Does anyone understand Trumps base?

[TaraJo]

I want to understand Trump's base, I really do; it's easier to deal with them if you can understand where they're coming from. Unfortunately, to really understand someone and where they're coming from, you have to be able to understand their perspective in a positive perspective; I can't see the perspective of Trump voters without making them into malicious monsters or complete idiots (or both).

They seem to take delight in governing by spite, laughing when democrats are upset by something even if it's something that's legitimately bad. The only news sources they trust are far right conspiracy sites like Breitbart and Infowars; a lot of them don't even trust Faux News anymore. They seem to distrust or outright hate anything relating to the government unless, of course, it's specific to a republican or Trump.

But..... they seem filled with contradictions, too. The people with "thin blue line" bumper stickers right next to a "Come and get it" NRA bumper sticker is what I mean; if anyone is going to come and collect your guns, it's going to be the police you're supporting with your thin blue line nonsense. You hate government spending, but you say nothing about Trump pissing money away on golf trips and a wall and corporate tax give aways.

Racism seems to play a role here. I'll be honest, this is one area that I can kinda see where they're coming from. Far left, SJW's were pretty obnoxious pre-Trump and being generally against them, I can understand why someone would feel like that. But they had to go and take it to the other extreme. I'll be the first to admit, someone is an asshole if they're saying "all white people are racist," but it's not any better to embrace literal swastika flag carrying neo nazis. Is it really that difficult to find a reasonable middle ground?

I can somewhat understand republican economic policy; it's still fueled by the idea that communism is automatically horrible and anything a society has in common with communism is bad. The values of communism are up for debate at another time, but for now, I'll say that going so anti-communism that capitalism has gone out of control isn't an improvement. Fact is, if we didn't already have them, I don't think Republicans today would ever let us get things like public schools, public libraries, city parks, medicare or the post office. We'd probably be accused of being being some kind of socialist, communist dictator for suggesting them. The only government functions they seem to be comfortable with are police and military which is kinda scary since those are kinda the cornerstones of a police state.