do we have any of those here?
ny times
The Trump Voters Who Dont Believe Trump
"When the former president endorses violence and proposes using the
government to attack his enemies, many of his supporters assume its just an
act.
Oct. 14, 2024
One of the more peculiar aspects of Donald J. Trumps political appeal is this: A
lot of people are happy to vote for him because they simply do not believe he
will do many of the things he says he will.
The former president has talked about weaponizing the Justice Department
and jailing political opponents. He has said he would purge the government of
non-loyalists and that he would have trouble hiring anyone who admits that the
2020 election wasnt stolen. He proposed one really violent day in which
police officers could get extraordinarily rough with impunity. He has promised
mass deportations and predicted it would be a bloody story. And while many
of his supporters thrill at such talk, there are plenty of others who figure its all
just part of some big act.
There is, of course, evidence to the contrary. During Mr. Trumps term in office,
some of his autocratic rhetoric did become reality. He really did set in motion a
Muslim ban; he really did order up investigations of his foes; he really did
foment a mob when the election didnt go his way. But in other instances he
was stymied, and a lot of his strongman jaw-jaw remained just that.
Thats the way some of his voters think another term might go. Its how they
rationalize his rhetoric, by affording him a reverse benefit of the doubt. They
doubt; he benefits.
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Last Thursday, inside a small music venue in downtown Detroit during the
middle of the day, you could see this phenomenon playing out quite clearly.
Mr. Trump was there to address the Detroit Economic Club. Presidents Richard
Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama had all, in
their respective days, come to Michigan to talk to this club, too.
There were a few hundred people there. They were not the sorts of people one
encounters at a Trump rally. They werent construction workers or truck drivers
or forklift operators; they carried business cards and had very active LinkedIn
pages. They did not wear red hats or T-shirts with images of Mr. Trumps
bloodied face; they wore windowpane suit jackets and loafers and rather
conspicuous cuff links.
They did not want to hear about one really violent day or about the deep state
or the Marxists or the fascists or any of the other radical or antidemocratic
visions that Mr. Trump describes in baroque detail at his rallies. They just
wanted him to tell them that he would be good for business.
So, he did. For nearly two hours. There were rough edges in his remarks, and
some talk of a stolen election, but mostly he made them feel content in their
choice to vote for him. They chuckled at his self-deprecating wisecracks about
his age, his body, his hair and his wealth. He talked about American muscle cars
and regaled them with tales of how he went toe-to-toe with various world
leaders and about his new buddy, Elon Musk. They cooed when he told them
his daughter Tiffany was newly pregnant, and clapped when he said, however
improbably, that he would work with Democrats to get stuff done. This was the
version of Mr. Trump in which they (and their 401ks) wanted to believe.
They found it easy to tune out the other versions of him.
I think the media blows stuff out of proportion for sensationalism, said Mario
Fachini, a 40-year-old Detroit man who owns a book publishing company. His
black hair was gelled back and he had on a boxy, black pinstriped suit with a
gold pocket square peeking out. There were tiny model globes hanging from
his cuff links. He held up his wrist and gave one a spin.
Asked if he believed Mr. Trump would purge the federal government and fill its
ranks with election deniers, Mr. Fachini sipped his iced tea and thought for a
moment. I dont, he said. So why was Mr. Trump saying he wanted to do that?
It could just be for publicity, Mr. Fachini said with a shrug, just riling up the
news.
Mary Burney, a 49-year-old woman from Grosse Pointe, Mich., who works in
sales for a radio station, described herself as an independent-turned-Trump-
voter. She did not believe the former president would really persecute his
political opponents, even though he has mused about appointing a special
prosecutor to go after President Biden and members of his family. I dont
think thats on his list of things to do, she said. No, no.
Tom Pierce, a 67-year-old from Northville, Mich., did not truly believe that Mr.
Trump would round up enough immigrants to carry out the largest mass
deportation operation in history. Even though that is pretty much the central
promise of his campaign.
He may say things, and then it gets people all upset, said Mr. Pierce, but then
he turns around and he says, No, Im not doing that. Its a negotiation. But
people dont understand that.
Did Mr. Pierce, a former chief financial officer, believe Mr. Trump would actually
levy a 200 percent tariff against certain companies? No, he said. Thats the
other thing. Youve got to sometimes scare these other countries. (Indeed. In
an interview on Fox News on Sunday, Mr. Trump said, Im using that just as a
figure. Ill say 100, 200, Ill say 500, I dont care.)
Mr. Pierce added, Hes not perfect. And I dont necessarily care for his
personality, but I do like how we had peace and prosperity.
That dynamic is one that Mr. Trump has had with voters ever since he stormed
onto the political scene nine years ago, and it endures, even as his language
has grown darker. In the latest New York Times/Siena College poll, 41 percent
of likely voters agreed with the assessment that people who are offended by
Donald Trump take his words too seriously.
