More from a compilation of 100 articles that tried to sum up the Zeitgeist in 2016. David Frum, of all people, channeled a
composite Trump voter last summer from his many conversations, and did a pretty good job:
“The Putin thing. You think you’ve really nailed Donald with the Putin thing. Get it through your head: Our people are done fighting wars for your New World Order. We fought the Cold War to stop the Communists from taking over America, not to protect Estonia. We went to Iraq because you said it was better to fight them over there than fight them over here. Then you invited them over here anyway! Then you said that we had to keep inviting them over here if we wanted to win over there. And we figured out: You care a lot more about the “inviting" part than the “winning" part. So no more. Not until we face a real threat, and have a real president who’ll do whatever it takes to win. Whatever it takes. . . .
I noticed that when Tim Kaine took a bow for his son’s military service, he pointed out that he was a Marine—because we all know that what you’ve done to the Army, Navy, and Air Force. Yeah, they’re just as lethal as Obama and Hillary said. When you spend as much as the rest of the planet combined, you can make a lot of things go boom—even if the soldiers can’t do chin ups any more and the sailors get pregnant when they decide their tours of duty have gone on too long. And the cops! One minute you’re calling them murderers, the next you’re slobbering all over them. Our voters are cops. They know who’s on their side. Not you. . . .
“You’ve been building up to this for a long time. No more Superheroes rescuing women in the movies. The girl always has to throw the last punch herself. In the commercials, Dad’s either an idiot—or he’s doing the housework with his boyfriend.
"And you know what? It’s not just our hillbilly voters who are going to vote ‘no’ to all that. A lot of men you never imagined will vote for us. Trump’s going to do better with Latino men than you expect—probably no worse than Romney. He’s going to do better with black men than Romney ever did. And his numbers with white men will be out of sight. Every time you demand that Donald show respect to Hillary—while laughing as Hillary disrespects Donald—you push those numbers up.
4 comments:
Damn, that's not half-bad.
The highest rated comment calls the article a "scare piece." Sounds as if a lot of the Atlantic readers didn't want to consider thoughts outside their accepted narratives.
Frum was likely ambivalent about whether he likes this composite Trump voter or hold him in contempt, but i think he gets the sense of it. Yes, this composite voter may exaggerate things. But less exaggeration than is done about him, and less exaggeration than is done in the opposite direction.
I assumed he hated the composite, but nevertheless did a convincing job of speaking in his voice. There's very little of the nasty parody about it; it's stated quite convincingly.
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