Who IS Voting for Mr. Trump?

As the campaign for president wanders curiously forth, one of the recurrent themes is the characterization of those who are voting for Donald Trump.

Apparently, in that view (which the media choose to perpetuate in their slavish devotion to the Clinton campaign), we are bigoted, misogynistic, racist fools clinging, as Barack Obama once stupidly declared, to our guns and our religion.  And we are following, or at least voting for, a man who shares all those traits.

Now, I am one who cringes when presidents do their State-of-the-Union addresses and single out someone they have brought to the audience, someone who has experienced the exact crisis they are trying to bleed the taxpayers to squeeze out more to pay for.  I cringe when on the campaign trail, a candidate will say "... and I support payments for people with blah-blah disease, like Mrs. Etaoin Shrdlu of West Overthere, Wisconsin whom I met with yesterday ...".

I cringe because I hate using one person as "evidence" that something is good for a huge group or the whole population, or as evidence of anything.

But I do not support the characterization of Trump voters, the one that the media are trying to foist on us to try to make it embarrassing to vote for him.  And if I have to be an example, well, at least I can explain why I actually do plan to vote for him.

First, I am not a bigoted, misogynistic, racist fool who clings to his guns and his religion.  I am indeed a religious man, meaning that I am a strong but very flawed Southern Baptist with the faith that I am forgiven by Him for my flaws.  I may, or I may not have guns; that's no one's business but mine and the Commonwealth of Virginia.

I am neither bigoted nor misogynistic; I take every person I meet at face value, and neither add nor subtract value from that assessment based on their race or gender.  Jerks come in all colors and equipment, and so do great leaders.  Nor do I believe in either prejudging or providing any advantage to anyone based on that race or gender, or particularly rewarding or punishing anyone for what was done 150 years ago.

And I am not a fool.  I don't know what the standard is against which one judges whether someone is or is not a fool, but I am not an uneducated man (I have a degree from M.I.T.), I have had professional careers in both the arts and in technology, have started five companies in my life, and have enough facility in my native language to have written, at this count, 472 columns for this site alone.

I am that guy, and I will be voting for Donald Trump.

I am voting for him because I see both the problems in our nation and the world, and the problems in our nation amongst those who are supposed to address the problems in the nation and the world.  We have radical Islamist terror; we have an ultimate energy problem.  We have what is supposed to be the leading nation in the free world $20 trillion in debt. 

We have not "creeping" government but "overwhelming" government.  And we have the members of that government, Democrat and Republican alike, are entrenched in that system.  They are more benefited by the large government's continuity, than they are committed to shrinking it to what is mandated by the Constitution -- and to what we can actually afford.

Hillary Clinton is not only the classic version of that entrenchment and entitlement, but she has shown herself to be completely corrupt and habitually untruthful, as well as incompetent when handed the reins of power -- an unbelievably poor combination.

Donald Trump is the one person who calls out the entrenchment of the power elite in Washington for who they are and for how they make their decisions.  He, at least, says out loud that their interest is not necessarily the interest of the USA and the American taxpayer.  When push comes to shove, he is the candidate who has said where his interests are, and that those interests are in favor of the taxpayer rather than the continuity of power.

I'm not a bigoted, misogynistic fool, and I'm voting for Mr. Trump because, in this election, he is the candidate more closely aligned with my perception of what needs to be done with and to the American government.

Call me what you like.

Copyright 2016 by Robert Sutton
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