The normal rules just dont apply to Donald Trump, and youve seen it time and
again, said Neil Newhouse, a Republican pollster. Mr. Newhouse said that he
has found in his polling and focus groups that people think he says things for
effect, that hes blustering, because thats part of what he does, his shtick. They
dont believe that its actually going to happen.
But Mr. Trump and those around him have said a second term would be
different, since he finally has a firm grip on his party, and because many of the
roadblocks that slowed him down before have been pulverized. This is a key
part of Vice President Kamala Harriss pitch to voters. Understand what it
would mean if Donald Trump were back in the White House with no guardrails,
because certainly we know now the court wont stop him, she said during their
debate. We know JD Vance is not going to stop him.
Still, even some of Mr. Trumps more hardcore supporters, the people who go to
the rallies, wonder how far he can or will go. Hal Garrigues, a retired pilot who
attended a Trump rally in Bozeman, Mont., this year said in a phone interview
that he didnt believe Mr. Trump would go after Mr. Biden or his family,
because, I mean, before he said the same crap about Hillary, and then he
didnt do anything.
Mr. Garrigues did not think that Mr. Trump would take the United States out of
the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Itll never happen), nor did he worry
about Mr. Trumps fantasy of one violent day of policing. Nah, thats just a
sound bite, he said. Hes not going to do that.
I think people have very thick shock absorbers when it comes to Donald
Trump, said Kellyanne Conway, the Republican pollster who served as a senior
counselor to the former president. People have a very good sense of sussing
out rhetoric from reality.
And yet, as president, much of Mr. Trumps rhetoric did become reality. What he
said on Jan. 6, 2021 If you dont fight like hell, youre not going to have a
country anymore ultimately led to his impeachment for inciting insurrection.
In a new book by Bob Woodward, General Mark A. Milley is quoted as saying
the former president is fascist to the core. Mr. Milley is just one in a long line of
top officials and military leaders who worked for Mr. Trump and then told tales
afterward about having to constantly work to prevent him from acting out his
most antidemocratic impulses.
In Detroit, Mr. Trump told a version of that reality that was not entirely different.
He lamented how his first term in Washington had gone, admitted that he didnt
know much about the way the town worked, and that he had to rely on people
he could not trust to carry out his wishes. I now know the game a little better,
he said.
But he also seemed to be aware that there are many people who wonder about
some of the words that come out of his mouth. Maybe some of those people
were there in that very room. Maybe thats why he went on a tangent about all
the ways he thinks Democrats are screwing things up and then said, You see,
thats the real threat to democracy stupid people.
The businesspeople began to clap."
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Simple minded for sale.
The goal is to get information on one million voters.
Your tax dollars at work.
c.........
Muskfs obsessive quest to get Donald Trump into the
White House has taken a desperate turn. On Thursday,
the tech CEO tweeted to more than 20o million followers
that hefs offering $100 to registered Pennsylvania
voters who sign his pro-Trump petition.
***However, this $100 special offer is exclusively for
Pennsylvanians.***
According to the site, the goal is to get g1 million
registered voters in swing states to sign in support of
the Constitution, especially freedom of speech and the
right to bear arms.h
The tech CEO tweeted this offer shortly after hosting
his first solo political event at a Pennsylvania town
hall on Friday night, in which he reportedly peddled
debunked election conspiracy theories.
While this petition isnft his only bid to flip the
swing state in Trumpfs favor, (last week, Musk offered
to go door-to-door in Pennsylvania to petition for the
former president), itfs certainly one of his stupidest
ones.
As my colleague Tim Murphy writes :
This particular approach has drawbacks, for the same
reason paying people to gather signatures often does:
Youfre incentivizing bad data, which is what you really
donft want in a get-out-the-vote operation. Paid
petitioners get in trouble all the time because the
signatures they collect donft match real people, or
were submitted without a voterfs knowledge. The PAC
says it has some safeguards in place, and that you
wonft get your $47 until both the referrer and referee
are verified. But the money creates a reason for real
people who donft support Trump to sign up and take
Muskfs cash. Itfs a great way for Harris-backing
undergrads at Arizona State to get beer money—itfs
certainly easier than giving plasma.
Itfs possible this is a genius move from a man with an
evolutionarily advanced brain, in other words. But itfs
also possible that Musk is simply doing the rich guy
thing—and the classic rich tech guy thing—of walking
into a new situation and assuming all of his ideas are
important.
On Saturday, Musk will speak at a Pennsylvania
megachurch with strong ties to the New Apostolic
Reformation, a religious movement that believes
Christians are called to take over the government.
Correction, October 19: An earlier version misstated
the date of the tweet. It was tweeted on Thursday,
October 17.
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