I don’t really have Trump supporters in my circle, and I’ve been looking to understand the motivations of Trump supporters better. I’ve devised an informal poll. It’s anonymous, so you don’t have to worry, but if you’re OK speaking up in the comments, feel free. I will ask that everyone be respectful of each other, however.
[poll id=”17″]
UPDATE: Apparently my polling plugin is broken. Not sure why. Feel free to answer in the comments.
buurrrrrp!
What struck me about trump was his stance on immigration. He addressed the security concerns when the others did not. I ve also herd him say things that show an in depth understanding of laws on business.
I didn’t pick a favorite yet. My mantra is, “Anyone but Hillary”. Enough said!
I’m sick and tired of having to apologize for being white and having a penis. I have nothing against women in positions of leadership, don’t give a shit about gay marriage, and dont care about reporting to a black supervisor, but I am really sick and tired of having “microagressions” and “privilege” shoved in my face in an attempt to make me SHUT UP AND TAKE IT.
Trump gives me hope by refusing to apologize to the leftist shaming mobs. Yes, he’s kinda an assclown reminiscent of Wally George, but if that’s what it takes to finnaly destroy the stranglehold of political correctness, so be it.
I’m voting for the Libertarian candidate for President.
I’m in the “Anyone but Hillary” and “Stop the Democrats” camp.
So I guess that doesn’t necessarily make me a “Trump Supporter” (so I didn’t vote in the poll), I’m just not a Trump Hater or #NeverTrump supporter.
I feel much the same way.
Trump v Hillary – pull trump lever, avoid looking at myself in the mirror for a few weeks.
Trump v Bernie – pull lever for Bernie and avoid looking at myself in the mirror for a few weeks.
To distill it down simply:
Hillary is evil and knows where lots of bodies are buried and will be able to rally support in DC for issues that I hate.
Trump is a little less evil, doesn’t know where many bodies are buried in DC and will only be able to get things done that he can get consensus on from whatever is left of the GOP and any center Dems.
Bernie is a doddering fool that won’t have a prayer of getting any of his brand of meaningful legislation through congress – basically 4 to 8 more years of the last 4 years. And he’s likely to leave gun rights alone. I don’t think he’ll ever be a champion of the 2A, but he won’t actively try to destroy it either.
^ this, exactly this.
Jeb and Kasich and Rubio are unacceptable. Even agains Hills and Bern.
Hillary and Bernie are unacceptable.
Trump or Cruz are only just barely acceptable.
That’s the why of it. There is no ‘good’ outcome. There is only bad, worse, and less bad. And i can only vote for less bad or better.
I don’t _like_ it.
I can neither vote nor see the results using three different web browsers with all noscripts and adblocks disabled.
He’s the only one I trust on immigration.
Hmm… yes… it seems to only work for people logged in, even though I have it set to allow anyone.
Tagging to see what comes up in comments. I will say, he lost me with his flagrant disrespect for the 1A (the “open up our libel laws” comment).
Me either (seeing it, as manyyearreader said) and the same: he’s the only one I trust on immigration.
And too, I’d rather Cruz but never Hillary and after today’s Cuba visit #NeverBernie – never another Socialist in the WH, and that includes Hillary.
And as for the 1A, I think Gawker just lost that.
For all my personal antipathy of the whole Gawker empire, that was not a win for freedom of speech.
we don’t need no water let the mother$%&^$ burn! Burn mother#$(*&#*$! BURN!
In all seriousness, the two areas I do distinctly agree with him are in less overseas military adventures and pulling back and making our military allies carry their own water. NATO and South Korea have been essentially one way alliances for too long now….
None of these really drive home the issue. I guess he’s a doer and shaker and will take the bull by the horns might be the best approximation. But its really that I think he’s the only one who ran as a Republican this year who stands a chance at taking down Hillary.
He won’t cower in fear at the usual crap the left throws out. In fact, the Hollyweird wing will actually cower in fear of how much he might shame them or call their bluff.
What do you think about the polls that show he’s going to get schlonged by Hillary in the general election, and also cause huge downticket losses?
I know you were asking countertop, but…
I agree with a lot of what was written in this Current Affairs article. http://static.currentaffairs.org/2016/02/unless-the-democrats-nominate-sanders-a-trump-nomination-means-a-trump-presidency
“Here, a Clinton match-up is highly likely to be an unmitigated electoral disaster, whereas a Sanders candidacy stands a far better chance. Every one of Clinton’s (considerable) weaknesses plays to every one of Trump’s strengths, whereas every one of Trump’s (few) weaknesses plays to every one of Sanders’s strengths. From a purely pragmatic standpoint, running Clinton against Trump is a disastrous, suicidal proposition.”
and this…
“Nor does she have a single offensive weapon at her disposal, since every legitimate criticism of Trump’s background (inconsistent political positions, shady financial dealings, pattern of deception) is equally applicable to Clinton, and he knows how to make such things slide off him, whereas she does not.”
