Whatchamacolumn: Public support quiet in our Trump-voting county
Why should people vote for Donald Trump to regain the U.S. presidency?
Editorially, the News-Register decided to forego that presidential debate question in 2024, for reasons explained below. Instead, the editorial board left it to others in the community, including offers for one major “op-ed” article from each side.
The op-ed supporting Kamala Harris / Tim Walz was published in late September, but despite written requests and several personal invitations, no supporter of Donald Trump responded.
Meanwhile, the newspaper received and published only two letters in all of 2024 supporting the Trump presidential campaign. A multitude of letters from readers advocated either for Biden/Harris/Walz or against Trump/Vance.
That might seem surprising in a county where voters favored Trump 55-45 over Hillary Clinton in 2016, and 52-48 over Joe Biden in 2020. Those results, however, don’t describe McMinnville and surrounds, where voting was 53-47 for Clinton in 2016 and 56-44 for Biden in 2020.
There are two obvious reasons for non-visibility of local Trump campaign support.
First, we all know that Trump will lose in Oregon, where voters last supported a Republican presidential candidate with Ronald Reagan in 1984. Before that, except for backing Franklin D. Roosevelt four times in the 1930s-40s, Oregon’s only other support of a Democrat for president was for Lyndon Johnson over Barry Goldwater in 1964. Trump’s campaign didn’t even bother to insert its candidate into Oregon’s 2024 Voters Pamphlet.
In contrast, except for FDR three times and Lyndon Johnson, the last time Yamhill County voters backed a Democrat presidential candidate was Woodrow Wilson in 1912.
Second, perhaps more telling, the personally inflamed nature of our current presidential campaigns can render people unwilling to admit publicly their support for the former president. That support comes from a variety of directions, which I’ll call the 4Rs of Trump politics: Record-Rural-Religion-Retribution.
Record, in part: The Biden administration was wrong on initial responses to challenges of the border and the economy, delivering Trump’s campaign its strongest issues. Never mind that border crossings have plummeted in 2024 and inflation is just 2.4 percent today – the 2021-23 post-pandemic record dominates the minds of many voters.
Rural: There are encyclopedic works on this topic. Suffice here to say that an NBC poll release this week says that 75 percent of rural Americans plan to vote for Trump in November.
Religion: Despite his own baffling religious orientation, Trump is fully embraced by conservative Christianity for delivering abortion control to the states and being a “cultural warrior” against various social and cultural policies of progressive Democrats. One interesting article found online, in Politico: “Evangelicals Hate Stormy Daniels But Love Trump.”
Retribution: Much has been made of Trump’s promises to seek revenge on his “political enemies.” But perhaps the real reckoning is represented by the response so many have to decades of liberal overreach in various areas of Americans’ lives. Perhaps their retribution will be to hold their collective noses and return Donald Trump to the presidency.
What else could explain the willingness of half our national population to support a candidate with so many personal and moral flaws? November, it seems, could produce an historic “serves-you-right” presidential vote, coming too soon for America’s centrists to reconcile the nation’s political polarization.
Jeb Bladine can be reached at jbladine@newsregister.com or 503-687-1223.
Comments
Bigfootlives
Hi Jeb,
You are correct, this is a majority conservative county and you have mostly alienated that population with the liberal bias of your newspaper. And that p**ses me off. I am 55 and grew up on the NR.
To prove that you have totally lost touch with over half of the county, you ask a question that either shows your total lack of ability to read the room or reflects the arrogance of your editorial board.
"What else could explain the willingness of half our national population to support a candidate with so many personal and moral flaws?"
SMH.
Moe
Meanwhile ...
Biden-Harris Deal with Mexico: Hold 400k+ Until November 5th
https://www.independentsentinel.com/biden-harris-deal-with-mexico-hold-400k-until-november-5th/
BC
Bigfootlives: I think you have the wrong Bladine. I'm pretty sure the torch has been passed to the next generation at this point.
BC
Bigfoot - oops. Sorry, I forgot this was Jeb's personal column. Carry on, nothing to see here. :)
treefarmer
“….so many personal and moral flaws.” The Republican Party has chosen as their standard bearer a person who fomented a violent insurrection which he now calls “a day of love.” They are either unwilling to acknowledge the reality we all watched unfold on video that dark day, or they found some convoluted way to justify it. They seem to accept Trump’s stated goals to seek revenge on his critics, up to and including execution (“the enemy within” as he calls us) by perverting the Justice Department to bend to his will. There were guardrails that held during his last reign, there were patriotic Republicans who prevented him from such vicious actions as shooting protesters, or migrants at the border. (We can be certain he won’t select patriotic Republicans for his cabinet if there is a next time.) Our national security was degraded by the theft and haphazard “storage” of top secret documents. If Trump would send scarce Covid testing equipment to his devoted friend Putin, imagine what was shared from those purloined documents? Two juries have found him liable for sex-related offenses, the first for abuse, the second for fraud related to concealing sexual indiscretion. His reckless lies have endangered hurricane victims and poll workers and judges; (to name but a few) his faithful will stop at nothing to exact revenge on those perceived as unfaithful. To gild the lily he has chosen a running mate who considers women akin to livestock with no value beyond breeding.
So, as we consider his history, witness his increasingly bizarre behavior and obvious cognitive decline, my fellow Americans continue to support him. Could it be that they disregard character? Do they share his toxic un-American values and want to live in a fascist state ruled by a cruel narcissistic demagogue? I wish I could UN-know these implications. In light of cold reality, is it any wonder that his supporters might want to be “quiet?”