I guess Trump's base doesn't trust him after all
Let me start out by saying that I live in a predominantly pro-Trump / red state (I really need to move the hell out one day) and my wife and I were buying groceries the night before last...no toilet paper. NONE. All hand sanitizer? Gone. Canned goods? Slim pickings. People running around the store with carts stuffed with toilet paper, milk, cases of water, etc.
Some of them kept incessantly staring at my wife who surmised it was probably because she's Asian and these moron hillbillies probably look upon all Asians with disdain right now. Thing is--my wife isn't even Chinese and has been an American citizen for years. But, you can't fix stupid and the stupid just assume all Asians are COVID-19 generators, I guess.
As I've stated here before, I work with many Trumpers and they were all glued to the radio yesterday, listening to the coronavirus news, talking about it and what they're going to do to prepare/avoid infection.
So, I can't speak for how all pro-Trump states/areas are responding to this, but I can tell you my own first-hand account of what's at least going on in the pro-Trump area *I* live in.
So, what is it? Do the Trumpers trust their fearless leader or not?
You know what I think? I think the same thing I've thought since 2017: most Trumpers know what a crazy fuck he is. They just follow him for several reasons:
-Pride. Humans inherently have trouble admitting when they made a mistake and normally just double/triple down on their decision rather than learn/grow from it
-Partisanship. They want their party in play, even if it means selling their souls to a complete and utter buffoon.
-Stubbornness. This again ties back into pride. Trumpers won't want to admit their candidate is deeply flawed and definitely won't want to admit they elected the one guy who could sink us all. They will take their stubbornness and their pride to their graves first.
-The bottom line. This goes back to partisanship. They want republicans in play. They hate the libs. They would, as I keep saying, rather watch the country burn than turn the power back over to the democrats.
So, there you have it. They are loud in their defenses of Trump--aggressive and angry--but deep down...they're as scared shitless of him as the rest of us. Even the Trumpers aren't stupid enough to take this virus as lightly as Trump is suggesting. They'll never willingly admit it, of course, but they don't have to--their actions reveal that already. I saw FEAR on the faces of those Trumpers. Genuine FEAR.
And what a phenomenon it is--that the human condition of pride will still drive them to mark Trump's name in the voting booths this November. Even with all their panic over the virus. Their panic-buying. Their hoards of toilet paper. Their worried faces. At the end of the day on November 3...they will STILL vote for Donald Trump, the man they obviously distrust like the rest of us. Classic case of cutting off the nose to spite the face.