Trump As The Golden Calf: How Many Angry, Old, White And Classless Rubes Are There?

UPDATE: Trump's base has now been solidified: the latest endorsement is from ...

The National Enquirer. 

Figures.

“I understand and respect the people who did vote for him. I know many of them. They are not racists or crazies or stupid. While many people call The Donald a fraud or a con-man, there are a lot of voters out there who think they have been conned election after election.” - Carly Fiorina, CPAC - Mar.4)

Ahem, tell that to the rest of the country, Carly. Part of the country that voted George W. Bush into office TWICE, is now making the rest of America dumbfounded with its support of Trump. Trump has now become an obnoxious golden calf: some people's desperate attempt to create a new authority, a new idol because they can't understand America itself and stand stewing in their isolation and (frankly) their stupidity.

It's Follow THE MOUTH, not Follow the Leader. 

Max Ehrenfreund of the Washington Post ...

"... spoke to a number of psychologists and came up with three key sources of Mr Trump's appeal. "We like people who talk big," he writes. "We like people who tell us that our problems are simple and easy to solve, even when they aren't. And we don't like people who don't look like us."

In other words, they'll take loudmouthed white con man "telling it like it is," but don't particularly know (or care) what "it" is. 

Trump Supporters: 

"I have faith that he will learn and develop the policies that will make America the superpower that we want it to be." 

"You get what he really believes in, even if everything that he says isn't what is the right thing exactly."

Unfortunately, Trump is not registering for a class in U.S. Presidency 101 and believes in nothing but himself. The loud Mouth, with all of its insults, crudities, contradictions and outright lies is LOUD. To his supporters, that's what counts. 
Trump Demographics  

The following poll numbers are culled from MSNBC, Real Clear Politics, YouGov, and (Public Policy Polling which is why some categories do not total 100. 

GENDER Male  - 58%
female - 42 %

AGE

Under - 30 2%
30-44 - 14%
45-64  - 50%
65+ - 34%

RACE 

white - 91%


INCOME

Under 50k - 33%

Under 100k - 72%
Over 100k - 28%
Over 100k - 11 %

EDUCATION 

High school degree or less - 43%
College or Postgraduate Degree - 19%

IDEOLOGY

Conservative - 65%
Liberal or Moderate - 20%
Very Conservative  - 13%
Involved with Tea Party  - 32%
In Favor Trump's Ban on Muslims  - 82%
Believe President Obama is a Muslim - 66%
Think Obama Was Not Born in the US - 61%
In Favor of Bombing Agrabah  - 41%
Poor Agrabah. It's the fictional country of Disneys Aladdin. What's next? Annihilating Neverland?

While the polls don't give a clear "typical" Trump supporter, they do look predominantly like uneducated slobs (Demographics #1), angry old white men (Demographics #2) or just plain white trash (Demographics #3). Oh, then there's the evangelical group (Demographics #4)

The Way Things Are

It isn't that Trump's supporters don't have a grip on reality, it's just that they only have a grip on their own reality. The Mouth gives them what they want to hear in the most simplistic terms, keeps them isolated from what's happening in the rest of the country and that's just fine with them. So what if The Mouth has no diplomatic skills? So what if The Mouth has no experience in lawmaking whatsoever? So what if The Mouth might gild everything in the White House and put slot machines in the East Room? Who cares about all that? He's "telling it like it is." 

The reality is that they don't have a clue as to what "it" is. "It" involves experience - the biggest thing lacking in Trump. What if the board of directors of a company were so distrusting of executives, they would not hire an executive to run the company? Trump himself would never hire someone inexperienced (unless, of course, it was for Trump University). 

Another reality, Trump supporters: he has offended so many Americans, so many lawmakers, has gotten such bad publicity (e.g. Trump University class action law suit), that the delegates won in the primaries might change their minds at the last minute. Remember: after the first vote on the floor of the convention, delegates are free to vote for whomever they choose. The RNC could look like Trump- inspired circus clowns after the first contentious vote, hundreds of people shouting at each other, unfettered by their pledges to back Trump. 

Cowboy Diplomacy

Another point the polls make is that Trump supporters care not for any kind of diplomacy on the part of the President. George W. Bush's Cowboy Diplomacy ("Shoot first, ask questions later') has been embedded in their minds since 9/11. That's certainly a hit with the NRA, but with many other countries.

