Thank you for your thoughtful comments. I think we both agree that Trump was a very problematic candidate.
To me, the problems with Trump were illustrated by an incident in which he encouraged his supporters to beat up a heckler, a comment that 1. introduced violence into the political process, 2. Had some strong strong racial overtones, and 3. showed his willingness to put his OWN supporters in both a physically and legally difficult position.
Now, some of my responses to your comments.
1. The editing of Trump's victory speech did not, of course, change the outcome of the election but it does show the way in which CNN tried to manage the public perception of him and that along with their other, similar actions, may very well have influenced the 2020 election. A CNN employee, Charlie Chester, was caught on tape bragging that CNN caused Trump to lose the 2020 election. I don't know if that's true or just some guy bragging about power to an attractive woman, but if you compare the treatment that Trump received to the treatment Bush received AFTER we knew the WMD stories were untrue and that lots of administration officials knew it, you can see why I find Chester's claims believable.
By the way, CNN, whose parent company is the defense contractor ATT has tried to silence other antiwar voices and the silencing of Trump's views on this issue are part of a larger pattern. For example, Tulsi Gabbard was disinvited from a debate and at one debate she did attend--which featured only second-tier candidates, the post-debate analysis ignored her completely while giving lots of thoughtful commentary on candidates who ranked no higher in the polls than she.
How many Trump voters supported him because of his opposition to war? It is impossible to say. I agree with you that most voters voted for him for other reasons.
I also acknowledge that many people did vote for him for racist reasons. I am not sweeping that fact under the rug.
However, it seems plausible to me that perhaps 10 percent of Trump voters did vote for him because of war-and-peace issues.
1. Two political scientists, Kriner and Shen, analyzed states that voted for Obama and then Trump. When they broke down the results by counties, they found that those counties that flipped from Obama to Trump were those counties that had experienced an above average number of casualties in the Iraq war.
2. Depending on whose research you believe, anywhere between 6.4 and 8.2 million people voted for Obama and then for Trump . Further polling indicates that 12% of Sanders voters in the primaries also voted or Trump in 2016. Furthermore, while Gabbard was a minor candidate, never polling in the double digits, many of her supporters in the primary were Democrats who had voted for Trump in 2016.
Obama, Trump, Sanders, and Gabbard differ widely on economic policy and social issues. What they do have in common is a less-hawkish foreign policy than their opponents.
My guess, and it is only a guess since I don't think pollsters specifically probe voter views on war--they just ask generic questions about foreign policy--is that perhaps 10 percent of Trump voters supported him because of his relatively less hawkish stance.
This failure of pollsters to gauge attitudes toward war and peace and how those attitudes correlate with voting shows, in my opinion, how detached the pollsters, part of the intellectual and cultural elite, are from non-elite Americans.
Lest you conclude that I am a right-wing Republican, I want to add that I registered as a Democrat while still in high school and remain one at the age of 62. My preferred candidate in 2016 was Sanders, in 2020, Gabbard. I not only voted for Obama, I campaigned for him in 2008 but voted Green in 2012 out of disagreement with the drone strikes in Pakistan.
Trump was not a perfect candidate for me, even on foreign policy because of his sanctions on Iran and Venezuela and his increase in air strikes over the Horn of Africa.
My other issue of deep concern is our criminal justice system which I think goes beyond deterrence and public safety and is unnecessarily cruel. Trump did some sentencing reform, which I liked, but resumed the federal death penalty, which I did not like.
Finally, let me say how much I enjoyed your articles generally and your response to my ideas. Even when we disagree--and I don't think we disagree that much, actually--you force me to think more carefully about my views. Thanks for that.
