To the Editor:
I have argued with friends and family about their support of Trump. The arguments flowed from my opinion that people usually act in their own best interest, usually in their best economic interest. And, my family are generally middle class working people. Trump’s policies and changes to government not only do not help middle class people, they actually harm and erode the financial stability of families, ie. gutting the Affordable Care Act without replacing it with anything, thus displacing 20 million people off insurance or making it unaffordable or getting rid of government regulations that keep our water, food, and air safe or allowing logging and mining in our national parks.
But, yesterday I read an opinion online that explains it. Trump supporters do not support him because of what he does for them, they support him because they love what he does against people they fear or do not like.
Trump is doing bad things to black and brown people and Trump supporters have been told to fear and dislike those people. Trump is doing bad things to the media and press and Trump supporters have been told that the media lies and is “fake news.” Trump rails against China and Trump supporters have been told that China steals jobs (actually American companies sent those jobs to China to save money). That is why Trump support is so hard to shake. We cannot appeal to their self interest. They do not care about self interest – they just care that Trump fights things they fear and dislike. There is one way to shake them.
Try to get them to quit listening to Hannity, Tucker Carlson, Rush Limbaugh and others who put these fears and dislikes into their minds. It is all false; but Trump supporters do not hear anything else. I still think our kids and grandkids could do the job – they need to come down to The Villages and re-program their grandparents televisions to block Fox.
Andrew Simmons
Village of Sunbury of Glenbrook
