Ultra-liberal voters also have less than desirable and clearly identifiable characteristics, and, as with “Trump” voters, not all of them share the following traits that I’ve observed in ultra-liberals over the years.

Sadly, today, most ultra-liberals have little or no understanding of the basics of politics or economics, which is why the conservatives have been able to create a political structure that favors them over time in the majority of states. It’s also why, once the current furor is over, Democrats will find themselves on the defensive again, especially at the state level, which will become ever more important with a Supreme Court that will be even more tilted to the right. Beyond that, they also continue to believe that more funding will solve almost every problem, except for the military, where less funding is the answer.

Ultra-liberals also have a tendency to focus on semantics, rather than power. They fail to understand that, if they get and hold power, the semantics will follow.

While many ultra-liberal voters are theoretically more secular than ultra-conservatives, many of them “compensate” for the lack of fervor in religious matters by channeling the same kind of emotion into politics and political correctness.

Ultra-liberals have a dismaying tendency to adopt causes, technology, words, and educational theories not necessarily because they’re good, but simply because they’re new. Conservatives, of course, reject most of what’s new simply because it is new.

Like many ultra-conservatives, ultra-liberals also tend to be condescending, and occasionally even hostile, toward those with whom they disagree.

Far too many ultra-liberals believe that there is an optimal and universally applicable solution to any problem, if only the conservatives wouldn’t stand in their way, when in fact, no technology or system has ever worked optimally for everyone. The choice is always between a system that works for most people, and which will fail or screw a minority, or the use of multiple systems, with the corresponding requirement for more funding and resources [and even then, people being people, some will fail or be screwed]. The liberal “compromise” is often underfunding both.

Liberals also seem to have a fascination with degrees, rather than actual expertise, and often fail to understand the difference. Combined with their fondness for “positive” curricula and their horror at any form of educational consequences, the result has been a dumbed-down and educational system at all levels. Yet they fail to recognize either the cause of this situation or the future economic and societal consequences.

The ultra-liberal voter enthusiastically and uncritically backs almost anything with the term “environmental” attached to it, especially touting solar power and “renewable energy” as being the most “environmentally clean power,” despite the fact that no such thing exists or ever will. The only questions are which power system has (1) the least adverse impact on the environment in the locale in which it is situated and (2) the lowest global environmental impact. Ultra-liberals often reject this position.

Right now, ultra-liberals are backing greater diversity as a solution to everything involved with cultural and racial problems. It isn’t. Lack of diversity in professional occupations, higher education, political office, etc., is a symptom of far deeper economic and societal problems. Focusing on diversity is a simplistic attack on the symptom and diverts attention and resources from the fundamental underlying problems.

But then, that’s the continuing basic problem with the far left, seizing on one simplistic and superficial answer to far larger problems, throwing money at it, and then going on to yet another superficial approach… and yet another.

Obviously, there’s no absolute template for the voters who back Trump and/or the Republican Party unconditionally, but there is a range of beliefs and attitudes which are far more common to such individuals than they are to those who are less than enamored of Trump or of the Republican Party.

One trait is a belief that Democrats/Liberals have debased the American system as envisioned by the Founding Fathers. More conservative voters have a greater tendency to reject various changes to our system as un-American or unconstitutional, despite the fact that the Founding Fathers specifically provided for a method of changing the system.

Another trait is a belief that the United States should “protect” and enshrine in law “traditional” religious beliefs, even going so far as trying to legislate one set of religious beliefs into law while fulminating against others and against other nations that have enshrined a different set of beliefs into law. They tend to ignore the Founding Fathers’ express desire to separate church and state, by claiming that the framers of the Constitution always meant “freedom of religion” only so long as that religion was some form of Christianity, although that was certainly not written into the Constitution… or even the Federalist papers.

From what I’ve observed, many Trump voters are angry about social and economic changes that they believe have left them in a poorer position. They also believe that government programs have unfairly elevated others, particularly minorities and recent immigrants, and that too much federal spending goes to the undeserving, which they label as socialism, but they tend to ignore the benefits of government that accrue to them. In general, they tend to view any government program that does not benefit them directly as wasteful and unnecessary.

A significant percentage of Trump and hardcore Republican voters are strong, if not fanatical, believers in the right to bear arms of any sort that an individual can carry, and oppose any restriction on what they see as an unconditional Constitutional right.

Despite the fact that every single person on the North American continent is either an immigrant or a descendent of immigrants, pro-Trump voters tend to be far more skeptical and critical of immigrants. They also tend to favor a more isolationist U.S. position in the world.

