February's Dinner with Damon Part II: The Trump Vote

NINE POSTS IN ONE SITTING! A NEW RECORD! Okay okay, back to the dinner...

After talking about real estate, Damon brought up politics. I started complaining about the 2016 election and how stupid people can be. I noticed Damon was giving me weird looks during my rant and I got curious.

Me: Hey, who did you vote for?

Damon: I voted for Trump.

I sat there. I just… I sat there. I mean, I consider Damon a reasonably intelligent person. And yet there he sat: a 48-year-old homosexual Filipino immigrant voted for a guy like Donald fucking Trump. I was so confused and asked for his reasons. I was sitting across from a bonafide Trump supporter and I really wanted to know what would make a guy like him vote for a guy like that.

Damon made these points:

• The Clinton Foundation is domiciled in Canada, beyond the reach of IRS accountability and disclosure

• She accepted a $25 million donation to the Clinton Foundation from Saudi Arabia, home of radical Sunni Wahhabism, the forefather of radicals like ISIS and al-Qaeda 

• The Clinton Foundation has an operating efficiency of 30% going to administration, which is a bad percentage for a non-profit organization

• Hilary as president would have been a continuation of Bill Clinton, who helped push manufacturing offshore

• Hilary would have continued the “no boots on the ground” promise of Obama

• The Syrian debacle and the resulting refugee crisis happened under Hiary’s tenure as Secretary of State, as well as domestic attacks on US soil

• Hilary is for the TTP

• Obama was an arrogant president who didn’t compromise

I angrily reminded Damon that I had asked why he voted for Trump, NOT why he didn’t vote for Hilary. So, once again, Damon gave me his reasons:

• Trump wants to renegotiate NAFTA and put an end to the TPP
• Trump is not Hilary

That was it. Based on this, we both agreed that he really voted for Trump because he didn’t like Hilary. Damon then asked what my problem was with his vote. I first told him to cancel out the Clinton Foundation issues and Hilary Clinton being called a crook. I know she’s a crook. I believe every politician is corrupt in some way, as you really can’t have one without the other. And there is no businessperson worth over a billion dollars that hasn't committed acts that would land him or her in prison for life. The truth of it was that they could have told me that Hilary threw a grenade into a grade school, I still would have voted for Hilary. Why? Because I’ve always believed in this motto: Always go with the devil you know than the devil you don’t.

I always look at the bigger picture. No matter what happens, I never want to make the big mistake… the one I can’t fix. Transplanting that philosophy into politics, I knew that voting for Hilary would continue the downward slide America has been on. But a downward slide can be recovered from. Tanking the country, which Trump seems more than willing to do in the name of business, cannot. We’re always looking for the candidate that can fix everything and put America on the right track. But what would be the point if that person gets elected when America is so far down the toilet that there’s no way of bringing us out of it.

Damon admitted that he had no idea whether Trump would be a good president. But he also said that sometimes you have to take a big risk and hope for the best. And that’s where our difference lies. Damon is willing to risk his entire country for a politically untested billionaire businessman. Businessmen usually have to buy political favor. Trump no longer has to do that and his business friends are already seeing the benefits based on his cabinet picks. Ugh.

Even though Damon and I seriously differed in our opinions and reactions to political news, I felt good about Damon’s vote. He was able to explain it an intelligent manner, and it didn’t include terms like “white people”. He knows his vote was based on his hatred for Hilary Clinton. He rebelled, but he rebelled the way poor people do. When something goes wrong, they destroy their own neighborhoods instead of acting to produce real change. He probably knows that the outcome of his vote won't be good. And even if he doesn't, I do.
 
Now that I know Damon voted for Trump, I'm pretty sure there are many more seemingly intelligent people who, as Damon put it, took the "big risk". Politics is so incredible the way it can make people do the craziest things. I'd say let's hope Trump does a good job, but the history of human nature dictates that things are gonna get real shitty and stay that way for a while. Hopefully things will get so bad that people like Damon learn from his mistakes. And if one thinks it's too early to call the Trump vote a mistake, read up on world history and then look at the election/first two months of 2017. And if it still hasn't sunk in, then just sit back and watch. Hopefully it'll become clearer by 2018. If guys like Damon represent at least half of the Trump voters, America isn't doomed just yet.

P.S.: Out of curiosity, I asked him whether he was for or against the Supreme Court legalizing gay marriage. He was against it. I'm really beginning to like this guy.