Another Election Mystery

The election that will result in the worst President that this country has ever seen (a confident prediction, even before he officially begins his term), has many mysteries. Why were the polls were so horribly wrong? What was the actual impact of the Russian hacking? Why did Comey and the FBI wait until the last minute to reveal information they had possessed for many weeks? And so on.

But one mystery that has been bothering me lately has to do with the voters that actually voted for Drumpf . That almost certainly were going to vote for Drumpf regardless of the various external forces. And I’m not talking about the idiots who didn’t have a freaking clue. Those incredibly stupid fools who got trotted out on The Daily Show (and other such outlets), being interviewed and revealing they had no idea what was wrong with their candidate: unconstitutional promises, lack of human decency, bigotry, a complete lack of ethical behavior, or even simple good manners. No idea, and even if they considered these offenses, simply didn’t care. See no evil, hear no evil.

No, there’s nothing to be done for those imbeciles. “Against stupidity, the gods themselves strive in vain.” It is the other component of the electorate that voted for Drumpf that have me completely mystified. I am talking about the significant numbers of intelligent, informed and even (generally) well-meaning votes who voted for Drumpf anyway. The men who have wives and daughters, yet who, despite his unbelievable crudeness with respect to women, voted for him. The wives and daughters themselves, who, knowing his misogynistic contempt, voted for him. People who voted for him, yet were fully cognizant of all the shortcomings I listed above: bigotry, lack of ethics, etc.

These are people who under normal circumstances would have never even considered a person of such despicable character. And I know some of these people, personally. Hell, I’d bet good money that several of them are related to me. People who, were they to meet Donald Drumpf in person, would almost certainly be repelled by his lack of decent behavior, his crass manners, his dishonesty, his immature, childish bullying. The man is so disgusting that his very presence would be an affront to these people. And every action he has taken, both before the election, but especially after, would be anathema to almost everything these people stood for.

Unless that thing was Change. Coupled with distaste bordering on outright hatred for Hillary Clinton.

But even given that motive, it is an unfathomable mystery to me that any of these otherwise decent, intelligent, educated and informed citizens actually brought themselves to vote for Donald Drumpf. There were alternatives. A third party candidate, or even simply abstaining (courteously). Anything besides pulling the lever for the most notoriously unqualifed and abhorrent person to ever seek, let alone win, the Presidency.

There is, as they say, no accounting for taste. But surely to God there must be an accounting for flagrant disregard of the every sign and portent he provided to his supporters.

I wish this could be explained. The vacuum of reasoning that allowed this result to happen is perhaps the most frightening aspect of this moment in time. It seems to signal a deeper wrongness, a cognitive dissonance between the obscenity in front of us and our better angels, a mental barrier that borders on cultural psychosis.

So, like Bob Seger sang, I’m working on a mystery without any clues. In the dark, with winter closing in.


© 2017 Chuck Puckett