For context, I'm writing this on the evening of November 5th 2020, two days after Election Day, and with that election leaning towards Biden but still officially undecided.
I've been caught off guard over the last couple of days by the amount of fear I've encountered from Trump voters. I live in Mississippi, and most of my friends and relatives live in Tennessee or Louisiana, so most of the people I know voted for Trump. Tuesday I was heartened by the smashing of one assumption. Mississippi of course voted overwhelmingly for Trump but also voted overwhelmingly to adopt a new state flag and get rid of the one with the Stars and Bars on it. We also voted overwhelmingly to remove the Confederate monuments from public display and move them to more suitable locations like museums. I was proud of my state for passing those measures because we've had no major protests here, nor any massive campaigns designed to shame people into taking either of those measures. For most of us, we voted to do those things as soon as the opportunity was presented. So much for the assumption that Trump supporters are a bunch of racists who just want to see non-white people held down; there's genuine concern among MOST Trump voters for the well-being of their communities and the comfort of their neighbors. There are racists who support Trump, of course, and I know a couple, but for the vast majority racism has nothing to do with it.
In fact, I've found that most of the people I know support Trump out of fear of the Radical Left. This wasn't surprising to me, but what did surprise me - and may surprise you, too - is just how much power they genuinely believe the Radical Left has, and especially what they'll suddenly be able to do with Biden in office, assuming he wins. I thought what I assumed most intelligent people thought, that Biden is a centrist "Clintoncrat" favoring more intervention overseas, more global trade agreements, stepping up government power, and all those other things I don't really approve of. But it turns out that it's not just a political talking point when these people think Biden is some agent of a socialist agenda who's going to ruin our country and hand control over to the EU or something like that. And the way I know that this is what people genuinely believe, is that I've spent the past couple of days now reassuring people who are genuinely afraid this is what's about to happen. Most of these people aren't conspiracy theorists. I do know two people who see this ongoing vote count as some sort of tactic to steal the election from Trump, but those two aside, everyone else is accepting a Biden victory as an honest victory, and scared to death about the implications.
I'm having to reevaluate my moral position in light of this, because, like most non-Trump-supporters, I've assumed that their continuing support of bad idea after bad idea was a political thing, that they kept repeating the talking points because they just loved their guy so much they didn't want to admit he'd made any mistakes. If they really believed what they were saying however...
They really did support building the wall because they really thought people crossing the border were coming here to commit crimes and then take their ill-gotten booty back over the border.
They really did support the Muslim Ban because they really think all Muslims are terrorists looking to kill us.
They really do think Bernie and AOC are really on the verge of outlawing airplanes and hamburgers.
They really do think a tariff is a good idea because they really think China's engaged in predatory trade practices that are sucking the money out of our country (or whatever wasn't stolen by illegal immigrants, presumably).
They really do support the missile strikes on North Korea, Syria, and the drone attack on Iran because they really do believe the people taken out both bear some responsibility for 9/11 and were in the process of planning the next one.
If you look at all the bad policies Trump's had a hand in, and look at the possibility that his supporters honestly bought into the justifications for them, it's a weird feeling. I feel like I've arrived in Salem right after the witch trials were over only to find that the survivors are still genuinely afraid there are more witches out there. I don't know how to explain to them that a) there aren't and b) there never were any witches in the first place. We all thought the panic over the refugees was thinly disguised racism, because who would ever think poor people fleeing a war-torn country might secretly be hiding dangerous criminals and terrorists in their midst? Now I know people really thought that was the case. So what do I do? You can just dismiss them as idiots the same way we dismissed them as racists, but I don't think that's helpful. Idiots still vote, for one thing, but if people object to something because they're wrong and not because they're terrible people, doesn't that mean there's still hope for them? I think it says that there's a lot of truth to the idea that we're living in different versions of reality.
People are listening when I reassure them that Biden has more in common with Reagan than he does with Bernie, and that if he is secretly being controlled by a Democrat cabal, it's made up of people like Hillary Clinton, not people like Elizabeth Warren. That tells me that we have a short window where people are open to the idea that their view of reality might be wrong. Suddenly their version is a lot scarier than the version I live in, which is prime opportunity for convincing people. They suddenly don't like what they believe. But the other part of the approach - which I've been stressing a lot recently - is presenting them with the facts in a way that doesn't appear threatening. Reality needs to be seen as a welcome escape from Trump World, not another harrowing alternative they also don't want to live in.
