Why A Californian Voted For Trump

Born in uber-liberal California, my earliest memory of politics was from 2003 when my high school math teacher dedicated an entire day to discuss why Bush Jr. should not have won the presidential election.

My parents are liberal.

My brothers are liberal.

I would guess 90%+ of my friends are liberal.

I worked at Airbnb, a gay multi-billion dollar company headquartered in San Francisco. By gay, I mean a lot of their marketing and philanthropic efforts are gay focused. Nothing wrong with that, but it is off-trend with other large companies who’ve historically been politically neutral so as to not alienate half their potential customer base.

PS Airbnb was the coolest company I ever worked for, by far.

I’ve voted more liberal than conservative in my life (below I discuss my political positions). Two of my votes went to Obama.

Yet, in 2016, I voted for Trump. (I did not vote for Trump in 2020.)

Why?

First you should understand the thoughts going through my brain when I heard different criticisms of Trump.

The Most Common Criticisms Against Trump

“Trump is stupid” – If you think this…and I mean truly think this, we have nothing further to discuss. I’m not talking about how you call your sibling stupid because you don’t like them. I’m referring to intelligence. IQ.

In fact, it’s my filter as to whether a conversation with someone will be productive or not.

I know that you might think that you think this because it’s a nice thought to think about someone you don’t like, but I want you to deeply consider it for a moment.

While you’re thinking about that, I’ll give you my take:

I don’t know Trump personally. I’ve never met him. But I know enough about him and how the world works to say with certainty that he is not stupid.

He may not be a genius. He may fall somewhere in the gray area. But, he’s most definitely not stupid.

You cannot become the president of the United States if you’re stupid. If you believe that, your filter on reality is off.

“Trump is racist” – If Trump is racist, he did a really bad job at being racist. It’s clear as day to many, including black men, but I know that’s unsatisfactory for you as big media has cried racism for four years so I’ve dedicated an entire section to debunking this claim below.

“Trump is sexist” – False. He was a pioneer in hiring and putting women in powerful roles with his construction business way before it was common practice. Again, his non-PC talk gets him in trouble. Have you ever said anything sexist in your life? What if a mic was on you all day long, might you say something stupid? Hah. I know I would. Sexist nowadays (as is racist) results from an inappropriate comment, not actions. Actions speak louder than words. Did Trump appoint a women to the Supreme Court for being a woman? In fact, he did. He said that he will be choosing a woman candidate. In fact, that IS sexism against males.

“Trump is not healthy” – Ya, you got me here. He’s overweight. And, physically, he does not look healthy. You’re also in a decline of health when you get to his age. But, at the time, neither would I consider Hillary a pillar of a lifetime of healthful choices.

“He’s old” – Correct. He is old. In fact, I’d say he’s too old. Joe Biden is most definitely too old.

“He inherited all his money”  – Also, true. And super impressive! If I was in his position, with all those privileges, not needing to work a day in my life, I wonder if I’d become an unproductive, lazy piece of crap. Here’s a more common storyline for someone in his position: think Billy Madison.

Money is only a motivator when you don’t have it. So to have the motivation to make something of your life even when you have lots of money I judge as an acceptable character trait.

“He lost the popular vote” – True. He lost something he wasn’t trying to win. Had the rules changes, so would his strategy.

“He’s a bad businessman.” or “He went bankrupt.” – Someone who gets people to pay him to put his name on the side of their building is not a bad businessman in my book. If you’re referring to his bankruptcies, yes, he has some. And he was such a good businessman that he set up proper legal entities so those failures didn’t ruin his successes.

From what I understand bankruptcies are common. A separate question is whether he was an ethical businessman. This I know less about, but it seems he stiffed some people during his time.

“If he left his money in the bank earning interest, he would have the same amount he has today.” – This critique I only heard from one person: my dad. But I’m assuming he heard it from somewhere. Sorry, Dad, this doesn’t make sense to me and isn’t really how life works. Let’s assume this is true (which I have my doubts on) and let’s assume it does work this way. Then 40 years ago he would be able to see the future and know for the certainty of his options. Instead, he tried many businesses, some failed, some succeeded.

“He’s not going to peacefully transfer power if he loses.” – LOL. If you were one of the folks who believed this, check your brain.

“He’s Hitler.” or “He’s a dictator.” – See prior. Also, we now know with 100% certainty he’s nothing like Hitler. This was obvious for me to see from the get-go. But the black lives matters protests would’ve been a great chance for him to act dictatorially which he did not.

Why Donald Trump Is Not Racist

I want to start with a quote by Shelby Steele, a black American author, from an article he wrote in November 2020: “There’s an elephant in the room. It is simply that we blacks aren’t much victimized anymore. Today we are free to build a life that won’t be stunted by racial persecution. Today we are far more likely to encounter racial preferences than racial discrimination. Moreover, we live in a society that generally shows us goodwill. A society that has isolated racism as its most unforgivable sin.”

Besides being a beautifully crafted set of sentences, they’re also true.

