I Admit It, I Voted for Trump

That’s been hard to say during these primaries, because the rabid foaming of those who oppose Trump, though at times was laughable, became hateful and outlandish.

I began these campaigns supporting any of these candidates, and one by one they bored me. I met with Jeb Bush, listened to him at a roundtable discussion, and found him so generic and boring that I was ready to recruit Romney-McCain.

I was probably one of the first bloggers in the nation to write that there was something “winning” about Trump’s campaign.

July 14th, 2015 “While Trump scores on issues, everyone else attacks Trump, and everyone scratches their heads wondering why the attacks don’t stick and his poll numbers stay up.

Reagan’s Teflon was attributed to his experience with the camera and a natural charisma. Trump has both in immeasurable quantities as well. He is as much a celebrity as Reagan was, and probably more…definitely more than any Republican on the national stage since.

It’s a strategy few could execute well: Focus on issues, draw attacks not on policy but on personality, yet maintain high personal poll numbers and likability.

It might be the 70s all over again.”

Trump won NH, SC and Florida. When Virginia came around, it was an easy vote to cast for Trump. He was still the only candidate that understood what the leadership in the Republican Party still hasn’t grasped: People have big economic problems, and no one in elected office has helped change anything.

“The wall” got Trump his headlines, but his “Make America Great Again” talk about jobs going overseas was his key to victory, and still is.

Not a new refrain, but the nationalism theme reminds me of a former Governor of California, and the “jobs overseas” or just to Mexico theme reminds me of the current Governor of California.

When Gov. Jerry Brown was the last man standing against Bill Clinton, he really was the only candidate to do well in 1992 against Clinton. Want to know his big issue?

But the bitterness over the flagging economy could lead people not only to vote but also to do so in unexpected ways. For example, Dave Hannis, a Detroit bus driver, said that he normally voted Republican but that he had switched his registration this year so he could vote for Mr. Brown. He decided to do that, Mr. Hannis said, after a relative’s job as a truck driver was jeopardized by the movement of manufacturing companies to Mexico.

“Brown’s the only one who says he will stand up to that,” Mr. Hannis said.(NYT 1992)

Sound familiar? Of course, by the time Brown took a “bring jobs back to America” stance, Clinton was already running away with the delegate count.

Former Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. of California, considered one of the longer shots in the race, often drove the debate with his repeated assertions that special interests were “buying politicians” and the American people “had lost control” of their political system to career politicians. (NYT 1991)

In 1992, people were worried. In 2016, people are absolutely fed up.

And they’ve turned to Trump in a big, big way.

Everytime I talked to my family and relatives in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, they have all been passionate Trump supporters. They are Republicans. They are blue collar. They work the cash registers, deliver the mail, and care for the sick. They are nurses, police officers and clerks. And they look to Trump as the first candidate in a long time who speaks to them and for them. It’s almost Kennedyesque – Generations of folks in Massachusetts looked to the richest Massachusetts family as the ones who would look out for the middle class.

As I wrote on Bearing Drift two months ago:

Instead of good-paying jobs building things, we’ve gotten so-so paying jobs selling things other countries make. And it kind of works because it keeps the prices down as much as it keeps wages down in many cases.

What’s our message for someone in his 40s whose job moves to China or Mexico? A tax cut?

The Democrats aren’t offering him anything at all. He doesn’t want to be on food stamps and medicaid.

He just wants his job back.

Because of Trump’s campaign, my mother has become a first time political junkie. “First campaign I ever took interest. Wish I had 3 more tvs to watch” she texted me last night. She was so excited about Trump winning Indiana and Cruz dropping out.

Every county in Pennsylvania voted for Trump. I’ve been hearing why for the past eleven months.

And I saw it coming. Trump’s campaign had latched on to the issue in the campaign, and no candidate ever wrestled it away from him. Some tried, but for one debate or one week, and then Trump baited them into the personal attacks again. Collusion deals. “NeverTrump” garbage that fulfilled every suspicion about politicians that Trump supporters felt.

Every middle class voter asked himself, “Why do they want to stop Trump from helping us? Why are they attacking him?”

92% of Indiana voters are worried about the economy. They think politicians can’t solve the problem.

Trump opponents tried every attack. I’m not even going to dignify the smears by repeating them, though I’m sure they’ll show up in the comments below. But every time the smoke cleared, one fact remained. People are seriously worried about our economic future.

It’s happened before. In 1980, the people elected an actor to the White House because they believed he could break through the Ford-Carter economic failures and bring something new.

America just may send Donald Trump to turn around the Bush-Obama economy and make America great again.

And I’m proud that my vote, in a small way, has helped get him there.