Why I Decided to Vote for Trump
And How We Might Bridge the Political Divide
I have not yet ever voted in a US election, though I’m an American. I grew up in Asia and I haven’t lived in the US for more than 2 months at a time, so I felt that kind of decision should be made by the people who will be most directly affected. Of course, since it is the US, domestic decisions have effects that are felt around the world. From my perspective as an American abroad and having studied a degree in international relations, in the last two elections, Trump was the preferred candidate.
While a bit of an unpredictable maverick with his sensationalist and Cyrenaic media personality, thronged by his populist following, he was also a businessman to the core and highly individualistic. What he was not was a military industrialist. Strong and transparent personalities are better suited to dealing with Russia and China. And business motivations are nearly always to be preferred over military ones.
What also made Trump appealing — aside from international politics — was all the foaming at the mouth that he provoked in so-called liberals. I am a philosopher by interest and by education, and perhaps because of this I find it especially annoying when people try to coerce and manipulate others into thinking a certain way. Here we have a class of people who fashion themselves morally and intellectually superior, and cannot even see how un-self-reflective they are.
There are culty vibes on the Right to be sure, but there is something more sinister about the cultiness on the left. I say this as someone who grew up in a cult and who finds it quite interesting to see how the same systems of cult formation are at work in society at large.
If you really believe your side is the defenders of democracy and freedom and civility, and yet consented to the courts going after a former president on trumped-up charges (pun intended), and yet wished (either aloud or silently) that the kid’s aim was better, it’s time to take a break from sipping the Kool-Aid.
Yes, I’ll grant you that assassinating Hitler might have prevented the Holocaust, but here’s the thing about brainwashing, it often involves false equivalencies and wildly inaccurate narratives. Yes, there might actually be a spaceship trailing the comet waiting to take you to the Next Level, and all you got to do is take some drugs and fall asleep for good. — But that’s a big commitment to make on such a lack of evidence. Even if your greatest fears were anywhere near correct, you couldn’t logically claim to be on the side of democracy while wishing for the most undemocratic action possible.
Although my political stance leans anarchistic (this is a philosophical view that has more in common with Leo Tolstoy’s Christian Anarchism than with the popular conception of rioters in the streets), in this upcoming election, I intend to vote for Trump. And it’s not just to annoy the Left. We are teetering on the edge of a conflict of apocalyptic proportions. We have war in Ukraine, disaster in Gaza, increasing tensions with China, and some are talking of a return of the military draft.
That said, the Left does have some legitimate concerns with the Right. But we don’t have to fall for this either-or fallacy. We don’t have to choose between either militarized police and overcrowded prisons and the death penalty or defunding the police. Or choose between puritanical views on sex or orgies in the streets. Or choose between coercing women to be homemakers or the stupidity of being unable to define what a woman is.
It is an outrage that such rich cities in the US are littered with homelessness. There should be universal basic income and universal healthcare. It is simply appalling that the US holds the record for the most humans in prison per capita; that a country whose money says ‘In God we trust’ should still have the death penalty is abhorrent; that it is such a violent and aggressive and commercialized society. We can do better.
We can negotiate, as we should do with abortion. Contraceptions and Plan B should be federally approved, as should the banning of abortion after 3 months (with exceptions), and the rest should be up to the states.
We actually all want the same thing. We want a world of peace and freedom and self-actualization. But to negotiate and dialogue for this better world, we need you to wake up from your polarization brainwashing.
Update:
So many interesting political maneuvers going on recently. Biden seems to have been effectively pushed out in a political coup. Kamala Harris was likely chosen in order to keep Biden’s political donations and to avoid a DNC primary. Just as they boxed out Bernie, they have boxed out RFK from running in the primaries. But most fascinating of all is the swiftness that anti-Trumpers got in line with the new Kamala mantra — in a process that oddly enough, even Black Lives Matter is saying the Democratic party is in danger of being a “party of hypocrites” for installing Kamala without a public process. I guess it’s not that odd; for all their Marxist overtones and identity politics, they still remember Harris as the ‘overzealous attorney general and drug warrior’ who ignored an under-age self-trafficking scandal involving cops but challenged the release of a man who had his conviction overturned after spending 13 years in prison for having a concealed knife. Her office also opposed releasing non-violent offenders early from a over-crowded prison system in order that they not “lose an important labor pool.” (Granted, she said she was not responsible for this statement from her office). If you look hard enough, you’ll find dirt on anyone. But the rush to canonize her a saint and try to drum up some energy with hackneyed phrases is so intellectually dishonest. They don’t actually care about her (just like they didn’t care when she ran briefly for the Democratic nomination in 2020, only to be thrashed by Tulsi Gabbard). What they care about is never-Trump. We’ll see if this faux excitement can maintain steam into November, or if there will be a another switch to replace Harris with someone else, to whom they will flock to just as quickly.
