Why I'll Never Sympathize With Regretful Trump Voters

By Charles Pierce, Esquire

02 March 17

 

They brought this disaster on themselves. They must own it.

ne of my best friends from college was down here as a guest of the DNC this weekend. She is a fine daughter of Eastern European immigrants, born and bred in Chicago, and recently retired after decades of doing god's work as a public defender in Cook County, where there is plenty of work for that sort of thing. On Friday, she was assigned to something called The Ethnics Caucus. Neither one of us was real sure what that meant, except, maybe, it meant white people who didn't come from California. God, I love the Democrats.

A while back, I ran out of patience with the endless provision of cookies to the people who looked at the United States of America and decided that just what we needed was to have it run for a while by a Manhattan real-estate grifter and career public nuisance because he was going to bring jobs and money back to a bunch of states he very likely couldn't find on a map. But, in a continuing act of self-criticism that would do the Cultural Revolution proud, ever since the results rolled in last November, America's elite newspapers and news divisions have offered up linespace and airtime as a kind of penance to the "overlooked" and "forgotten" real Americans.

After the first several of these, I was on the verge of recommending that the people running the newspapers and news divisions simply stand themselves up in the town square of Bug Tussle and flog themselves for being educated as well as they are. The sub rosa tone of apology in most of these exercises was revolting.

Holy mother of god, I'm tired of reading quotes from people who live in places where the local economy went to hell or Mexico in 1979, and who have spent the intervening years swallowing whatever Jesus Juice was offered up by theocratic bunco artists of the Christocentric Right, and gulping down great flagons of barely disguised hatemongering against the targets of the day, all the while voting against their own best interests, now claiming that empowering Donald Trump as the man who will "shake things up" on their behalf was the only choice they had left. You had plenty of choices left.

In Kansas, you could have declined to re-elect Sam Brownback, who'd already turned your state into a dismal Randian basket case. In Wisconsin, you had three chances to turn out Scott Walker, and several chances to get the state legislature out of his clammy hands. And, now that the teeth of this new administration are becoming plain to see, it's a good time to remind all of you that you didn't have to hand the entire federal government over to Republican vandalism, and the presidency over to an abject loon on whom Russia may well hold the paper.

You all had the same choices we all had. You saddled the rest of us with misrule and disaster. Own it. I empathize, but I will not sympathize.

And now, of course, the sad recriminations are coming due. There's a lot of buzz about this New York Times story about Juan Carlos Pacheco, a successful restaurateur and solid resident of …wait for it…a small coal-mining town in Illinois. The story is well-written and impeccably reported. (Major tip of the hat to Monica Davey for some great work.) Carlos seems like he's a helluva fella.

How one night last fall, when the Fire Department was battling a two-alarm blaze, Mr. Hernandez suddenly appeared with meals for the firefighters. How he hosted a Law Enforcement Appreciation Day at the restaurant last summer as police officers were facing criticism around the country. How he took part in just about every community committee or charity effort — the Rotary Club, cancer fund-raisers, cleanup days, even scholarships for the Redbirds, the high school sports teams, which are the pride of this city.

Alas, not long ago, something happened to Carlos that's been happening all over the country since Inauguration Day.

On Feb. 9, Mr. Hernandez, 38, was arrested by federal immigration agents near his home, not far from La Fiesta, and taken to a detention facility in Missouri. The federal authorities confirmed that he remained in custody, but would not comment on the precise reason for or timing of his arrest…Immigration officials noted that Mr. Hernandez had two drunken-driving convictions from 2007, a circumstance that could make him a higher priority for deportation. Friends of his say he crossed into the United States from Mexico in the late 1990s and had started but never completed efforts to legalize his status.

His many friends and customers are sad and angry.

The letters have piled up — from the county prosecutor, the former postmaster, the car dealer, the Rotary Club president. In his note, Richard Glodich, the athletic director at Frankfort Community High School, wrote, "As a grandson of immigrants, I am all for immigration reform, but this time you have arrested a GOOD MAN that should be used as a role model for other immigrants." This is an uncomfortable stance for a place like West Frankfort. This county, Franklin, backed Mr. Trump with 70 percent of the vote, largely on hopes, people here say, that he could jump-start the coal industry, which has receded painfully here over decades. Illegal immigration was by no means the most pressing issue for this overwhelmingly white area, residents say. Still, many say they concur in principle with Mr. Trump's wish to be more aggressive in blocking those who seek to sneak across the border. Things grew more tangled when principle met West Frankfort's particular reality, in the form of Carlos. "I knew he was Mexican, but he's been here so long, he's just one of us," said Debra Johnson, a resident. She said she saw a distinction between "people who come over and use the system and people who actually come and help."

And you know what I say?

Shut up.