From what I’ve seen and heard, Trump voters and ultra-conservatives tend to believe the best times are behind the U.S. and generally oppose change, unless that change is to undo previous governmental action. They’re also more for economic growth, regardless of whether that growth creates enormous environmental degradation.

Those are the most obvious tendencies and traits that I’ve observed over the years, and there may be others as well. I’m not saying that the more liberal Democrats also don’t have identifiable traits as well, but that’s another post.

One commenter requested that I give my best shot at describing the “Trump” voter. Then I got to thinking that, if I was tackling one extreme, I ought to do both.
So there are two posts. One right after the other.

But before getting to the posts, I have to offer a disclaimer. I am not a psychologist nor a professional pollster. I am someone who spent twenty years professionally in the world of national politics, serving in the legislative and executive branches [as a Republican under Republicans] and working in the private business sector for a Washington, D.C., consulting firm. I’ve also spent the last decade or so in the “reddest” state in the U.S.; so I’m not speaking/writing from a “blue/liberal” enclave.

After requiring supplemental oxygen at least twice, and getting three different treatments for Covid-19, Trump is now declaring, “Don’t be afraid of Covid. Don’t let it dominate your life.” That’s fine for someone who has an entire staff of doctors looking out for him on a minute-to-minute basis, but most Americans don’t have that kind of healthcare, as should be obvious from the more than seven million cases and over 210,000 deaths recorded so far.

The most blatant denial of the danger of Covid-19 was when Trump, still sick and contagious, ordered his Secret Service detail to drive him around so that he could wave to supporters. Just how many more people did he endanger by that stunt? Especially after the unmasked Rose Garden ceremony a week ago that resulted in passing on Covid-19 to at least two senators and a number of Trump staffers.

But that’s just the beginning. Trump’s entire Presidency has been one of denial. He denied that white supremacist groups were evil and a danger. He denied that air pollution was a danger by rolling back air quality standards. He’s denied the reality of climate change and the significant contribution to it by human caused emissions, and then pushed for less regulation of dirty coal-fired power plants. He’s denied the heritage of immigration – and the fact that almost half of the important patents that have led to U.S. dominance were issued to immigrants. He’s denied police brutality. He’s denied the right to affordable health care. He’s the first president in modern times to deny a look at his tax returns. He’s denied that there was and is foreign interference in our elections, and at the same tine denied the safety of mail-in ballots, a denial of statements by his own FBI that there’s no evidence of wide-scale fraud in any form of U.S. voting, including the mail-in ballots used by ten states. Even before Trump was President, he denied that President Obama was a U.S. citizen.

And all the time, he’s made impossible promises that he never followed through on… and likely never intended to.

Trump agreed with the rules for the first Presidential debate, including one that stated that he would not interrupt while Biden was speaking. He almost immediately broke that rule.

In one sense, that should tell everyone who and what he is. He’ll only follow rules, or laws, when he physically has to, or when they’re to his benefit, and even then he’ll twist them to his advantage, like when he paid his daughter something like $70,000 for consulting services – when she was already on the payroll. You can’t be both an employee and an independent contractor for a company at the same time, but that clearly didn’t faze the Donald.

For the Donald, rules are for suckers, just as dying for your country is for losers and suckers, and that’s why someone paid off a doctor to find the Donald unfit for the military because of bone spurs. That’s why he’s stiffed contractors.

He’s been in office for more than three and a half years, and he’s promised a better health plan since even before he was elected. He also promised a massive infrastructure program. So far, there’s no sign of either even having been drafted. He also promised that Mexico would pay for his wall. Mexico didn’t and won’t. Those are just the most obvious examples, but his failure to keep promises is because keeping promises is also for suckers.

He pushed through a tax bill that gave most of the population a short-term tiny tax cut and the millionaires and billionaires a huge tax cut, which dramatically increased the deficit and made it harder to fund existing government programs, and then he lied about what he’d actually done.

The Donald isn’t ever going to change. He is what he is.

What bothers me is that so many people not only don’t see that, but that they also don’t see that any successful society runs on rules, usually called laws. When people don’t obey the rules voluntarily, society goes downhill. When that occurs, three things can happen. Society can collapse into revolution or anarchy. Or an authoritarian strongman can take over, which is becoming more and more common in today’s world. Or people can decide that it’s better to do the right thing and obey the rules, and work cooperatively to make things better so that bad rules/laws are changed.

The real suckers are those people who believe rules are for suckers… because in the end, rules accepted by the majority are the only thing that holds a successful and free society together, and abiding by those rules and, where necessary, peacefully cooperating to improve them are the only way to remain free. And that’s something that the Donald will never accept… or understand, not surprisingly, since he wants to reintroduce the divine rights of kings, or in his case, the divine right of dictators.