Last week, I asked people who voted for Donald Trump to write in and explain why they made that choice. They did!
We got dozens of emails from Trump supporters telling us why they voted the way they did, and I have grouped selections of them into general categories below. Though this is not a scientific sample, it covers the bases pretty well.
So: Why did you vote for Donald Trump?
Against Hillary/ The Democrats
The point of me writing to you is to explain how Trump got elected. People in the middle of the country feel marginalized and forgotten. Had the Democratic party put someone up without the baggage of Clinton. Or someone that had even then remote clue of how to speak to the middle of the country. Or someone with a bit of personality and or charisma, ie Obama. This election wouldn’t have even been close. I think many people voted against another Clinton.
A multitude of reasons. Putting America first probably being the biggest. As far as I’m concerned there was only one choice. I think Hilary Clinton is a criminal. I believe the Podesta sex ring to be a fact. I’m not buying that this is ‘fake news’, because we know what people in power can do to cover things like this up (Catholic Church).
I am a trump supporter. Was he the perfect candidate? Not by a long shot. Did he say some reprehensible things that can’t be excused? Sure. There are some legitimate grievances to have with Donald trump. Him being a sexist racist homophobe is not one of them.
Had you bothered to pay any attention to what was really going on instead of just living In Your echo chamber you’d know he talked about ILLEGAL immigrants. NOT ALL Mexicans. There’s nothing wrong with people trying to come here the right way and the legal way...
Taxes on small businesses, mandating that Christians have to pay for someone else’s abortion, forcing people to buy healthcare with exorbitant premiums, Making dangerous deals with Iran, and constantly calling people sexist racist homophobic transphobic are some of the many reasons why people voted for trump. And it wasn’t just all racist white people. If you look at the numbers there’s no way that Trump could have one without the vast majority of people who voted for Barack twice and felt screwed.
Because the only other candidate was HRC. She wasn’t briefed on Fed Gov Security Rules? Of course she was. I worked for the Government. Everyone has to go through that briefing at least once a year. She lied about that. She lied about Benghazi. She lied about her server. She obstructed justice by deleting thousands of emails. And that’s only the past 3 or 4 years. Three decades of HRC and Slick Willie’s scandals, and you and LA and NYC can’t see it?
Now I’m a deplorable? Let’s look at her husband. He got Monica a paid position after the unpaid intern was relocated away from the White House. Her paid position? She was brought back to the White House to give him his daily blow job. He lied, got caught, no one really cared even though he was impeached. And there were other accusations from other women as well. Are all of them false? Poor Bill Cosby. The Clintons are disgraceful as a whole and Bill is a adulterous rapist. DJT said some things about women. Slick willy DID some things TO women with his enabler, HRC, at is side, lying for him and disparaging the victims.
BTW, I’m a Vietnam era veteran, one fortunate enough not to have been sent there. HRC and Obama have no regard for the armed services or the police. Read some of the books written about her and her treatment of the very people paid to protect her.
You said Obama is a Christian. Going to a Christian church doesn’t make one a Christian. His latest moves against Israel makes me wonder if he isn’t a Muslim after all.
I was part of the anyone but Hillary. She is a deplorable person, and how anyone could look at her as a role model is beyond me. If my sister (or any woman that I respected) was in a marriage like that I would be beside myself. What goes on in peoples private lives is their own business, but how anyone could respect that “woman” is beyond me. I also found her lazy and entitled. She was real quick to hang out on the UWS with her fellow liberal millionaires, but it was obvious that she didn’t care about the average Jane and Joe. I also think Trump doesn’t give a shit about me (or almost anyone else) but at least he made the effort to be among the people. Hillary was such a flawed candidate, I still have no idea how so many people thought she would be a good choice. She was probably the only candidate that Trump stood a chance against.
I voted for him for the same reason a lot of people voted for Hillary, because I absolutely was not going to vote for the person on the other side. The Clinton family has made a ton of money off of something that was supposed to not be allowed to make people rich...politics. Specifically while under the guise of “helping those in need”. I’m not going to sit here and say that Obama or the Clintons haven’t done some really good things because that would be ignorant. They have, but there is something shady and off about them (in my own personal opinion and I have nothing to really substantiate it, just a feeling).
Because I like Trump
These are the basic reasons I voted for Mr. Trump over Mrs. Clinton:
Trump is the lesser of two evils. Clinton would continue to drive the country into the ground with her leftist, socialist policies.
Trump actually likes America and wants to see us all succeed.
Clinton is divisive. She prefers to point out our differences and pit groups of people against each other.
Trump says he will tighten the border controls and deport the illegal aliens. Clinton wants to welcome illegal aliens.
