Contributors

Wednesday, November 15, 2017

Are Trump Supporters Ashamed of Themselves?

Michael Kruse wrote a piece last week for Politico magazine that highlighted Trump supporters in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. The testimonials were filled with the usual irrational nonsense like this.

“Everybody I talk to,” he said, “realizes it’s not Trump who’s dragging his feet. Trump’s probably the most diligent, hardest-working president we’ve ever had in our lifetimes. It’s not like he sleeps in till noon and goes golfing every weekend, like the last president did.” 

I stopped him, informing him that, yes, Barack Obama liked to golf, but Trump in fact does golf a lot, too—more, in fact. Del Signore was surprised to hear this. 

“Does he?” he said. 

“Yes,” I said. 

He did not linger on this topic, smiling and changing the subject with a quip. “If I was married to his wife,” Del Signore said, “I don’t think I’d go anywhere.” 

He added: “Some of these things are like that thing he said to Billy, Billy Bob, Billy Bud”—searching, unsuccessfully, for the name Billy Bush—“on the bus, that comment he made.” Del Signore shrugged. “He’s a human male. I’m glad he wasn’t saying, ‘Hey, I like little boys.’ You know? So he’s not perfect.” 

Del Signore said he’s been following politics far more than before because of Trump. Trump, he said, is just “more interesting.” So now he likes watching the news. “Ninety-nine percent of the time I watch Fox,” he said. “Sometimes I’ll be sitting there listening to all this Fox stuff, and I’ll say, ‘Maybe they aren’t right, maybe I’ll flip to CNN’—but every time I’ve found that Fox has been correct, and CNN is definitely fake news.”

Pretty typical.

But I guess your typical Trump voters are an embarrassment to the leaders of Johnstown because they penned a response to Politico that was just posted today.

It’s too bad, but not surprising, that Kruse instead focused on specific comments by a few people who fit a narrative he created before arriving. We wish Mr. Kruse would have taken the time to understand the context of the entire community, rather than simply using it as the convenient backdrop for a preexisting storyline. For readers outside of our region, his story depicted a community that does not reflect who we truly are and what we believe.

Oh, really?

It seems to me, Mr. Janakovic et al, that you have some really awful assholes that live in your town. Worried a little that perhaps people won't want to do business there now that your political slip is showing? It seems to me that your already hard hit economy would sink even further if people found out that guys like Del Signore were hanging around.

I guess Trump supporters aren't to proud of who they are. It speaks volumes when they have to hide and pretend that they are really just good people, right?

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