Letter to Peanut Politics: I Supported Trump, Now I Regret It.

I live in one of the poorest parts of Georgia and I'm one of the few members of my family and community who no longer support the president. The fact that my own rust-tinged trailer is distinguished by a lack of signs in favor of Trump is a personal point of pride. I begin each day by mentally preparing myself for whatever Donald Trump latest assault on working people is.

His decision making is hurting poor people, working class voters everywhere, including the rural, white, black and working class like me and my neighbors. It will hurt many of those whose support for Trump has been among the stringent and vocal.

Here in rural Southeast Georgia, the wiregrass region I love, the scenery is offset by stark markers of rural poverty. Dilapidated barns, abandoned farm and outhouses, and mobile homes. Areas in nearby small towns and communities reveal more than a few empty bank owned homes. This isn't all that surprising, considering that the area I live is one of the poorest n the state of Georgia. Yet despite their relative ubiquity, I'm go smacked by the juxtaposition of the name Trump, synonymous with exorbitant wealth, in front of a rusting mobile every time I see one.

According to the many Trump supporters I know, Trump won their loyalty because of his so called outsider status and promise to not only take on, but dismantle, a corrupt, ineffectual political establishment. And now some of them are having regrets about supporting this fraud of a president. Many of these people, myself included, have struggled financially due to job loss and foreclosure. We often have had to rely on things like public assistance to get by. Is our collective financial instability the fault of a crooked political establishment? Many people here sure think so.

One of Trump's most apparent and effective wants of playing up anti-establishment credentials was calling out and criticizing Hillary Clinton's ties with Wall Street bigwigs like Goldman Sachs. Despite being a billionaire himself, Trump lack of political experience helped enable his populist appeal. He claimed to want to save the middle class which is a bald lie in part by changing current tax laws that allow billionaires to pay lower taxes on their enormous paychecks.

Trump, let's face it is a fake and a fraud to many who supported him. He lies on a daily basis, he's untrustworthy and I will not vote for him ever again. Poor people who have been victims of foreclosure, including the white and black working class ones in my community are having buyers remorse with their vote for Trump in 2016. Many people here lament the face that the size of their families and networks have dwindled because people have been forced to relocate out of economic necessity. I can't help but worry and wonder how many are empty homes (mobile or otherwise), will be soon dot the landscape I love so well. I am a red state South Georgia Democrat who voted for Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, Barack Obama....even George Wallace in 1968. I vote don't for Trump, but believe me I wouldn't vote for him again in a 100 years.

Wayne
Millwood, Ga
Retired

For Some Republicans, Distortions & Lies are the Only Way to Win an Election

Once considered liberal and progressive Pre-1964, the Republican Party has been taken over by right-wing conservative con artists who lie, cheat and steal to gain and maintain power. From voter fraud and suppression to smear campaigns, personal attacks and media manipulation, they have been using the same strategies for more than a hundred years.

While Democratic Dirty Tricks showed up around FDR's first election in '32, Kennedy/Nixon (Chicago) in '60 and Lyndon Johnson in '64, these lead to The New Deal, Social Security and Civil Rights while Republican Party Dirty Tricks gave us depressions, poverty and massive national debt.

Some Republicans know if most people vote, they would never win so they try to demoralize the Democratic base and suppress the vote as much as possible, they buy some people off with tax cuts and scare the rest into voting against their own interests and that's how they win. It's a divide and conquer strategy that has worked well and they refine and expand it every election year. Hey if ain't broke, don't fix it! Its been a success for them, so I wouldn't blame them for re-creating the same strategy

• Demoralize the Democratic base with phony press releases and whisper campaigns.
• Attack opponents strength with character assassination.
• Suppress the vote in every possible way.
• Buy some people off with tax cuts.
• Scare the hell out of the rest of the voters into voting against their own interests.

Republicans today have two major factors on their side; a fanatical base willing to carry out the dirty tricks and the greediest billionaires to finance them. They deceive good people by raising the red flag of abortion and gay marriage to divert attention away from their arrogant and greedy policies which cause the poverty, war and destroying our Natural Resources we are facing today.

Now look, Democrats stretch the truth and even lie outright as well, especially when an embarrassing personal fact comes to light (Case in point, John Edwards, Anthony Weiner).

But lord knows some republicans lie alot and unashamedly, both on the campaign trail and when they're in office, and they slander their opponents whenever they get the chance. If political lying were a criminal offense, Democrats would be guilty of misdemeanors and parking violations, while Republicans would be guilty of the worst kind of felonies, aggravated assaults, Kidnapping, or worse.

Is Democratic policy is beneficial to more people than Republican policy??? Democrats have a distinct advantage in an election on the bread & butter issues. The majority of people in this country want good wages, employee and consumer protection, affordable health care, a well maintained infrastructure, and so on. They only want us to put our soldiers in harm's way when it's absolutely necessary.

Those are the kinds of things Democratic policy is all about, so Democrats believe if they more-or-less tell the truth, throwing in some exaggeration along the way and hiding their personal faults, they should win elections -- that is, if the elections are won on the issues.

The Republican philosophy is entirely different. It believes that what's good for the ruling class (The Upper Bracket) is good for the country. That's what keeps America strong. Low wages help businesses prosper, which makes the country richer, so low wages are a good thing...let's see an unemployment level of 6% or higher helps keep workers afraid of losing their jobs, so they work harder for less pay......or worker illness doesn't hurt the bottom line since there are always plenty of others to take their place, so affordable health care is an unneeded expense. Social welfare programs make people lazy and less willing to take bad jobs for low wages, so they're counterproductive. Now Social Welfare does make "SOME" people lazy, but not everyone who's on it....

How many people would vote for the Republican Party if it admitted to its core philosophy? 35%? 45%? Truly doctrinaire Republicans believe they must be in power, not just for their own personal gain, but for the good of the country. If the bleeding heart Democrats took over, they honestly believe, we would lose our wealth and our ascendancy in the world. So it's their patriotic duty to win by any means necessary. Since they can't win elections by running on their real agenda, they win by lying about their agenda and smearing their opponents with as much mud as they can. (They also do everything they can to divert people's attention, of course, by claiming to stand for morality, motherhood and apple pie and making people believe they're in danger and only the Republicans can keep the country safe)

When they want to pass tax cuts for the rich, they say the cuts are for the middle class. When they want to bankrupt Social Security, they say they want people to have more money for their retirement, and on and on.

A republican friend of mine who I've known for over 6 years said this..."We're (Republicans) the Daddy Party that knows what's best for the country, even if the people are too childish to understand. We may....stretch it a lil' bit, but they're doing it for all of us. Father Knows Best". I was taken aback by that statement, but he's still my boy & we don't let our politics get in the way of friendship, (he's a unabashed Tea Partier...me, a rural conservative democrat). That statement makes me think how many actually think like that? Who knows!

Anyway, I know I can be sarcastic sometimes when I write blog posts on this blog, but this is not one of those times. I'm being deadly earnest. This is the way things are. And it's why Democrats are always so frustrated and befuddled when the Republicans come after them with jaw-dropping lies and the nastiest of smears. Democrats can't believe anyone would stoop so low, because the Democrats' desire to tell the truth makes it difficult for them to understand how anyone can lie with such abandon. Hardcore Republicans, on the other hand, probably know deep down in their DNA that lying is the only way for them to stay in power.