Trump is pro 2nd Amendment rights. Clinton would make all guns disappear if she could.
Clinton has multiple personalities that she uses to cater to her audience. She is not believable or trustworthy. Trump, for good and bad, has only on personality and he seems to mean what he says.
I like the fact that Trump is not a professional politician. All of the other Republican candidates seemed slimy.
Clinton tries to ally herself with the “common folk,” but she comes of as pandering and fake. Trump does it too, but at least he seems real, especially when he is eating KFC.
To Harm the Republicans
I am a registered Democrat who has become disenfranchised with the government. I felt that the DNC blatantly interfered with democracy by steering the primaries towards Hillary. Ironically, it is exactly what the republican party failed to do as their party was hijacked by a guy just getting a lot of free publicity. I fully believe that Trump never expected to get the nomination, and then one he did expected to lose the election. I believe his plan was to fund a really nutty media empire with Steve Bannon where they made Fox look liberal.
Only something weird happened. He actually won this thing. I voted for him because I felt that he would do an absolutely terrible job and would alienate the republican base so badly that it had no choice but to face facts and accept that conservative economic models do not help them. The republican party uses things like abortion and gay marriage to maintain a strong base and keep the masses voting against their best interests. I believe if they deregulate the economy enough they may have to finally confront that choice.
Guns
I was on a service call for work near my parents’ house on election night so I stayed with them vs. getting a hotel room. Rural NE Ohio. My mom and I were talking late into the night when she mentioned my father had voted for trump “because Hillary was gonna take his guns away”.
I yelled “WHAT THE FUCK!” loud enough to wake him off the couch, he blinked a few times and stared at me like “why’d you wake me up?” I looked at him and said, “Hillary was going to take your guns away?!” He nodded and said, “yeah, that’s what they were saying!”
Political Correctness
I am increasingly frustrated with the, for lack of a better term, “pussification” of America. And that includes the crippling political correctness that has intensified under Obama. Just by saying I don’t understand transgender people doesn’t make me a bigot. Because I don’t like a black person because that particular person is a douche, doesn’t make me racist. And heaven forbid a devout Christian says they believe marriage to be only a man and woman they are demonized and called an intolerant religious fanatic. But Muslim religious fanatics that literally want us dead must be respected and loved.
I think our country has turned into a place where if you don’t like something there is a label to shame you for it, given to you by the people who supposedly hate labels. It’s become a very weak, overly emotional, place. America is essentially a 3 year old child. While the rest of the world is preparing for WW3, we have adults in college (they are over 18, they’re fucking adults) who need “safe spaces” because of an election they don’t agree with? What in the honest fuck is that?
Taxes
I voted for Trump because of taxes. I own a small business, I prefer his tax policies.
My family moved from Canada because of the horrors of socialism. Over half of my Father’s income went to the federal government. Hillary wanted to expand socialistic policies, that terrified me. Also Hillary seems to loathe most people.
Am I fired up about Trump? Of course not, but he beats the alternative.
Immigration
The primary policy that I was behind was his immigration policies, including the pledge to build a wall on the southern border. Importing people who are net takers from our country, as opposed to net contributors is an unsustainable predicament...
People can recognize patterns. They aren’t naive enough to not notice that when some new mass murder/terrorist attack occurs, the media (see Chris Hayes after the German market attack most recently) will lecture us to wait to cast judgment. We already know. The culprit is a Muslim. I’ll give you 5/1 odds on the next one. Many people don’t think it’s crazy that we stop accepting people from countries that want to do us harm. You can call it racist, but many people will just call it common sense.
Pure Self-Interest
I voted Trump for several reasons that include policy points, my negative attitude toward an increasingly centralized government, and my status as a self-interested voter who, along with my family and community, will benefit from a more business-friendly (especially in regards to the energy sector) administration...
The policy points that Trump has put forth will result in a decrease on taxes for myself and my family. I was concerned about the direction some democrats are proposing in regards to closing certain tax loop-holes that I have benefitted from (such as the “trust fund” loop-hole), and I have seen no evidence that a Trump administration will threaten that (whereas Obama directly did, and it seems like Clinton would have continued such a direction). Along those lines, I do not like the policy direction Democrats seem to take on taxation (for example, Obama stated that paying taxes is one’s “patriotic duty”, and I am extremely averse to such arguments because it calls for a sort of dogmatic attitude toward patriotism). Again, in regards to the office of president, I do not believe specifics do or should matter.
