Conditional Love

By Geoffrey Carter

Artwork by Michael DiMilo

It’s almost over. We’re just waiting for Donald Trump to be done with his tantrum. I’m sure he’ll file a couple more lawsuits, but that’s just posturing. He lost the election. Despite his promise that “you’ll have to drag me kicking and screaming” from the White House which—hopefully—won’t be the case, come January 20^th, he’ll be gone. But if he chooses to go that route, I’m sure the Secret Service will be happy to assist him from the premises.

This behavior is hardly presidential, but it’s hardly surprising. Donald Trump has shamed our country with his ineptitude, his lying, his cheating, his negligence, his stupidity, and his use of the office of the presidency for personal gain. He has mocked the disabled, fed into racist hate groups, and been responsible for tearing children from their families. Yet, somehow, after a long list of these—and many other—transgressions, Trump still garnered over seventy million votes in the recent election. He narrowly lost Wisconsin and Michigan and is currently behind in Georgia by a razor-thin margin. This is an election Trump could have very well won, and that begs the question—how? 

How was this election not a landslide for Joe Biden? Electing Donald Trump for his first term was almost (but not completely) understandable. Even though he showed himself to be a loudmouth, a bully, and a misogynist, some voters thought he was a good businessman and might help the economy. We learned later he was really a fraud, a cheat, and has the business sense of a ripe banana. But, for a working-class electorate that felt unappreciated and ignored by Washington, D.C., Trump embodied a possibility of a government that would recognize and help the little guy. And even after four years of a term that has left over 230,000 Americans dead, 13 million unemployed, and countless others without health insurance—somehow, for some reason—seventy million people voted for him. Again.

In his first speech to the nation, President-Elect Biden has called for an end to political partisanship and legislative gridlock. He called for both parties to cross the aisle to create jobs, fix the infrastructure, fight for racial justice, stop the pandemic, and ensure health care for all. While no one I know is terribly optimistic about bipartisanship actually happening, it is still an aspiration worth striving for. The problem is that the ideological, and epistemological, divide in this country is as pronounced and deep as ever. This begs the question of exactly how we start the process of reconciliation. We could begin by trying to understand each other, to know our opponents. So, who got behind Donald Trump—and why?

I know a large bloc of Trump supporters are stalwart Republicans who would vote for that party’s candidate no matter who it might be. I know another segment of his supporters that have been doing very well financially during his tenure and who are not ones to vote against their own self-interest. They’re selfish and arrogant, but—still—this isn’t the crew that goes to the mass rallies. 

Trump’s appeal to the largest part of his base may lie in the very essence of what so many others find repugnant in him—his refusal to listen to anyone—advisors, experts, family, or friends—and his macho posturing, particularly his unwillingness to admit when he’s wrong. This is a man who has always done whatever he wants whenever he wants without any fear of consequence. He has made himself answerable to no one and has never taken responsibility for any of his actions. He’s said as much. Donald Trump has bragged openly about abusing women and cheating the tax system. He is, in the most basic and selfish sense, and—ironically—the epitome of freedom.        

Like a mythic outlaw from the wild West, Trump makes his own rules, takes what he wants, and mows down anyone who gets in his way. To folks locked into a dead-end lifestyle with no hope of improvement, he must seem like a larger than life presence promising to protect them from what they fear the most: change. In a country that has long distrusted intellectualism, his censure of the free press and epidemiologists who force people to mask up and stay home must have seemed courageous. 

During his first term in office, Trump routinely condemned immigrants, minorities, and other whatever ethnic group caught his attention. He refused to repudiate white hate groups.  He called other countries “shitholes”. To his followers, Trump must have seemed like a generous monarch assuring his loyal subjects that he would protect them from the barbaric hordes. Trump, who—to give him credit—is a master marketer, deliberately created a cult of personality; he demanded complete allegiance, refutation of those who questioned him, and a belief that he is their leader. And he got that loyalty.

I think I can understand why people might have voted for this man. I understand the despair and frustration of working hard and getting nowhere, of not having decent health care, or watching everything you’ve worked for slowly erode. I think they—in their heart of hearts—may have thought Trump was fighting for them. But my empathy stops there. 

I cannot understand how an American with the most basic understanding of civics or even a dollop of common human decency could still support Donald Trump, or, by proxy, the Republicans. He is, by any definition, a heinous human being. He does everything we teach our children not to do—he lies, cheats, steals, bullies, and abuses others. He does not follow the golden rule. He should never have been elected. 

Americans have to return to the touchstone of our democracy in order to begin the bridging of our differences. We first have to see each other as we really are, and we have to help each other. We have to welcome strangers to our shores. We have to help the less fortunate. We have to care. These qualities are at the heart of the American ideal. Understanding this is how we start to heal. Understanding this has to be non-conditional.

I might understand why some many voted for Trump, but that doesn’t make it right. And, deep down, I think they know that, too. I certainly hope so.