NYT:
âThis is the country that elected Donald Trump,â said Garth Gardiner, driving a pickup across the 48,000-acre Angus beef ranch he runs with his two brothers. They lost about 500 cows in the fires. âI think heâd be doing himself a favor to come out and visit us.â Mr. Gardiner voted for Mr. Trump, and said he just wanted to hear a presidential mention of the fires amid Mr. Trumpâs tweets about the rapper Snoop Dogg, the East Coast blizzard and the rudeness of the press corps. âTwo sentences would go a long way,â Mr. Gardiner said.
CBS:
One element of President Trumpâs budget proposal could sharply reduce funding for Meals on Wheels, which delivers nearly a million meals a day to the sick and elderly.... The program works for 56-year-old Linda Preast, who signed up for the program two years ago after a stroke left her in a wheelchair. Meals on Wheels delivers to her every weekday. Like most residents in Jones County, she voted for Donald Trump. âAre you surprised?â Miller asked. âYeah,â Preast said. âBecause he was told- I was under the influence that he was going to help us.â
VICE:
Marina Hitson McCuen took Donald Trump at his word last fall when he promised to repeal and replace Obamacare with âsomething terrificâ that would bring down costs. That couldnât come soon enough for McCuen, a 53-year-old Trump supporter who works behind the counter at Celebrityâs Hotdogs in nearby Asheville. McCuen canât afford health insurance, and sheâs blunt about what happens if she gets sick: âIâm shit out of luck.â Like a lot of people living on the western edge of the state crossed by the Smoky Mountains, where folks can tick off all the factories that have shuttered in recent decades, McCuen doesnât think itâs a good idea to simply end President Obamaâs signature health law. âYou canât just cancel, cancel, cancel Obamacare like witchcraft,â she says, flicking her hand as if waving a wand.
Feeling bad for Gardiner, Preast, McCuen, and other Trump voters who will be hurt by Trump's policies and his indifference? Really, really, really bad, like a good liberal should? Well, you'll feel better after you read Frank Rich's new piece in NYMag...
As polls uniformly indicate, nothing that has happened since November 8 has shaken that support. And what are Trumpâs voters getting in exchange for their loyalty? For starters, thereâs Ryan-Trumpcare, which, on top of its other indignities, eliminates the requirement that Medicaid offer addiction treatment, which over the past two years has increased exponentially in opioid-decimated communities where it is desperately needed. Meanwhile, Trumpâs White House circle of billionaires is busily catering to its own constituency, prioritizing tax cuts for the fabulously wealthy while pushing to eliminate rural-development agencies that aid Trump voters....
Thereâs no way liberals can counter these votersâ blind faith in a huckster whoâs sold them this snake oil. The notion that they can be won over by some sort of new New Deal â âdomestic programs that would benefit everyone (like national health insurance),â as Mark Lilla puts it â is wishful thinking. These voters are so adamantly opposed to government programs that in some cases they refuse to accept the fact that aid they already receive comes from Washington â witness the âKeep Government Out of My Medicare!â placards at the early tea-party protests.
Perhaps itâs a smarter idea to just let the GOP own these intractable voters. Liberals looking for a way to empathize with conservatives should endorse the core conservative belief in the importance of personal responsibility. Let Trumpâs white working-class base take responsibility for its own votes â or in some cases failure to vote â and live with the electionâs consequences. If, as polls tell us, many voters who vilify Obamacare havenât yet figured out that itâs another name for the Affordable Care Act thatâs benefiting them â or if they do know and still want the Trump alternative â then let them reap the consequences for voting against their own interests. That they will sabotage other needy Americans along with them is unavoidable in any case now â at least until voters stage an intervention in an election to come.
UPDATE:
The emotional arc of Trump supporters summed up in one gif. pic.twitter.com/Nus7meYGsF
â Doc McStabby (@eclecticbrotha) March 21, 2017