An Open Letter to a Trump Supporter
Dear friend, family member, acquaintance,
I am writing this letter to you to not start a fight or be rude. I am writing this letter to start a conversation about how and why you support Donald Trump.
Now before I ask a few questions, I want to be clear. I am not in politics. I have never been in politics and when it comes to understanding them, I am still ignorant in that realm.
My first and most important question is why do you support Donald Trump? I ask this in the simplest of terms possible. What is it about him that you like? Is it that you think he looks professional? That he acts like a professional? Or is it that you support his policies?
I ask this question to help me begin to understand where you are coming from because there might be something I am missing. After some self-reflection, I may find myself aligning with him as opposed to other candidates.
To go off of this question, which policies do you align with? From the research that I have done, there are many policies that have undone what Obama implemented during his time as president. There were many policies and laws that Obama championed that appeared to make the country better and stronger. This is not to say that everything he did was great, but again, from the research I have done, what he did worked. For Trump to roll back those policies appear to be done out of spite rather than benefiting the country.
My next question is how do you support him in the wake of George Floyd, Covid-19, and Black Lives Matter protests? I ask this because my understanding of a leader used to be someone who stood out on the front lines to lead their team to victory. Now, in this case, it seems people have different definitions of victory. But when it comes to the president of the United States, victory means when America wins. Right now, to me, it appears that America is not winning. There are riots, protests, a struggling economy, a pandemic sweeping the world, and the leader we were supposed to have appears to not be visible.
To me, when things get tough, there needs to be a leader who stands out and takes charge. Again, not to say Obama was the best, but in my lifetime, I remember him taking a stand when things got tough to unite the nation to gain nationwide support, not only half of the country.
If our leader is promoting hateful speech and rhetoric online, how can America become stronger and more unified?
What happened to George Floyd was terrible. There is no other way to put it. Why didn’t our president speak up to try to help the American people who are protesting to give them hope? Why did he not speak out to work for police reform? There are many more questions to ask, but where was he for this?
When it comes to COVID-19, the virus that is sweeping the nation, he told us all it was immediately a hoax. He said it would be gone within weeks and that there was nothing to worry about. Well, we are now four months into quarantine and things are finally starting to take a turn. And if you say “well it’s not as bad as the media makes it out to be”, I ask you this. Why is it that Trump wants all visitors of his upcoming rallies to sign a waiver that disallows them to sue Trump if they contract the virus? If the virus isn’t real, why is there a worry they could contract it?
To wrap this up, my final question is what is it that keeps you coming back? It’s my understanding that Trump promotes a message that is specific for the middle class, but the majority of what he has done helps the wealthy (himself) and hurts those who support him. He campaigned on helping to bring more wealth to the middle class but charges the middle class to buy his gear? When you buy that gear, it’s literally putting money into his pocket. That $400K salary he donates is worthless to him as his wealth has increased over $1B in 3.5 years. Never in the world has a leader utilized the most powerful position in their country to sell goods to its citizens.
So what is it that keeps you interested in him? To me, politics have always been that thing that is nice to know and understand, but I leave it up to the “politicians”. The government works in their own personal interests, not its citizens. But isn’t it tiring having to defend someone time and time again? To me, it’s exhausting not being able to get away from the news. Social media, sports, TV shows, all reference politics now. There’s no escaping it.
After mocking people on Twitter, calling people names, having people in his administration be put in prison for corruption, numerous people fired because they don’t align with Trump’s views. This is concerning. So what is it that keeps you coming back to like and defend him?
I sincerely hope this can be a real discussion and I am here to listen. There may be a lack of knowledge on my end and I would like to know what that is.
I know this conversation may not be easy, but I’m up for having it. The last several years have divided us as a country and at the dinner table and there is no reason to hate one another.
Politics used to be the one thing that people never talked about and lately, we can’t escape it. Friendships have been lost. Family members have been ostracized. Over what? The fact that my political views don’t align exactly with what yours do? Just because you don’t like pepperoni pizza and I do, does that mean we should stop being friends?
The more you can help me understand where you are coming from, we can BOTH move forward to understand one another better to work on ourselves and share a positive message with others.
