There is a genre of news story lately that has gotten old really damn fast. It's the "Hey, here's a fucking dumbass who voted for Trump and is now gonna be fucked by him" variety. Essentially, a diligent reporter goes to some shitty place, finds one or more of the aforementioned dumbasses, and gets them to say something along the lines of "Well, Trump's budget and health care plan will leave me dying of cancer in a ditch while my Congress member pisses on me, but I still support my president."
For instance, on CNN, we meet Barbara Puckett of Beattyville, Kentucky, which is the deepest shithole for white people in the nation. Puckett's got sclerosis and is on Social Security disability and food stamps, both of which are on the cutting board in Donald Trump's savage budget. But she's not abandoning her man: ""I am still happy with President Trump," she said.
AP reporters headed out across the country to talk to a spectrum of people, from white idiots in New York to white morons in Georgia to white dolts in Iowa. They all agree that they couldn't give a happy monkey fuck about the stories about Trump and Russia. It's all lies or bullshit, they say. Or you just ignore it, as one Staten Island hairdresser said, "I didn’t want to be depressed. I don’t want to feel that he’s not doing what he said, so I just choose to not listen." A college student there offered his support by saying, "If you’re wishing for him to fail, you’re basically wishing for the pilot of the plane to crash." To which one could point out that if the pilot doesn't know how to fly the plane, all the wishing in the world ain't gonna help you.
(To be vaguely fair, one of the Staten Islanders did get off a decent joke. When asked if anything could turn him against Trump, a man replied, "If he gases his own people, yeah, I would be against him," which, c'mon, is kind of funny. Well, until Trump starts gassing Brooklyn.)
Back in April, Nicholas Kristof wrote about a whole bunch of Americans who will suffer if even a fraction of Trump's budget were to be passed (which, let's face it, is the goal in putting out such a nut-punchingly vicious document). They include a 70-year-old woman in Tulsa, Oklahoma, who is dependent on a job from the Senior Community Service Employment Program, which Trump has proposed slashing. She voted for the president because "he was talking about getting rid of those illegals," of course. If the program is cut, she said, "I’ll sit home and die."
But like almost everyone in these stories, she says she would vote for Trump in 2020. That's just sick. These are sick fucks who don't care if the god they worship wants to kill them.
The best mark in a con is the kind who doesn't believe they've been conned, even when the con is revealed. Either they are so embarrassed that it's easier just to double down on the delusion or they're that fucking stupid. And, in the end, it doesn't matter because they'll line up to be fleeced again.
Another genre of news story is of the wishful thinking variety. They say things like "Trump's Budget Cuts Target His Voters" or "Wait Until Trump's Supporters See the Size of the Dildo He's Fucking Them With" or "Man, Grandpa's Gonna Be Mad When He Catches Trump Stabbing His Grandkids." And they all posit a fantasy that Trump will cross some line, be it with health care or other cuts, or even in his canoodling with Russia, that will make his followers turn against him.
It's the same sort of hoping without any evidence that got us Trump in the first place. I've said it before: Fuck the dumbasses. The hell with the sick fucks. Don't court them. Don't count on them. Build up the outreach to the people who didn't vote. And then get elected and pass programs that help the dumbasses and everyone else.
