[James Brancheau]

I respectfully disagree, Julie. You're not going to persuade a Trump voter based on how you put it. You might actually win more support from the other side by how belligerently you make your own point. Sad, but I believe that to be true.

*Deleted the rest. Not funny enough to not add to the discussion.

[R. S. Gwynn]

Do not support The New Criterion as a matter of conscience, not nomenclature.

[Julie Steiner]

That description does not fit most of the Trump voters I know, James. Just the ones who also voted for Congressman Duncan Hunter.

[That's a joke, of course. I don't personally know anyone who will admit to having voted for Congressman Duncan Hunter. Or at least they won't admit it to me. But I'm sure Hunter did some research into his district's literacy rates before he printed up so many Islamophobic campaign flyers. Even if his team misspelled "Israel" on the last one.]

[James Brancheau]

Hahaha, ok ok, fair enough Julie. Of course you're right. I was mostly messing around there, but my god, voting for that man is beyond my understanding. You know, even outside of ideological considerations. Thanks for the article on Duncan Hunter. What were they thinking, at any point (the crimes to the legal proceedings)?

[John Isbell]

There's that old quotation people attribute to Voltaire, perhaps rightly: "If I can make you believe the impossible, I can make you do the unthinkable." To my mind, that may do something to explain recent GOP voting patterns - for instance, 85% of Alabama's white evangelicals voting for Roy Moore. As they did. My own theory is that Trump came into office insisting on his gibberish inaugural crowd theory because his lizard brain knew what that would do to his supporters' minds - i.e., turn them to mush. Lying eyes, as a poem of mine said a while back. Hence also the daily spoon-fed diet of self-evident falsehoods. It reflects an agenda, and in that, it is evil.

Cheers,
John

[Julie Steiner]

The Duncan Hunter Reality TV Show keeps finding new ways to jump the shark. My eyebrows have been getting quite a workout, from his vaping in Congress to his kids' flying rabbit to blaming his wife for the misappropriation of campaign funds, when some of the misappropriated funds were spent on five of his extramarital affairs (you've gotta give him chutzpah points on that one) to his defending the SEAL accused of war crimes by saying that he was guilty of the same thing.

Hunter may seem to be a fluke, but he's actually a convenient illustration of the Republican Party's tried and true strategy of remaining loyally united behind Republican incumbents, no matter what. Few Republican candidates want to throw their hats in the ring to challenge a Republican incumbent, because the Party leaders really discourage disunity. Republican voters will cheerfully forgive Republican candidates if they are unfaithful to their wives, but they will never, ever forgive them if they are unfaithful to the sanctity of their party's endorsement and can thus be blamed for dividing the vote and allowing a Democrat to win. Given that California has an open primary system--the top two finishers for all state and federal offices except US President advance to the November General Election--Hunter's Republican-dominated congressional district should have had two Republican candidates to choose between in November 2018. But the Republican Party leadership in San Diego County insisted that all of its members needed to unite behind Hunter in the primary election, so the top two finishers in the primary ended up being Hunter (by a landslide), and the Democratic candidate.

Several [Edited to say: Okay, four] Republicans I know in that district, including one who had run against Hunter in the primary, told me that they could not in good conscience vote for either of those two choices in November 2018. And it's not possible to vote for write-in candidates in run-off elections. So they just skipped that contest on their November 2018 ballots. Three of them told me that they had done the same for the Presidential contest, too.

The local Republican Party's strategy might be different in the March 2020 primary if Hunter actually goes to prison, as seems likely--his trial is in September 2019--but I wouldn't count on it. And I won't be at all surprised if Donald Trump pardons Hunter. Out of loyalty, again. Hunter was one of the first two Congressmembers to endorse Trump in 2016. (The other? Chris Collins--also in hot water legally, for insider trading.)

Like Trump himself, Hunter is yet another poster child for the Prime Directive of the modern Republican Party, which is "Never, Ever Apologize or Admit Fault for Anything." (Unless it's "When Caught in a Lie, Just Keep on Lying, and Then Say That the Media's Fact-Checkers Are Biased Against You.")

[Andrew Frisardi]

Originally Posted by Julie Steiner

. . . the Prime Directive of the modern Republican Party, which is "Never, Ever Apologize or Admit Fault for Anything."

Yes, back in the Bush days, I wanted a bumper sticker to read, "Being a Neocon Means Never Having to Say You're Sorry." This was after publications like The Weekly Standard positively ridiculed anyone who thought the Iraq War was a big mistake . . . until (whoops) TWS did too.

A close relation of never having to say you're sorry is the good old-fashioned Freudian defense mechanisms of denial and displacement, as in this episode of McConnell and Graham playing Wheel of Misfortune.

[Mark McDonnell]

voting for that man is beyond my understanding.

Fair enough, James, it's very difficult. But I think it's part of our job as poets and human beings to try. As soon as you start seeing millions of people as an irredeemable mass to be demonised rather than as flawed individuals, you've kind of lost the argument imo * People love a good redemption story, when they can empathise with the individual: rehabilitated murderers, jihadis and white supremacists give TED talks. And yet it sometimes seems the same possibility for change is afforded less to people who put a tick in a box three years ago. This struck me reading Ashley's poem just on met. Moving that poem clumsily into the real world, I imagine we might be in the world of Trump voters there, victims and abusers alike (many apologies to Ashley if that's incorrect). There's absolutely nothing in this line of thinking that is mutually exclusive with greater sympathy for the more obvious victims of Trump's administration. And nothing in it means you shouldn't fervently oppose what they believe and the government they voted for.

*Edit: I'm not saying you're doing this — speaking more generally here.

[Max Goodman]

One problem with "converting someone from deplorability" (and a reason not to completely right off the humanity of all Trump voters) is that we've all got our own facts. As an example: It was widely reported how surprised some of Justin Amash's constituents were “to hear there was anything negative in the Mueller report at all about President Trump.” How would people represented by Republicans who don't have reason to educate them (or by Democrats they've been trained not to trust) learn the truth? And why will they believe me about facts that contradict what they've heard from Fox News and elected representatives?

Trump's wobbliness, his eagerness to satisfy his own short-term emotional needs, may actually strengthen the walls between realities. For instance, voters can now see video of Trump supporters chanting "Send her back" and of Trump calling those people patriots. They can also find video (recorded between the other two) of him saying he didn't like that chant. As news feed algorithms give us what supports our views, a voter won't necessarily see all three. (I know of all three because Trump's self-contradictions support my view of him.) So Trump may be able to give the racists what they want, and satisfy voters who want to think he's trying to discourage racism.

[John Isbell]

It’s also worth remembering that our poor tsar and his bad advisors is a very old trope.

Cheers,
John