Listening to a Trump Voter

I was listening to a pro Trump voter today who said he is voting for Trump because he knows “he will support me 200%. He will have my back.” I imagine he’s right. As a white conservative man he is likely safe in Trump country. 

Many of us are unsafe under Trump. 

I am so sad to say that Trump’s rhetoric will likely continue to cause harm to my only child. I wish this was hyperbole, but it is not. Trump’s incendiary rhetoric incites individuals and mobs to act with violence against people and institutions and he targets explicitly. We all saw this on January 6. Many of us experienced it more personally though. For example, his anti-Asian tirades when he was president caused all in my home grave concerns. For example, my daughter walking one afternoon in Oakland NJ during the Pandemic was called a f***ing Ch##k and told to go home to China. The white man who yelled this had a white wife  and two children in the truck as he yelled this filth out the window. This violent rhetoric was unprompted. She was 17 and traumatized and it was Trump’s repeated rhetoric that normalized this too common behavior since he became president. Yes racists lived in the US before Trump. But his speech green lights this racist and misogynist behavior every time he demeans people of color l, women, and Trans-people. 

So the gulf between the man I listened to today and me is very wide.  As a voter I’m always concerned by those not insulated from violence the former president incite by their religion, wealth, orientation, gender and race. Such dimensions influence my vote. I wonder though if he could say the same.