I am writing this post for the Althouse blog commentariat. When I comment on posts there, I often feel compelled to explain my background and provide some context of where my perspective is coming from. This is annoying for 2 reasons: 1) it’s boring and 2) few believe me. Maybe this post will help. At least hopefully it inspires me to stop explaining who I am every time I comment.
I grew up in a normie Republican household (pro-business, pro-market, anti-union, pro-strong military, anti-empire) and married someone who grew up in a normie Republican household too. After 3rd party voting in college in 2000, and an anti-Iraq War vote for Kerry in 2004, I grew up and registered as a Republican, voted for McCain in 2008 then Romney in 2012.
When Trump emerged as a Republican possibility in 2015, I thought it was absurd but found him funny. As 2015 became 2016, I found him more con man than funny, but still silently enjoyed the chaos he was creating in the typically boring political process. When it was voting time, I was like, I can’t vote for this guy, but I can’t vote for Hillary effin’ Clinton. I told my wife I was thinking of not voting. She told me that was a cop out. She voted for Trump. I voted for Clinton.
I remained a registered Republican in 2018, voted for DeSantis for FL governor, despite his cringey TV ad with his kids building a toy wall. My vote was more about being annoying with the Democrats, what was going on with the Supreme Court, how abhorrent I thought the personal attacks on Kavanaugh were. How annoyed with the media repetition of the word “credible” to describe the accusations, when they didn’t seem credible to me at all. When covid hit, I was very happy FL the governor we had.
(At the time I thought what the Republicans did to Garland was suspect but fair enough, while what Dems did to Kavanaugh was over the line. As time goes on, I sort of see what happened to Garland as worse than I originally took it, growing more understanding of the Dem strategy on Kavanaugh. Because, hey, at least Kavanaugh made it thorough. I still find the strategy of personal attack on Kavanaugh more distasteful than the strategy of the procedural gimmick pulled on Garland.)
When it was time for the 2020 primaries, I changed my registration to Democrat. Didn’t feel it was enough to vote against Trump, I ought to join the other team and keep the Sanders/Warren wing out of power. I have never felt at home on the Democrat side, but as long as Republicans are under Trump’s influence, the party is telling me I am not a Republican.
Look, I didn’t like the summer of 2020. The left seems to lose its ability to understand statistics when it comes to race and crime and economics. But covid proved the left didn’t have a monopoly on innumeracy. And Trump brought populist/protection economic lunacy to match the socialist tendencies of the far left. Except this time it was taking over the center right, not relegated to the far left like socialism/communism is.
(Though I am increasingly worried the left’s only persuasive-to-the-electorate argument is the Bernie left to oppose the Trump right, at which point I guess I’ll hide in a Mercutio “plague on both your houses” cave.)
My wife is not very online and remained a normie Republican. So have my in-laws. My dad died years ago, and especially after covid, my mom has moved closer to QAnon than normie. She would fit in nicely among the Althouse commentariat. Many of her brothers and sisters, my aunts and uncles, have too. My 70 y/o uncle with asthma didn’t get the covid vax and died of covid. They think covid and the vax was a scam, and it’s the doctors' fault he died because he didn’t get ivermectin.
I argued about stats a few times with my mom, I work in data & analytics, I try to be calm and measured and explain things. She’s not receptive. I'm obviously not very persuasive. She told me there’s a battle between good and evil, and that Trump is on the side of good. Don’t think there’s any convincing her, so I’ve backed off. Her being on her own so long after my dad dying obviously makes her susceptible to the empty promises of a con man in my opinion. I have never said that to her. I love her, she did an amazing job raising me, she is an amazing grandmother to my kids (when she’s not telling them the moon landing is fake). I treat her with love and empathy as she ages. I am a year away in age to how old (read: young) my dad was when he died. Life is too short to argue with your mom about politics, I want to enjoy the hopefully decades remaining of her in my and my family’s lives.
This post is not my manifesto on Trump. I will simply say, I oppose Trump on form and substance. On substance: I am pro-free trade and anti-protectionism. On form: I am pro-clear communication and anti-obfuscation. I might add details to this post over time if need be. And maybe I’ll write that manifesto some day, just not today.
I hope this helps. Maybe it will help one or two who happen to read it. It certainly helped me to write.
Update 3:12p
Although I’m not writing my Trump manifesto, rereading what I wrote a few hours later, I realize I could elaborate a bit.
During Trump’s first term, I felt “the resistance” overblown, the obsession of not “normalizing” him misguided, the obsession with Russia dumb, even if Russia spent a few hundred thousand dollars on Facebook ads, I wasn’t going to get worked up about it. The accusations of him being a Russian asset came across as desperate and absurd.
My model of Trump is one of the diva wide receiver. You know, the guy that goes for 1500 yards, 100 catches and 15 TDs, but won’t keep his mouth shut. Fans are like, he’d be perfect if he just shut up and played ball. Thing is, the production and the talking go hand in hand. It made him who he is, you have to accept tthe diva WR for who he is, warts and all. Most of the fans tolerate his antics to get his production, I assume there’s a minority amused by his antics. Trump is the diva WR of politicians, the antics are part of it, you can’t wish those away as a fan of his. And I’m sure many of his fans enjoy the antics anyway.
I voted against him in 2020 because I still found his policies incoherent and his management style chaotic. On January 6, I was busy working, I really wasn’t paying attention. My wife told me about it when I got home. I probably read a few articles, watched a few videos, and moved on with my life.
Without giving it too much thought, my initial reaction was the accusations of insurrection were absurd, it was likely a protest, turned riot, turned dumb trespassing, not some realistic attempt to overthrow the government. I figured the environment of the summer of 2020 raised the temperature of protest in this country, and Jan 6 likely wouldn’t have escalated had it not been for BLM’s precedence. Granted, I still thought Jan 6 rioters were dumb, and storming the capital was worse than most of the BLM stuff.
Preparing for the 2024 election, I can’t believe I was too busy with work and family to have paid attention to what Trump was doing in Nov 2020 to Jan 2021. The fake elector plot was the worst part. Anyone that thinks it was anything like Hawaii 1960 is being intentionally ignorant. And I realize what a heroic act Pence performed, and how JD Vance pledged to do the opposite. And I started to rethink all my casual acceptance of Trump’s nonsense. I came to view his actions after losing the 2020 election as unpatriotic. A true patriot would have conceded the results and moved on. He continues to claim, without evidence, that he won the 2020 election. And for that, I cannot support him.