This is a story about hypocrisy, not about ambivalence.

You fell for a con. Seventy percent of you voted for the very policy that has taken your friend away because you thought the damn coal mines were coming back when everyone has been telling you for years that the coal industry is as dead as Kelsey's nuts and that Donald Trump, Jesus Christ, and J.H. Blair working together couldn't bring it back. Because, I suspect, you know that better than anybody, you channeled your frustration and despair into chants of "Build The Wall!" And, Ms. Johnson? Virtually all of "those people" actually do come here and help. If that head of lettuce on the counter could only talk…

Meanwhile, The Washington Post sent Jenna Johnson out to Iowa, and she drove a couple hundred miles across the state, talking to the locals. What she found was roughly akin to talking to people as they slump their way back to their cars having dropped the rent money in a crooked shooting gallery at the county fair.

But Godat was surprised by the utter chaos that came with the president's first month. He said it often felt like Trump and his staff were impulsively firing off executive orders instead of really thinking things through. "I didn't think he would come in blazing like he has," said Godat, 39, who has three kids and works at the same aluminum rolling plant where his father worked. "It seems almost like a dictatorship at times. He's got a lot of controversial stuff going on and rather than thinking it through, I'm afraid that he's jumping into the frying pan with both feet."

Did Tom sleep through the damn campaign? Why would anyone believe this?

Many Iowans worry Trump might cut support for wind-energy and ethanol programs; that his trade policies could hurt farms that export their crops; that mass deportations would empty the state's factories and meat-packing plants; and that a repeal of the Affordable Care Act would yank health insurance away from thousands. While the hyper-simplicity of Trump's campaign promises helped him win over voters, they are no match for the hyper-complexity of Iowa's economy and values.

Short Answers: yes, he might; yes, they will; yes, this will happen, and yes, best of luck with your next farm accident. The final sentence is a crock. There is nothing complicated about this. "Many Iowans" voted with their eyes open for the guy who doesn't understand their economy and their values, and who will proceed to immiserate their lives in just the way "many Iowans" worry he will. "Many Iowans" voted very stupidly.

On the other end of Clinton County is the tiny town of Lost Nation, where the president received 66 percent of the vote. On Wednesday night, a couple dozen local farmers and union guys gathered to play pool at the Pub Club, situated amid downtown storefronts that once contained a funeral home. (Beer is chilled where bodies were once stored.)

(Ed. Note: I love this joint already.)

"He's doing what he said he was going to do, that's the biggest thing," said Tyler Schurbon, 23, who describes himself as a "progressive Republican" who falls asleep watching Fox News each night. "A lot of people get into the presidency, and they just completely forget what they talked about." Schurbon trims trees for power companies, a full-time union job that pays $60,000 per year and full benefits. He drives a nice pickup truck and bought a two-story farmhouse for $50,000 last year. "That's pretty good living for not having a college degree," Schurbon said.

Thank your union, pal. And, oh, by the way, Iowa is on its way gradually to becoming a right-to-work state. How'd your rep vote on that?

While he doesn't like how politicized unions have become, he's grateful for the wages they negotiated over the years. The Republican-run Iowa Legislature, empowered by Trump's win, voted this month to dramatically scale back the collective bargaining rights of the state's public workers — worrying members of private unions like Schurbon. While others in the bar insist that Trump supports unions, Schurbon doesn't think so: "Nope, he's completely against them."

Well, he's right there.

The tour goes on and we meet a number of people who voted for Clinton, and some immigrants who are genuinely terrified of what might happen to them, some Muslims who are even more genuinely terrified about what might happen to them, and a truck driver who mowed "TRUMP" into his front lawn.

While the older guys in the barbershop worked during the golden age of manufacturing and retired comfortably with pensions, the truck driver says his annual pay has decreased by $5,000 in the seven years he has worked for a dairy company in Marshalltown. Something has to change, and that's why he supports Trump. "He went against the grain — took it up as a hobby and asked the questions no one wanted to ask," he said. "I have never heard of a president getting scolded or put down for upholding his promises."

Tonight, the president will unveil his facsimile of a federal budget and I guarantee you it will make the lives of practically every person in all these stories worse, not better. And, in a few months, when it's really begun to bite, the editors and news directors will send out more expeditions to find out what "real Americans" feel about the disaster they've wrought on themselves, and us. They all had the same choices we did. They all had the same opportunity to inform themselves; I mean, it wasn't like the campaign was under-covered, and it wasn't like the eventual winner hasn't governed precisely the way he campaigned.

Feeling lost and desperate is a terrible thing. But if, out of loss and desperation, you drink 20 cold beers out of the old preparation room and smash your car into a daycare center, the judge is not going to care how lost and desperate you felt. You build your own prisons in this life. You design your own sentences.