The polling so far has been inaccurate at best, and I think it will get more inaccurate after the primaries.
Sebastian
The Polls told us that George HW Bush would be elected.
The Polls told us that Bob Dole would beat Bill Clinton
The Polls told us that John Kerry was going to beat George W. Bush
The Polls told us that Hillary was going to be the nominee and Obama was crazy to even waste his time.
The Polls told us that Hillary was going to be the nominee and no one, especially not Bernie Sanders, was going to be able to win even a minute amount of votes.
The Polls told us Donald Trump was never going to get more than 4% of the vote in the Republican primary.
Frankly, the polls are wrong. The professionals are wrong. First, the political professionals and media pundits are equal parts brain dead idiots (who only have their job because they lucked out working for one politician or another) and corrupt hacks (who shape everything in a manner designed to enhance the standing – and therefore fundraising – of whoever they work for). Trump has hired none of them, hence Trump must be stopped. And Trump can’t be serious. But Trumps been running for President for a long long time, they just never realized it.
Trump will crush Hillary. It won’t be even close. Which explains the over the top effort to try to define him as a non human monster now, so they can more easily refute him later when he launches his full frontal attack on Hillary.
Of course, Hillary isn’t going to be the nominee. I’m convinced (and have been for well . . . 6 months or so) that Joe Biden will be the nominee. Nothing I’ve seen so far has swayed me from that position.
Incidentally, Joe Biden likely beats Donald Trump.
I’ve often thought Biden would be the nominee instead of Hillary as well. However, when I read “Incidentally, Joe Biden likely beats Donald Trump”, I had an unexpected fleeting feeling: I think this is right, and I’m almost ok with it.
I find Trump a repulsive candidate, and I know I’m not alone. I also find Hillary to be repulsive, so when it’s head-to-head Trump vs. Hillary, I think it’s going to be a contest of who loses voters the slowest. Biden is allegedly more likable than Trump, though, so it’s easy to see how Trump might fare in such a match-up.
But the funny thing about polls is that they may be accurate about the Now (which might be questionable, even for ones like Gallup, that actually try to be accurate, as I understand it), but what poll can predict what it’s going to be like after months of attack ads and debates and policy proposals and news items?
Having said that, I think it’s difficult to see what will happen to Trump once the media turns on him. Will he continue to be “electable”? I’m inclined to think not, because he’s going to convince people like me, who have heard what he has said, and concluded that I cannot vote for him (and if I do, it will be under extreme duress…).
I second what Skullz says, generally, but I will also add this:
HRC may yet beat Trump. But general election polls don’t mean jack before Labor day. See, e.g., this history of polling in Presidential election: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_polling_for_U.S._Presidential_elections
I’m sure everyone trailing in the polls this far out says the same thing, but Carter was beating Reagan in the polls 60%-30% from January-March 1980, and the big shift only happened because John Anderson threw his hat into the third party ring at that moment.
So when we start talking about how Hill is schlonging the Don in the polls, the calendar better say September….
(Aside: I have donated to Cruz’s campaign based on his strong support for the 2A. But I will most definitely vote for any of the current GOP contenders (including Trump or Kasich) over Hillary in November if it comes to it.)
And remember, when JOhn Anderson threw his hat in the ring, it was precisely because the Republican establishment knew that Reagan was a crazy war monger Hollywood liberal with no DC experience who would start World War III and be entirely unelectable. Some (well, me) would even (well, I have) go as far as to suggest that John Andersons campaign was part of a plot by George HW Bush and the same Bush lacky’s that have controlled the Republican party establishment from at least the ashes of Richard Nixon up until Trumps rise to sabotage Reagans election and pave the way for George HW Bush to run as the Republican nominee in 1984. That didn’t happen, obviously.
Of course, Reagan had a huge advantage that Trump doesn’t have: a record of teaching conservative principles that spanned about two-and-a-half decades.
One of the reasons I’m so disturbed by Trump (besides his authoritarian tendencies) is how, when answering a question, he tends to start out with a conservative answer, but when pressed, the answer tends to become more liberal.
He doesn’t have the philosophical core that Reagan had.
