promises who has none of Trump’s pathologies–why not vote for him? At least there’s a chance that he won’t leave carnage in his wake. Didn’t the Republican officials you’re so angry at make promises too?
Every single thing about Trump—his rambling, disconnected speech, his boasting, his crudeness, his meanness, his addiction to tit-for-tat, his thuggish conduct at rallies, his lies, his misogyny, his narcissism, his avoidance of policy details, everything—screams that the man is unstable, unqualified, untrustworthy, and not very bright (and he has some fancy degrees too!), but because he promises to “put the interests of its own citizens first,” that makes him a rational choice for the nation’s President, and all the flashing red warning lights saying “RUN AWAY!” should be ignored.
That’s it. That’s the rationale of these self-proclaimed “smart people.”
They are idiots, and my desperate search for a thoughtful Donald Trump supporter continues.
Ethics Alarms 
It’s a conumdrum. As much as I dislike Trump who might turn out to be the Mussolini of America, I dislike and distrust Hillary even more. I think among educated voters who support Trump, there is a visceral dislike of establishment candidates like Kasich. If there is a brokered convention, I can almost guarantee that Trump’s supporters will bolt the party. Then we may find up with our first Socialist president. Ugh!!!
Let them bolt. Simple as that. A party that relies on fools needs to reinvent itself anyway. The talk of “the establishment” reminds me too much of the Sixties.
“These are the times that try men’s souls . . .” ~Thomas Paine
The “wall” gets me every time. Right in the gut. Of all the simple-minded, asinine, inhuman, Tower-of-Babel, 2,000-mile nightmares. Why not just put out a call for anyone to bring his or her rifle and ammo along, stake out a spot along the border and just every shoot man, woman, child or armadillo that comes into their sights? That’s the new American way.
Wait—you’d dare to argue with a Yale grad???
Argue with her? Hell, no. I make it a rule never to argue with four-year-olds, drunks or fence posts.
Don’t shoot the armadillos, they carry the Bubonic Plague.
Actually, they carry leprosy. My guess would be that they have very few fleas…all that armor, you see…very little hair.
Perhaps having to climb over a leprosy-plagued heap of armadillo carcasses would discourage illegal immigration. It’s got to be more effective than anything the Democrats have proposed.
But the Democrats don’t want to discourage illegal immigration.
“his rambling, disconnected speech, his boasting, his crudeness, his meanness, his addiction to tit-for-tat, his thuggish conduct at rallies, his lies, his misogyny, his narcissism, his avoidance of policy details, everything—screams that the man is unstable, unqualified, untrustworthy, and not very bright”
Why don’t the Trump opponents focus on these glaringly obvious faults? Instead they call him a racist and bigot and hater because he questions the efficacy of unlimited illegal immigration or our traveler screening procedures. He is always attacked for the few reasonable things he’s concerned about instead of the tons of horrible characteristics he displays all the time.
And thanks for taking this opinion piece and exposing it for it’s inanity. When I saw the headline, I had no interest whatsoever in reading it. Not the Trump part, the Stanford part is what put me off. More of the “My SATs were better than your SATs.”
Because a lot of the Trump opponents are equally idiotic. They default right to racist, hater, and bigot because those are the nastiest insults thy know, not getting that Trump, and a lot of his supporters, simply don’t give a damn.
My latest approach to this year’s election of Hillary is to reason that I have a dilemma: By voting, which is the only legal thing I can do toward getting rid of unacceptable candidates, I can get rid of only one unacceptable presidential candidate at a time; I cannot get rid of two of them simultaneously (unless some criminal helps my vote to be counted more than once, somehow, but that would be useless anyway because one vote tally would merely negate another). Therefore, in the November general elections, I choose to get rid of Hillary with my one vote, in the event that Trump is the likely next highest vote-getter to her. I further reason that, in the infinitesimally small likelihood that Trump got elected, I subsequently could join the Ameri-la-la-la-la-la-rican mob in clamoring for his impeachment. He would surely go down, and probably to prison, too.
I know my approach is futile. Hillary is going to be elected anyway. So I will celebrate my opportunity to vote in a “losing” crusade, because my vote (along with countless millions more citizens’ votes) will become meaningless and futile in future elections, too. Leave it to Hillary and the “democratic” party, along with the rotting-to-death remains of the Republican Party, to take care of that. Time for revolution nears. Hillarie Clintoinette: Your and your husband’s necks are looking REAL good…
This could be a catastrophe. Suppose Bernie has more elected delegates than Hillary, but the so-called SUPERDELEGATES give the nomination to Hillary anyway. Democrats now become the official non-democratic party and disintegrate. The Republicans hold a brokered convention, toss Trump (the only really smart thing to do( and go with Cruz or Kasich or some as-yet-unidentified candidate. Then the Repubs have given one last kick in the teeth to the Tea Party people, and disintegrate. The U.S. dissolves into chaos, and Glen Beck’s prophecy of a fragmented bunch of small nations emerges on this continent, true balkanization. This is going to be a very long, hot summer.
I’d vote for the “innocent, honest 14-year old whiz” if thry know how to take advice AND could become 35 instantly,