Why do people support Trump? 30 answers.

[Mr. Morden]

Conor Friedersdorf of The Atlantic asked any Trump supporters to write in to explain why they support him.  Here's his summary of the answers:

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/08/donald-trump-voters/401408/

It's an interesting read.  I don't know that these people are necessarily representative of Trump supporters at large, as the very fact that they're reading blogs on The Atlantic, and writing in probably skews them more towards the higher education end of voters.  But it's a good read nonetheless.

Here's what I thought may have been the strangest answer:

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[Mehmentum]

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Is this guy on Atlas?

[Mr. Morden]

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Is this guy on Atlas?

I figured it was a poster on AAD.

[Mr. Morden]

Reading through those answers, some common themes among the Trump supporters seem to be:

1) Political correctness has run amok, and Trump is a corrective to that.
2) He's proven that he can make a lot of money / run a large business, so he should be able to use his business skills on the federal government.  E.g.,

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[dudeabides]

1. There are self-hating Americans
2. Drug use is on the rise
3. There are proponents of socialized medicine
4. There are people who hate private property rights
5. There are people who want to raise taxes on the rich and those who "outsource"
6. There are people dumb enough to believe him on trade policy
7. There are Democrats who want to run against him because even Bernie could beat him
8. Old white men in the tea party love how angry he is
9. Racism
10. Some men believe his highly over rated wife is hot
11. People know his name and they ask who Rubio & Walker are
12. There are plenty of people who have an I.Q. below 100
13. Apprentice viewers like him
14. There are people who care more about how much a candidate yells as opposed to their ideas
15. He's not a politician
16. There are people who want someone with no filter
17. If you are an alcoholic, he probably sounds decent
18. He's great for late night television
19. The Drama Factor
20. His hair is so awful it's laughable
21. Some people want to make history with the first mentally handicapped President
22. Crazy birthers love him for being a crazy birther
23. His golf courses are good
24. His buildings are nice
25. Paranoid people love having one of their own running for President 
26. Delusional people love having one of their own running for President
27. He'd save taxpayers millions if not billions by leaving the business world
28. His friends want corporate welfare
29. His employees want a new boss
30. There are people who fear people that don't look like them without being completely racist

[Simfan34]

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Is this guy on Atlas?

I figured it was a poster on AAD.

I thought the exact same thing.

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

I'd quote number 30, but I don't want to be punished for quoting a banned poster. Every one of these is spot on though! A majority of them are among my reasons.

[Türkisblau]

Atlas users should be heaping praise on Trump for making things interesting in August, over a year before the election.

[bobloblaw]

The question should be why does anyone support Clinton

[Jacobtm]

Because he wants to build a wall, deport illegal immigrants and restrict future visas.

It's pretty simple, that's the main focus of his campaign and that's what many people want.

[Classic Conservative]

Beacuse people are idiots.

[bobloblaw]

Actually not enough attention is paid to the H1B Visa Program. It is just as damaging as illegal immigration when it comes to the impact on American wages

[Sasquatch]

This Onion article from last month has the right idea.

"Admit It: You People Want To See How Far This Goes, Don’t You?"
http://www.theonion.com/blogpost/admit-it-you-people-want-see-how-far-goes-dont-you-50895

[eric82oslo]

Actually not enough attention is paid to the H1B Visa Program. It is just as damaging as illegal immigration when it comes to the impact on American wages

You know how you can rise wages across the board? By increasing federal as well as state and citywide minimum wages. That's quite a lot easier and extremely much cheaper than forcibly remove 4% of the US' population. With close to 19 trillion dollars in debt, the US in fact can't afford to remove that amount of people unless either taxes are increased ultra dramatically or the amount spent on the military being more or less cut in half. Both actions will of course be vetoed by 100% of elected Republican officials in Congress.

[Leinad]

You just need one answer: people are fed up with the government and the status quo, and while Trump offers little consistent substance, he's really good at being FED UP and talking loud and saying politicly incorrect stuff and calling our leaders "idiots" and such.

A fair minority of people want nothing more than to see the establishment, especially the GOP establishment, get destroyed. Policy comes second to who can be FED UP the loudest. Currently that's Trump.

[Fuzzy Bear]

You just need one answer: people are fed up with the government and the status quo, and while Trump offers little consistent substance, he's really good at being FED UP and talking loud and saying politicly incorrect stuff and calling our leaders "idiots" and such.

A fair minority of people want nothing more than to see the establishment, especially the GOP establishment, get destroyed. Policy comes second to who can be FED UP the loudest. Currently that's Trump.

There's some of that, but that doesn't negate the justification of folks being "fed up".  People are very much fed up with political correctness and elitists telling them what is.

That aside, Trump is someone quite vested in America; his self-interest does, to a large extent, coincide with the interest of the average American. 

[eric82oslo]

You just need one answer: people are fed up with the government and the status quo, and while Trump offers little consistent substance, he's really good at being FED UP and talking loud and saying politicly incorrect stuff and calling our leaders "idiots" and such.

A fair minority of people want nothing more than to see the establishment, especially the GOP establishment, get destroyed. Policy comes second to who can be FED UP the loudest. Currently that's Trump.

There's some of that, but that doesn't negate the justification of folks being "fed up".  People are very much fed up with political correctness and elitists telling them what is.

That aside, Trump is someone quite vested in America; his self-interest does, to a large extent, coincide with the interest of the average American. 

The American people rather want to spend trillions of dollars kicking out 12 million of its own countrymen rather than starting to tax billionaires who at least 90% of which don't pay a single dollar in taxes. Ever. Seriously?! You have a strange logic on what exact people want, deep inside.

[/]

“Like the joker from The Dark Knight, I just want to see the world burn.”