Wednesday, May 11, 2016

Jan from Chattanooga

In a recent version of Slate’s excellent Trumpcast podcast, the host Jacob Weisberg interviewed a listener, Jan from Chattanooga, about why he supports Donald Trump. It was interesting to hear Jan’s views. 

Here’s what struck me the most about what he had to say.

1. Jan is angry about the bank bailouts of 2008. He thinks that Trump might have done the bailouts just the same, “for the good of the country”, but that Trump would have been able to leverage more government “oversight” of the banks.

2. Jan is concerned about illegal immigration and wants it under control. At the same time, he isn’t sure that the wall Trump wants to build is a good thing (and doesn’t actually believe Trump will build it).

3. Jan doesn’t agree with Trump’s idea of deporting 12 million illegal aliens. Instead, he thinks law-abiding illegal immigrants already in the US should be “given some way to become Americans, or at least have a legal working status”

4. Jan isn’t worried that Trump is now starting to take campaign contributions, because he trusts that Trump won’t allow himself to be “owned” by anybody politically.

On point 1, Jan could almost be a Sanders supporter. On points 2 and 3, he rejects two of Trump’s major policies. He’s not in favor of “the wall” and is in favor of amnesty. On point 4, he seems to trust Trump not to be corruptible for no other reason than he’s Trump, or rich, or something.

Otherwise, the main reason he supports Trump is his promise to stop US jobs from going overseas. There again, he sounds to me like a Sanders supporter.

All that said, I don’t see why Jan, who sounds like an intelligent guy, would support Trump over one of the more moderate GOP candidates, or even Bernie Sanders. I don’t get it.


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