TRUMP SUPPORTERS Part 2: Why

This is perhaps the easiest explanation of what certain folk are Trump supporters – he is a Republican. (Though he once was a Democrat.) There are folk who are so entrenched in a party that absolutely nothing will move them to change politics. A common line for folk of this persuasion is, “My father would roll over in his grave if I voted anything but Republican.” This can be followed by an equally entrenched utterance, “Better dead than Red.” Or, the equally inane statement, “There are good Indians and there are bad Indians. Damned Indians. (You may insert and group here that you wish to demean: democrats, liberals, blacks, gays, Bears, Martians, or a personal favorite – There are good Alpha Centaurians and there are bad Alpha Centaurians, damned Centaurians.

These folk are perfectly oblivious to the changes in parties over the years. Modern Republicans love to refer to themselves as the party of Lincoln. However, they no more embrace the values of the Republicans in Lincoln’s day that cats are dogs. Actually cats and dogs can get along better than the deluded Republicans. We had a dog that raised a kitten; I wondered if the cat thought it was a cat or a dog. There I go meandering again. The point is the Republican party in Lincoln’s day were the liberals in the political spectrum. They were against slavery for pity’s sake while the conservatives of the day, democrats, were ardent opponents of abolition. Teddy Roosevelt was a Republican and Franklin D. Roosevelt was a Democrat, but the shared the same liberal ideology. Read a little history folk and get your facts straight.

One can admire loyalty to parties and to causes, but it should not be blind sighted, thoughtless loyalty. John Kennedy’s book Profiles in Courage lifted up those folk who went against tradition and popular opinion to just do the right think because it was the right thing to do.

It is like the old story of a young girl asking her mother why when they made a loaf of bread they always cut off of the of the roll and put the rest in the baking pan. Her mother said, “that’s the way my mother taught me.” The little girl then went to her grandmother and asked why they always cut off the end of the bread roll before putting in the baking pan. Her grandmother told her because that was how her mother told her. The little girl then went to her great grandmother and asked why they always cut off the end of he bread roll before putting it in the baking pan. Her grandmother said, “So it would fit in the pan we had.”

Just because we have traditions and traditions are often very good things to follow. But we also need to know the history of our traditions and whether they make a bit of sense in times that have changed or you got a new larger baking pan.

Of course, the response to this story by ardent Republican or Democrats, or Whigs, or libertarians, or the Green Party, the Federalists, the Social Democrats and the Socialists, (or those who don’t know the difference between the two,) will be, “We always been and always will be ….”