Two female Trump voters in a row yesterday!

[Lonestarblue]

17. I have some relatives who are Trump supporters.

We don’t discuss politics much these days, but I know some of their attitudes from years past. Racism is certainly a big factor, although all of them would say that they are not racist and have nothing against black and brown people. Their behavior, though, says they do not want such people in their lives. In most small towns, white and minority communities go their separate ways—separate churches, different restaurants, separate funeral homes, etc.

Schools of course are integrated, but white children are generally not allowed to socialize with minorities outside of school. My relatives would not only be horrified if one of their children wanted to date a minority, they would forbid it—even for casual friendship. Trump supporters like his racism and see him “putting black people back in their place”—meaning separate and no part of their majority white experience.

The second factor is religion. Conservatives have been convinced that the US is going to hell because fewer and fewer young people (and older ones, too) see religion as an important part of their lives. Their ministers preach this from the pulpit every Sunday. Trump promises religious freedom, which to them means no abortion for any reason anywhere in the country, the right not to recognize same-sex marriages and the legal right to discriminate against LGBTQ any way they want, and the imposition of Biblical law by the government to regulate what they see as immoral behavior. The last point is especially important to white evangelicals because they believe that their version of Christianity should be declared as the official religion of the US, along with declaring that only English may be spoken or used for documents in this country. They see Trump’s right-wing Supreme Court appointments as paramount for achieving their goals, and they do not consider anything he is doing to make the country weaker internationally as important at all. They have bought into his America First belief that the US is able to go it alone in the world and is strong enough to not need anyone else.

I suspect a lot of Trump supporters have similar beliefs.