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Sam Rittenberg's avatar

Great piece. I’m no fan of Michael Moore and to say I’m no fan Of Donald Trump would be an understatement, but the below speaks so clearly to your point that anyone who hasn’t ever read it, should. Moore, almost presciently, wrote it in the run-up to 2016 election.

“I know a lot of people in Michigan that are planning to vote for Trump and they don't necessarily like him that much, and they don't necessarily agree with him. They're not racist or rednecks, they're actually pretty decent people, and so after talking to a number of them I wanted to write this:

'Donald Trump came to the Detroit Economic Club and stood there in front of Ford Motor executives and said, "if you close these factories as you're planning to do in Detroit and build them in Mexico, I'm going to put a 35% tariff on those cars when you send them back and nobody's going to buy them."

It was an amazing thing to see. No politician, Republican or Democrat, had ever said anything like that to these executives, and it was music to the ears of people in Michigan and Ohio and Pennsylvania and Wisconsin -- the "Brexit" states.

You live here in Ohio, you know what I'm talking about. Whether Trump means it or not, is kind of irrelevant because he's saying the things to people who are hurting, and that's why every beaten-down, nameless, forgotten working stiff who used to be part of what was called the middle class loves Trump. He is the human molotov cocktail that they've been waiting for. The human hand grenade that they can legally throw into the system that stole their lives from them.

And on November 8, Election Day, although they lost their jobs, although they've been foreclosed on by the bank, and next came the divorce and now the wife and kids are gone, the car's been repoed, they haven't had a real vacation in years, they're stuck with the shitty Obamacare Bronze Plan where you can't even get a fucking Percocet. They've essentially lost everything they had, except one thing -- the one thing that doesn't cost them a cent, and is guaranteed to them by the American constitution: the right to vote.

They might be penniless, they might be homeless, they might be fucked over and fucked up it doesn't matter, because it's equalized on that day - a millionaire has the same number of votes as the person without a job: one.

And there's more of the former middle class than there are in the millionaire class.

So on November 8, the dispossessed will walk into the voting booth, be handed a ballot, close the curtain, and take that lever or felt pen or touchscreen and put a big fucking X in the box by the name of the man who has threatened to upend and overturn the very system that has ruined their lives: Donald J. Trump.

They see that the elite who ruined their lives hate Trump. Corporate America hates Trump. Wall Street hates Trump. The career politicians hate Trump. The media hates Trump, after they loved him and created him, and now hate.

Thank you media: the enemy of my enemy is who I'm voting for on November 8.

Yes, on November 8, you Joe Blow, Steve Blow, Bob Blow, Billy Blow, all the Blows get to go and blow up the whole goddamn system because it's your right. Trump's election is going to be the biggest fuck you ever recorded in human history and it will feel good.”

(Note: This is only the first 90% of the piece, the last part is an attempt to say, “You are going to do what you are going to do, but it is going to be a mistake”)

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Dr. Deborah Hall's avatar

David,

You have my deep respect.

You are a very rare human being.

You are the first writer I have found

who is opposed to Trump

but who at the same time cares deeply

for those who love him.

Rather than judge them

you seek to understand them.

You do not join in vilifying them.

Your writing is insightful,

compassionate,

constructive.

Thank you for your brave patriotism.

Your insights strengthen us

to reach across the chasm

to our neighbor

and reunite our country

so loved by us both.

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