“[T]he liberal impulse has been to demonize anyone at all sympathetic to Donald Trump,” Nicholas Kristof intoned in The New York Times, imploring liberals not to “belittle” voters eager to send a sociopathic ignoramus back to the White House. Quoting the Harvard philosopher Michael Sandel, he then sighed that “scorn for people with less education [is] ‘the last acceptable prejudice’ in America.” In other words: Hey, all you smarty-pants liberals — you’re the real bigots here! Take that!
Well, I try — really, really try — to be nice to everybody. And I would never say that all Trump voters are stupid. Quite the contrary, actually; in many cases, I have no difficulty understanding why people would vote for this viper. If you are an oligarch who wants to turn the federal government into your valet (like, say, Elon Musk), then it makes perfect sense for you to support Trump, an oligarch wanna-be who will help you loot the treasury as long as you line his pockets and fawn over him. If, on the other hand, you are an oligarch who just wants the government to cut your taxes and let you poison the planet (like, say, the Koch Brothers), then, again, a vote for Trump is completely rational. Alternatively, you may not be an oligarch at all, just an average joe who loves Trump because he hates the same people you hate. In none of these cases would I say people are behaving stupidly. Despicably? Sure. But stupidly? Nah.
