Scott Tibbs
Demonizing Trump voters only hardens their support of him
By Scott Tibbs, January 22, 2024
After Donald Trump won the Iowa Caucuses with more than 50% of the vote and with no one else able to each 22% of the vote, "white Christians" started trending on social media. How can anyone vote for Trump given his many flaws? But trends like this one are
why Trump has so much support, and why so many of his supporters stick by him.
When people attack white Christians for supporting Trump, it solidifies his support among that group. This is also especially true for white working class voters. This is because Trump voters see him as a bulwark against the radical Left. A few years ago, there was a meme of Trump sitting in a chair with the text "They're not after me. They're after you. I'm just in the way." There is a reason that meme resonated with voters.
Is that perception true?
It doesn't matter. That is the mentality of Trump voters, and bitter Leftists solidify and strengthen that mentality every time they attack Trump voters. No one has done more to shore up Trump's support among his base than the Leftists who bitterly attack his base, their faith, their intelligence, their character and their values. Every attack on Trump's voters creates a "circle the wagons" mentality.
So am I just a Trump homer? Nope. I did not vote for Trump in 2016. I voted against Trump in the 2020 primary and voted for him in the 2020 general election. I
will not vote for him in 2024. But his detestable personal character aside, I fully understand why people support him. I have detailed his policy accomplishments many times over, so there is no need to rehash that again.
There is a case to be made against Trump. But attacking Trump's voters is the worst possible way to make that case. It failed to shake his voters away from him in 2016, and it failed again in 2020, when Trump got over 11 million more votes than he did four years earlier. It will continue to fail. You cannot win the hearts and minds of people you hate and demonize.
This was the same problem Republicans created for themselves in 2008 and especially in 2012. Republicans attacked Barack Obama and tried to peel people away from him, and Obama got over three million
fewer votes in 2012 than he did in 2008. But Republicans sabotaged themselves when they also attacked, mocked and ridiculed Obama voters. They were just leeches, or effeminate "pajama boys." Obviously, that backfired and made those voters support Obama even more.
It may make you feel good to demonize white Christians who support Donald Trump. You may feel virtuous. But you will never convince a single one of them to turn against Trump by demonizing, ridiculing and personally attacking them for supporting him. So by all means, parade your virtue in attacking Trump's voters. Make your phylactery as wide as possible. You will get applause from people who already agree with you. But do not think you will change a single mind. You will be tilting at windmills forever.
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