Are Trump voters ruining America for all of us?

[Virginiá]

    It's easier to blame other people than to recognize where their own movement has gone wrong and driven millions into his arms.

It doesn't seem fair to absolve the voters of any culpability if Trump and his brain trust do indeed end up screwing up this country, whether it is selfishly driving up the debt massively for younger generations to deal with, or starting a conflict overseas, or even just bringing a ton of shame and embarrassment to this country, which he already seems to be doing by just being himself on the world stage. I say this in part because the warning signs were all there before the election. It was obvious what kind of man Trump was and continues to be. It's not like all his shortcomings were a secret only recently revealed.

To quote the article:

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This goes beyond Democrats having an unconvincing message. Trump supporters are giving him a pass on what seems like almost everything and completely ignoring his numerous conflicts of interest and ridiculous behavior. Let's not even talk about the huge levels of double standards here. Many of same things Obama & Clinton were lambasted for are readily being accepted/forgiven by Trump supporters, or being called fake news.

No one forced them to vote for Trump. They could have not voted or voted for Johnson. If Trump does long-term harm to this country, his voters have to own up to that as well.

[Virginiá]

With that said, I could easily flip your point around and comment that Trump is getting pilloried for many of the same things that Obama did without incident. I suspect that much of what you're identifying is partisanship at work, and partisan myopia is nothing new.

Maybe, it depends. For instance, the golf issue - I never had a problem with Obama's vacations but I do with Trump's, but only because Trump so far seems set to spend what Obama did over 2 terms, in just a single year, even after Trump spent years complaining about Obama's golfing and even said he (Trump) may not play any golf as president (lol). Presidents need time to unwind, but within reason. Trump is casually treating the country's tax base as his own personal piggy bank in this regard.

Anyway, my point is, considering Trump was extremely well-covered, people who voted for him bear some responsibility in his success (or lack thereof). This is especially applicable, imo, to the party of personal responsibility. All Trump's conflicts of interests, his extensive history of lying, cheating and bad business practices, his intense hypocrisy, his lack of desire to actually learn anything about govt, his brash nature, the near-complete lack of ethics/morals - this was all on full display well before the election. People who willfully ignored this cannot, imo, be completely let off the hook.

But also keeping in mind that when I say "let off the hook," I'm only saying, they have absolutely no grounds to say what happens isn't partly their fault. The same goes for any person who votes for a candidate who is so transparent in their shortcomings, Democrat or Republican.

[Virginiá]

This attitude that everyone who isn't a democrat is an idiot redneck is part of the reason why Trump won.

That's not really what the article was saying. They specifically mentioned political literacy, and quite frankly, at least based on the tons of people I talked to while canvassing last year, I don't know if I can disagree. I heard a lot of crazy stuff / completely wrong statements from people of both parties. And it's not even just about people who pay attention but don't "get it," it's also about people who have no problem forming strong opinions but pay little attention to politics, which makes no sense to me. If you're going to have an opinion about something, you ought to know if its true or not, and that requires some research.