I felt that my family was worse off under Obama, mostly due to his terrible health care plan. My costs skyrocketed. Now whether that was due to loopholes in his policy, or just the general greed of Big Pharma, well we can debate that. But I felt like under Clinton, and Dubya, my family was doing much better. I felt Hillary was more Obama than Bill, and would lead us further into an area where my family wouldn’t do well. That was essentially what made me pull the trigger and vote for Trump. I think everyone should do what they feel is best for their family.
Populism
I’m a Democrat. But unfortunately the party abandoned me and my state and my Midwestern ‘nation’. Had Elizabeth run I could have cast a vote for a nationalist, a populist, a thoughtful and honorable person who carries with her no sense of superiority or pretension. She is noble in her actions and usually in her words. Hell, she wrote a personal finance book that is still working its way through my mind.
Trump was the next best thing. He is a populist (I hope), he is candid (we need a new term for his level of candor lol), he projects victory and pride and most like Warren he speaks to the ‘little guy’ as opposed to VOTER DEMOGRAPHIC GROUP 3216-T.
I voted for Trump for one reason only. I am tired of the members of the government caring about themselves first and not governing. I do not believe most of the crap that comes out of politicians mouths. I feel like the only reason we have two main parties is so they can disagree with each other on purpose! Gay rights? Gun control? Health Insurance? Abortion? Taxes for the rich? Welfare for the poor? It don’t matter. Once these politicians pick red or blue they need to go with the company line….no matter what they really think inside. Its all bullshit. Nobody can agree on anything. What would be the point of that? You aren’t going to get (re)elected by agreeing. Every year we talk government shutdown. It’s a joke. All these guys care about is being reelected, not rocking the boat, and toeing the company line. I hate it and it disgusts me.
Do I think Trump is a good guy? No. Did I feel dirty voting for him. Yes...
I did like Trump for one reason though. He was not part of the plan. He was not part of the machine. He ran as a republican, but I do not consider him one. I have lost so much faith in the government as a whole that it was great to see this buffoon, this by all purpose unfit for president man say “fuck you” to the system.
The Economy
First of all it pained me to vote for Trump. I had no clue which of the two I would vote for on Election Day. I finally decided to vote for Trump.
First of all, at the time I had unemployed for over a year and no longer counted on the unemployment statistic. The under 5% quite frankly did little to give me a great feeling of the economy. Let’s face it, if things are going great in your life then statics that prove mean far more then when you see major discrepancies in said statistics because of what you are living. I turned down plenty of work in my one year “vacation.” I did not want a part time role or worse contract, which is what the vast majority of work I found. Also I believe factcheck discussed the Obama job creation and found well over 50% of new employment was of the contract or part time variety. This left me with a choice, vote for the candidate at least talking about trying something new or the candidate that wants to keep the 8 years going to 12 or more. In my situation, which should I have chosen?
I voted for Trump as the lesser of two evils: or specifically, I voted for evil and against Satan. I come at this as someone who leaned Marxist in my college days but who then discovered Ayn Rand and hold her ideas to be largely dead-on correct. So I favor laissez-faire capitalism, with government out of pretty much everything aside from: defense, courts, police. Separation of economy and state; health care and state; education and state. I do not subscribe to your personal feelings regarding wealth inequality, it is inherently neither good nor bad, what matters is how it was created and obtained. In fact one of many reasons why I am repulsed by the losing candidate and her party is that they exploit class envy to their benefit, promising more and more free stuff at the expense of the few. (Not that the winning party and candidate provide a clear-cut alternative in this regard.)
The Supreme Court
Some of us voted for Trump, holding our noses, knowing he wasn’t our “choice”. Given that I could NEVER vote for Hillary, I had to look at the long view, aka the Supreme Court... If Hillary had been elected, I would expect more of the same activist thrust. With Trump, who the fuck knows, but I’m pretty certain it won’t be someone who sides with larger government, entitlement, etc.
The Liberal Media
-voted for trump mainly to see liberals lose their shit
Hamilton Nolan: why not vote for Hillary to see conservatives lose their shit?
-liberals losing their shit is more entertaining.
check out the NY Times editorial page.
Reading charles blow, you’d think Trump is planning on setting up concentration camps in Texas
Because he was able to speak over the top of the media and directly into the listeners ear... I know you’ve heard it all before, but the kicker for most people like me, really was the dismissive nature of the “cool” people like you. That somehow we don’t know our own country. That we have to obviously be stupid or bigoted to reject Hillary Clinton and the general ideological foundations of the Democratic party.
I honestly didn’t like either candidate. After reading your blatant hate for Trump, I decided to vote for him.
The article about Trump “getting his ass kicked” actually made me proud to vote for him. I understand the sites bias and the staff is obviously entitled to it, but the articles just came across as grossly condescending.
Seeing the writing staff freak out days after the election was well worth the vote.
And finally
I was drunk.