But then Reagan was criticize for not having that same conservative core either. Recall, how startled folks were after Reagan left office and his papers were released in book form, to learn that he had been writing extensively about his beliefs for a long time prior to being elected President.
If you go back and look at what Trumps being saying for a long time (there’s a video of him on Oprah from 1987 or 88 I believe) that’s sort of become viral – you will hear him say almost exactly what he’s saying now. But in a much less bombastic style.
I’m not a Trump supporter, but I’ll vote for him rather than Hillary or the Bern.
“The deeper problem was the perception of the white segment of the lower-middle class that their problems were invisible.”
http://www.mauldineconomics.com/this-week-in-geopolitics/the-roots-of-trumps-strength
I am voting the strict “ABC Ticket:” “Anybody But Clinton.” Of all the other people who have run this cycle, my choices (in order) were Jim Webb, Rick Perry, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, and then everybody else. Trump is dead last on my list. Unless Gary Johnson has a sudden surge in the polls where he is _ahead_ of Hillary, I expect that I shall don MOPP gear (for when holding ones nose just doesn’t suffice) and vote for The Donald, or maybe Cthulhu (“Why vote for the lesser of two Evils?”)
I have the “luxury” of living in a solid D state, so I currently feel free to vote my conscience, political game theory be damned
I’d also add, that the Supreme Court’s decision unanimously finding that the 2nd Amendment applies to Stun Guns and recognizing the Right to Bear arms and the legacy of Heller will cause far more harm to Republicans than anything Donald Trump does or doesn’t do. Without the threat of Democrats and the Courts eroding the 2nd Amendment rights of American’s, lots of people who vote for Republicans because of that issue but otherwise don’t care about abortion or enriching business owners no longer have a reason to only vote Republican. Their votes are up grabs. And if Democrats make a play for them, it will doom the Republicans long term.
Trump is the only candidate that has called for price transparency in the medical industry. He has called for leveling of pharmacuetical pricing, getting rid of the law that prevents the gov from negotiating drug prices with providers. He can do this by having his justice department enforce the anti-monopoly laws on the books. He has stated he would do that.
No candidate is perfect. The above goes a long way to swaying my vote for Trump.
I am not a Trump supporter, but I understand his appeal since I grew up in a blue collar town (Pittsburgh). The eggheads upstairs in the office don’t really understand how the machines work on the floor but they generate all these rules on things like safety that do nothing except add paperwork. The eggheads generate one brilliantly bad idea after another.
I think people are tired of the eggheads in D.C. generating a bunch of stuff that makes no sense at the ground level. NAFTA, Iraq, you name it.
Trump talks like a blue collar guy. Build a wall. How hard is that? I think that it is less about whether the wall is a good idea, more about how famously incompetent the govt is that that cannot even build a simple wall.
I listened to Rubio (my first choice) and I cringed, he made it sound so complicated. e verify, and a yada yada yada. Trump says wall, everybody nods. Rubio sounds like one of the eggheads who makes it too complicated.
I think that the fact that he is “flexible” and somewhat of a blank slate on policy is part of the “fix it” appeal. People right now do not trust the eggheads, so they won’t trust a guy who listens too much to eggheads. People are pissed and just want someone to beat some sense into the eggheads.
My personal beef with Trump is that as yet I don’t trust him to govern as a conservative. We do not need more bigger government. I don’t trust him on Supreme Court nominees. But a unity party ticket between Cruz and Trump may yet allay those concerns.
“I don’t trust him to govern as a conservative.”
I used to know what “conservative” meant, but I kind of lost track half way through the GWB administration.
Oddly enough, about halfway through the GWB administration, I began to realize that GWB wasn’t a conservative…
At this point, I don’t think I can trust anyone to be Conservative (although Senator Mike Lee has been doing a fairly good job, knock on wood), but I am completely convinced that whatever Trump is, he’s not a conservative…
This nails it exactly.
I personally don’t give a rats ass about “governing as a conservative” but that’s probably cause I’m in D.C. and know how utterly hypocritical almost all politicians are and how meaningless those promises will always be.
“governing as a conservative” means governing under the principles of free market, individual liberty, and limited government. Balanced budgets, rollback of regulations, and support for Supreme Court nominees that vigorously defend the constitution.
That’s all fine, but czn you point out the individual who has been president the last 50 years who has governed as a conservative? What about thd people in congress? Reagan did not follow the rules stated above. He enacted EMTALA which enabled the biggest monetary drain on this country. Each “conservative” president and member of congress have done nothing to rein in government. The republicans in the house could have killed obamacare by refusing to fund it. All funding has to originate from the house. Why didn’t they do that?
