Why this attitude toward Trump supporters and republican voters is inaccurate and counterproductive.
Yes, our country is experiencing a great divide currently and like it or not, we all have a role in this divide. The headline of this post is the exact thought that screamed through my mind in the first week or two after the election. I am no longer in that emotional space and no longer believe that statement to hold any truth. Aside from being extremely insulting, it also didn’t sit right with me to be reducing complex people to such a simple conclusion. That’s not who I am and as I recognized that and took care of my own feelings of anger, worry, and sadness, I became more aware of the full picture.
Trump supporters are not stupid…and neither are democrats
Yep. I said it and I believe it. Here’s how I came to this conclusion: a lot of conversations with people from many walks of life and reflection on my own “stupidity”.
Currently I work as a therapist with adults ranging in age from 18-73 years old and cover a variety of demographics. I have a number of Trump supporters on my caseload, as well as a half dozen transgender persons, teachers, former military/law enforcement, stay at home moms, college students, blue collar workers, medical professionals, people whose families immigrated here several generations ago and those who are 1st and 2nd generation. I see an average of 37 clients a week and a number of my clients I only see biweekly and some only monthly, so it’s fair to say I meet with about 80 different people a month. As a therapist, I have been trained to put my worldview aside, the lenses that I view the world through based on my own experiences, and allow myself to experience the world view of another. This has helped me to understand how Trump got elected.
I’ve come to recognize that not everyone follows politics and American policy on a daily basis like I do, and that doesn’t make me somehow morally superior. Why not? Because it isn’t as relevant or interesting to everyone as it is to me, or they have other interests or important areas of study. Also, paying very close attention to the details of political policies and policies that affect public administration is literally part of my work as a social worker. Regardless of my current place of employment, as a clinical social worker I have a code of ethics that calls for advocacy for social justice and awareness of the implications of macro policy. If people aren’t subscribed to the same news outlets I am, or listening to a variety of political commentators, they might get their news from whatever station is on at work or at the gym, headlines popping up on their phone/tablet/computer from Apple News or newsfeeds on web browsers, and of course: social media memes and graphics. The result of this is walking away with some information on a situation, but most of the time not the full story and likely more than a few falsehoods.
Another lesson I have learned is that there is a kernel of truth to “most” falsehoods. I say “most” because I would rather say “always”, but I’m sure there is at least 1 exception out there. Following discussions with Trump supporters I google whatever they mention that seems “out there” or “absurd” and I generally find a kernel of truth in what they’ve said. Here are some examples of things I’ve heard that I later discovered had a partial truth:
- Trump cut the copayment for insulin first and Biden took credit by wiping out what Trump did, then doing it himself. This is somewhat true. Biden undid one of Trump’s final actions on health care while president with an executive order when Biden took office. The Biden Administration’s reasoning was Trump’s action did not go far enough because it only applied to patients at Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) and created a paperwork burden for those health centers. Still, Trump did take action on insulin, and Biden did reverse this action with an executive order on Day 1 in office. https://www.policymed.com/2021/10/biden-administration-rescinds-trump-administration-insulin-pricing-rule.html https://www.nachc.org/president-biden-freezes-insulin-epipens-regulation-harmful-to-community-health-centers-and-patients/
- Bidenomics failed to improve the economy. Again, partially true and especially true when we look at the anecdotal evidence of people who struggled financially over the past 4 years. To those people, simply telling them that Biden was solving the problem as felt like their struggles were being ignored and they were being gaslit by democrats. Regardless of how things would have been if someone else were in office or if Biden’s policies caused the economic woes, the fact of the matter is people did experience hardship. Additionally, the raw statistics do paint a pretty grim picture of how the economy fared during the Biden administration. For instance, it is true that “since the start of the Biden Administration, the annual inflation rate has remained above the Fed’s official target of 2 percent for 39 consecutive months, with prices rising by more than 20 percent during that time.” Also, “real wages and benefits have fallen by 3.6 percent since Biden took office”. These quotes come from the article below, written in August 2024. https://internationalbanker.com/finance/bidens-economic-scorecard-overshadowed-by-the-worst-us-inflation-rate-in-40-years/ Another article by the Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee lays out the hardships lower income Americans faced, written at the end of July, 2024. https://waysandmeans.house.gov/2024/07/31/chairman-smith-the-biden-harris-economy-fails-lower-income-americans/
- Democrats didn’t care when Obama fired almost 200 military leaders. This one was a bit shocking to me, as I didn’t remember hearing about Obama firing any generals, yet when I googled “Obama fired generals” I found the following article from 2013: Obama’s Military Coup Purges 197 Officers In Five Years | Investor’s Business Daily While I believe there is a difference between Obama firing those generals and officers and what Trump did this past weekend with firing the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Chief Navy Officer, the headline and parts of the article feel quite parallel. Seeing that helped me to understand why at first glance, Trump firing generals does not seem that alarming or out of the ordinary for his supporters.
Insults and sarcasm do not win arguments
I can’t think of a time when someone changed my opinion about something by calling me stupid or ignorant. Same for using sarcasm to make a point while belittling me for believing the opposite. Democrats have plenty of reasons to create clever memes and arguments right now, and as satisfying as those laughs may be, they do not serve the larger goal of creating change. Neither does highlighting the long term possible outcomes of ideas circulating in the MAGA world.
A lot of the news Trump supporters see call liberals “deranged” because of these long term fears and the lack of awareness of some of the “evidence” they have seen of corruption in the government and social systems. The reality is most of us who have worked in the county or non profit sector have had frustrating experiences with bureaucracy and waste, but the private sector experiences this as well. The problem with the Trump approach is that it throws out the baby with the bath water. When we scream about how wrong this is, all they hear is “democrats don’t think there is a problem, so they are benefitting from fraud or corruption or are completely unaware.” This isn’t the case, but we can see the logic in the argument. So when we begin posting about how layoffs are affecting individual people or how kids with disabilities will be affected by dismantling the Department of Education, they think we are deranged and fear mongering because they do believe something better for those people will come after the restructuring and the funding pauses are temporary. Meanwhile, democrats are also calling Trump supporters crazy and stupid, so no real discussion is actually happening.
Understanding the other side can strengthen your argument
One of the best things that happened in my education was when my 9th grade advanced English teacher gave us an assignment to argue for either the defense or prosecution in the case against Boo Radley in To Kill a Mockingbird. Everyone else in the class was allowed to pick which one they wanted to argue, except for me. I had been so outspoken in Boo Radley’s defense in discussions in class that my teacher instructed me to do the assignment from the perspective of the prosecution. With that one assignment, I learned I was able to create a much stronger argument for the defense once I fully understand the argument of the prosecution. A lot of the fighting on social media right now does not seek to understand the other side and as a result we are just alienating each other. We need to begin seeking to understand if we want to be understood, and that doesn’t happen when we resort to name calling and insults.
Gaining a Fresh Perspective 