God Is On His Side

So as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and radio and TV hosts like Rush Limbaugh, Greta Van Susteren, Bill O’Reilly, Megyn Kelly, and Sean Hannity ask why evangelicals support Trump – the answer can be found in that poll we did three decades ago. Trump is the “liberator” and “defender” they believe really will “Make America Great Again!”

Another unreasonable position for Trump supporters comes from the evangelicals: he is not the golden calf, but the Messiah, come to rescue them from the enemies of religious freedom. 

That's just what America needs: a crude, egotistical, loud-mouthed Messiah.

Season of Hating, Pt 1: Giving Thanks for an Abundance of Bigotry, Phobias and Racism

Different Fruits of Abundance, Same Flavor: HATE

The Country of NO

While America's Grand Ole Party (GOP) has come to be known as the Party of NO, the same can be said about the country itself.

With the latest flap about Syrian refugees (half of whom are children), the country shows its xenophobia in the worst way. The NYT columnists DAVID D. LAITIN and MARC JAHR proposed a solution (Let Syrians Settle Detroit):

Detroit, a once great city, has become an urban vacuum. Its population has fallen to around 700,000 from nearly 1.9 million in 1950. The city is estimated to have more than 70,000 abandoned buildings and 90,000 vacant lots. Meanwhile, desperate Syrians, victims of an unfathomable civil war, are fleeing to neighboring countries, with some 1.8 million in Turkey and 600,000 in Jordan.

Suppose these two social and humanitarian disasters were conjoined to produce something positive.

But conservatives like Ann Coulter will have none of it: 

"The New York Times Prefers Syrian Refugees Over Black Americans" 

This is the same Ann Coulter who once said "America is the world's most compassionate country."*

The Syrian crisis shows the world that "compassion" is no longer America's middle name.

The Numbers of Crisis and Compassion.

From Worldvision.org:

• 12 million Syrians have fled their homes because of conflict;half are children.
• 4 million Syrians are refugees; most are in Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan.
• Children affected by the Syrian conflict are at risk of becoming ill, malnourished, abused, or exploited. Millions have been forced to quit school.
• More than 700,000 Syrian refugees and other migrants risked their lives this year to travel to Europe.

And we can't won't take in 70,000. 

If the hysteria over refugees has a recent ring to it, consider the plight of Central American Children:

(CNN July 16, 2014)

Earlier this month in Murrieta, busloads of babies in their mothers' laps, teens, 'tweens and toddlers were turned back from a detainee facility.
They were met by screaming protesters waving and wearing American flags and bearing signs that read such things as "Return to Sender."

What's In The Past Cannot Stay In The Past

Recent history (past 100 years**) may be the best view of America's "No!" problem: Chinese Americans, Japanese Americans, Latino and Mexican Americans, African Americans, Native Americans, gay Americans have all felt the sting of intolerance. Communities have killed and battered them while Congresses have rallied against them. Those communities that have given them acceptance, solace and sanctuary (like my city, San Francisco) have been pilloried by Right Wing interests. Pulpits (albeit manned by steadfast Fundamentalist pastors) have demonized them to the point that showing any acceptance labeled a church "heretical" in that it didn't conform to strictly conservative view (read: biblical literalism).

In other words, bigotry, racism, xenophobia (and other phobias as well) are still with us, and our socio-religious-political interests are still fueling them. And while "Return To Sender" attitudes have not been extremely violent, the day may come when violence, to some, may be the only option in exercising their right to hate. 

Abundance vs Abundance

Regardless of all the hatred, the intolerance and the sheer mean-spiritedness brought out of America by people on the Right, America still has an abundance of good to be thankful for. The problem, as some see it, is that the leaders making it a "Country of No"are very greedy, reserving that goodness, that compassion for its own and relatively select few: "we have an abundance of freedoms, powers, money, services and goods - but only for us." 

Only for us. 

* Yes, ironic coming from a woman who constantly refers to herself as a "mean-spirited bitch" and who, when it comes to compassion and charity, makes Scrooge look like a combination of Mother Theresa and Santa Claus.