Why? Just why?

| 3:00 pm EST November 8, 2024
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Trying to understand why some people vote for Donald Trump can be a daunting task. Considering his denigration of Latino/Hispanic immigrants, it is hard to understand why 55% of those male voters and 38% of the women voted for someone who treated them so poorly. For them, pro-life is everything. Most are Catholic and would never vote for anyone espousing abortion rights. Of course, Tim Walz’s adage comes to mind: “Mind your own damned business,” but these people take this commitment very seriously. This time around, it wasn’t just the “Trump fans” who voted for him. Many others did as well. Jonathan Zimmerman, an opinion writer for The Hill, gives us some interesting things to think about. He said the only way to understand is to ask. Of course, this does not include the looney voters. They like the harsh things he says, and many of them like the denigration of minorities.

Zimmerman put together a focus group from the University of Pennsylvania, where he teaches, and at the former Philadelphia Bible College (now called Cairn University). The Cairn students were conservative, and the UOP students were liberal. Although the Cairn students hated Trump’s speech and the sexual assault issues, they voted for him because of his opposition to abortion and his promise to lower taxes. Trump won’t be lowering taxes for them unless they fall into a lot of money, but they’re not “reading the fine print.” College-aged people are more idealistic than most of us, and they tend to be “half glass full” people, so they search through the muck for the message they want to hear. We, on the other hand, hear the muck, and that’s all we need to hear to know he’s not for us. Zimmerman ended his piece on a high, telling note: “The only way to learn about what happened Tuesday is to talk to people on the other side. And the only question is whether we can find the grace—and the courage—to do it.” That’s all well and good, but do we really want to undertake what Zimmerman suggests, or is there something to which we can place the reason Democrats did so poorly in this race?

Even though he dropped out of the race, Harris couldn’t find a way to separate herself from Biden. Though her approval rating rose, in the end many thought she would merely continue Biden’s policies, which some didn’t like. CNN talked about Harris’s appearance on the View, when she had the opportunity to distance herself from Biden. When she was asked whether there was anything she would change in Biden’s policies, her response “I can’t think of a thing,” left some wondering. As humans, we tend to pick up on what we want to pick up on, without considering the facts, including that Biden built a very strong economy from the mess he was left. People don’t want to acknowledge that, and that hurt Democrats. Short of pulling out statistics, which most people will ignore, it’s difficult to get that message across. Yes, it’s hard, but we have four years to find the solution.