The New York Times visited Republican country in Western Michigan, where it found a bucketload of disaffected conservatives.
It’s part of what political prognosticator Charlie Cook has dubbed “the red undertow,” the notion that voters aren’t voting for Democrats this year but rather are punishing Republicans—either by voting against them or by merely tuning out and skipping the election.
In its interviews, you get a picture of some of the worst people who —having voted for maniacal President Donald Trump -- are now perfectly okay with tuning out.
“People are just more focused on everyday life,” Lindsay Kronemeyer, a conservative Christian mother of two, told the Times. “I don’t hear the chatter on the Republican side of ‘Trump this, Trump that.’ He’s just not there in my head anymore.”
For starters, that’s better than the alternative; it’s a good thing that they’re not all still rabidly pro-Trump.
But think of how many people can’t just focus on everyday life because they’re being deported, losing their homes, losing their jobs, losing their farms, going hungry, and so on.
People like Kronemeyer let the arsonist into their neighborhood and are now shrugging and walking away because their house wasn’t the one set on fire.
“He’s not making sense,” 80-year-old Jim Pasek told the Times. “It confuses me, and then I just get disgusted and tune out.”
How about being disgusted and voting Democratic, given that, you know, Trump and his party are disgusting?
Pasek voted for Trump twice—helped create chaos and destruction just about everywhere—but sure, just tune out. It would be too much to ask that ol’ Jim clean up the mess he helped make.
“President Trump has been saying, ‘Vote as if I was on the ballot,’ and that’s exactly what I’m going to do—not vote,” 24-year-old Brandon Tremaine told the Times. “You do not campaign on being the ticket of peace and start a war of choice that is directly hurting Americans here at home and gotten Americans killed overseas.”
Tremaine is a graduate student, so you’d think he would know better than to believe a president who was perfectly happy with war his first term.
But sure, don’t vote—that certainly beats sticking with Republicans. But why not clean up your own mess? Tremaine’s definitely off to a fine start in life learning all about personal responsibility and accountability.
The Times also reported that Warren Stewart, a 69-year-old who works restoring old homes, said he likes to believe that Trump is working to restore the country but “is starting to have doubts.”
“Clients often get nervous when the project is only halfway through,” Stewart said, adding that he always assures them that he has a plan.
According to the Times, he “wonders if Mr. Trump does too.”
Trump doesn’t have any plan. Why are we pretending otherwise?
Stewart also told the Times that he would never vote for a Democrat, but “I just spent $60 on $30 worth of groceries and am about to go fill up for $5 a gallon. It feels like they’re stress-testing us.”
They’re not stress-testing you, Warren. That would imply that Trump and the GOP care about you. They don’t care about you enough to test you.—they don’t even care to know that you exist.
But it sure would be nice to simply shrug your shoulders and be like, “Oh well! That whole politics thing didn’t turn out, so I’ll just blissfully tune out!”
But decisions have consequences—which are life or death for many. And unlike conservatives, we actually care, even when it doesn’t directly affect us.
Markos Moulitsas is founder and editor of the blogging website Daily Kos and author of three books.
Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos
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