“Conservative” politicians pay lip service to the idea. They do nothing to actually govern according to those principals.
It wouldn’t let me vote, but here’s my thinking..
I gave up on Rubio when he couldn’t stop acting like a robot after Christie called him on it during the debate (I couldn’t believe how badly he handled that), and when I got tired of him not answering whether he’d be open to giving illegals citizenship. Good riddance.
I can’t stand Cruz and his religious nutjobbery. I think he’s the type of person the GOP needs to get rid of. Not everyone is interested in a president who takes orders from iron-age fairy tales.
Kasich. 1994 AWB. I would vote for Obama before voting for Kasich.
As I see the media distort Trump’s views more, and plot against him, it makes me support him more. He’s the personification of the liberal media demonizing the right. So I’d be thrilled to see him elected just to piss off liberals and Establiblishment Republicans (but I repeat myself).
Ultimately this election is about who fills the Supreme Court. Trump isn’t expected to know every qualified judge – he’ll choose people from the same running list any other GOP candidate would use. So that doesn’t concern me all that much, especially if we can keep a GOP senate (while hopefully losing that turncoat Toomey).
So yeah, Go Trump! aka Screw The Establishment/Media/Liberals!
WordPress poll plugins are universally crap, aren’t they?
But yeah, I pretty much second Mike. The GoP needs to be torched so a real conservative movement can rise from the ashes–not that “conservatism” is ever more than a futile delaying action against inevitable degeneracy.
I’m not going to vote for Trump, but I must admit that answers #3-#5 resonate with me.
Trump is my last choice just before before Hillary. That’s all I’ll say about my choice for now.
All this is unprecedented. thought it would happen in 2012 with Ron Paul, the only honest candidate whom I supported. Now I see just recently that the kamikaze establishment prediction has changed to the GOP “losing control of Congress” if Trump is at the top of the ticket. What? I have never seen nor smelled the desperation in these beltway-fed pieces. And does anyone remember the last time we ever saw the GOP leadership finally muster up the stones to do anything conservative like stand firm on a judicial nominee?
Strange times. Buy cheap and stack deep!
On the intersection of guns and anti-establishment, an NRx blogger said it really well:
One weakness of your poller is you can only pick one.
Let it burn / Might as well get in the fast hand basket.
I want revenge on the left, who have spit upon people like me for eight years.
I want to stick it to the GOP establishment, who have spit upon people like me for eight years.
And I’ve actually been supporting Cruz with vote and cash, but Trump will be better than Hillary.
If I can’t have Ted Cruz, my vote, then it’s Anyone but Hillary.
My wife and I are Pentecostal Christians, fans of the Creation Museum, and we are both enthusiastically supporting Donald Trump, even though we are bothered by his divorces. We believe that Ted Cruz is a sheep in wolf’s clothing, and if he is the nominee we will stay home on election day.
Yes, we doubt that Mr. Trump is a Christian, but the alleged Christians that have been forced upon us have done nothing. For us, it is either Trump, or let it burn.
I am actually more convinced that Trump is a wolf in sheep’s clothing than I am of Cruz being a wolf. The problem with Cruz is that if he’s a bad President, it will be because he’s ineffective. Trump, on the other hand, has said enough things to convince me that he’s Hillary pretending to be a Republican, and that scares me more…
All of the above, with a side order of defiance to everyone who’s insulting me and people like me for being Trump supporters.
Your poll left out another option: “For the Lulz”. You have to admit that the entertainment factor in a Trump/Clinton matchup is going to be YUGE(tm)!
Seriously, Trump was not even our 17th pick, but we’ve warmed to the idea. Reagan fetishes be damned, there have been no “Real Conservatives” in office for a long time and anyone who had a conservative record (Walker, Perry) are gone.
Cruz is selling a form of social conservatism that we cannot stomach. Rubio would have been king had he not had his open border thing. Kasich annoys us to no end, and that’s before the AWB thing even registers in our heads.
This year it’s Anybody But Clinton. I hate the GOPe and how they abuse gun voters, so Trump is a nice kick in the their asses, as well. I don’t expect him to be a True Conservative (whatever that means anyway), but he’ll be better than Hillary.
go visit ” THE MARKET TICKER” blog by Karl Denninger, read the last several months of Trump articles and the problems with everyone else. That’s why TRUMP.
A thousand times YES!
Petty much “all the above” for me!
My pick would have been “He’s an unapologetic alpha male who will take the bull by the horns. The other candidates are squishes.”
The establishment needs a good shaking up, and he may very well be the one to do it, besides, anyone who’s hated by both democraps and repubicans sounds like just what we need.