America is the least racist country I know, by far. No matter the color of your skin, America is the land of opportunity. If you were born financially disadvantaged, no matter the color of your skin, you’d want to be born in America. These statements are based on my travel to 35 countries.

President Donald Trump is the least racist president in US history.

In 2020, Trump doubled his share of black voters from 2016 and received the highest share of minority voters since 1960. In fact, white male voters shifted heavily to voting for Biden because they mistakenly thought Trump was racist.

Americans don’t elect racists to office. Our last president was Barak Obama, a black man who received a record number of votes at the time.

President Trump did more for minorities in one term than President Obama did in two:

• Lowest black unemployment in history
• Prison reform
• Increased funding for historically black colleges and universities
• Pardoned convicted-felon-turned-activist Jon Ponder (Trump 1, Obama 0)

As it relates to prison reform, in 2019, Trump received an award from the 20/20 Bipartisan Justice Center for his administration’s work to pass the First Step Act, which granted early release to thousands of non-violent offenders who were serving time in federal prisons. Evidence suggests black men were the main beneficiaries of the Act.

Ben Carson, a prominent black neurosurgeon, doesn’t think Trump is racist. He spoke kindly of him at the 2020 Republican National Convention citing an award that Trump received years ago from civil rights activist Jesse Jackson for “economic opportunities he created for black people.”

He’s referring to the 1989 Ellis Island award for helping inner-city black youths.

Herschel Walker, a former NFL star, doesn’t think Trump is racist. He has had a decades-long friendship with him. Walker says “it hurts my soul” to hear anyone refer to Trump as a racist, adding it’s “a personal insult that people would think I would have a 37-year friendship with a racist.” He added, “growing up in the deep south I’ve seen racism up close. I know what it is, and it isn’t Donald Trump.”

Here’s a direct quote from President Donald Trump that you may have never seen, “Racism is evil—and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other hate groups are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans.”

In a 2019 response to mass shootings he stated “In one voice, our nation must condemn racism, bigotry and white supremacy.”

If you prefer a video, here is Trump denouncing racism and white supremacy 38 times. These are not comments of a racist.

But, maybe trump was racist?

People don’t become more racist over the decades. Just as America is less racist in 2020 than they were in 1980, that’s true for society, too.

In 1978, when choosing a bodyguard from a slew of jobless former NCY cops, Trump chose one of the only black cops. A racist would not do that.

In 1985, when Trump bought Mar-a-Lago, a resort and members-only club, he was the one who fought for Jews and blacks to be included in the clubs that were trying to exclude them.

Right about now you may be wondering, if Donald Trump isn’t racist, why do so many people think he is?

There are two reasons for this. The first is quite simply that Donald Trump is not politically correct with his words, giving his enemies lots of fodder. If you wanted to hear racism, you could. He says things that if you wanted to apply a race filter to them, you could convince yourself that they’re racist.

The second reason is that mainstream media did just this and broadcast the deception to millions of Americans almost daily for four years. It’s not even necessarily a bad thing. It’s part of the liberal agenda and strategy to make President Trump look as racist as possible. They do this with all republican presidents. Trump just gave them plenty of ammo.

They took the bits of his non-PC talk that could be construed as racist and played those bits over and over and over while having political talking heads repudiate his every non-PC word on television.

It’s no secret that I think mainstream media is evil. To be clear, I’m referring to mainstream liberal and conservative media equally.

If you’d like to unplug from the brainwashing and plug into genuinely nonbiased news sources, I’ve assembled a collection of them in my article about why I don’t watch the news.

My Political Associations

I support the defund the police movement – I think most everyone agrees there are significant issues with the current policing system. Here’s my take: while we can definitely come out with a worse policing system, we have a lot more potential improvement to make than in the opposite direction. It’s my opinion that police cause as much harm as they do good in communities.

I don’t support the death penalty – Never. We’ve killed so many innocent people. Crooked cops and government officials wrongly set people up and committed them to death. Welcome to Earth. Now, die. No way. Someone can rot in jail, but we’re not allowed to take someone’s life because we judge them as not worthy of living today. I’m not religious, but you know who’s the most famous character sentenced to death: Jesus.

I support gun rights – I don’t like the idea of governments, including police, having all the weapons. Governments are temporary. I’d like to be prepared to protect myself and my loved ones when they fail.

I support legalizing all drugs – Every single one of them.

I support abortions – I’m not a woman. How about we allow a woman to decide what she wants to do with her body?

I support small governments and states rights – Low taxes and small government. But today we live in a world where no expense is spared. That’s unsustainable. Literally, it’s as if we’ve decided money grows on trees. There’s no discussion of ‘well, yes, they really need this money. But, we don’t have it.’ It will all come crumbling down because of this issue. But this is a great subject to highlight how I think of things. With the recent protests, it’s as if money is no issue. It’s because it is no issue. Send in tanks, send in thousands of police (paying them overtime), send it all sorts of weapons, tear gas, swat teams, blockades….does any of this stuff cost money? Yes, but it doesn’t matter. Cost is of no concern in our current world, apparently. I suppose it’s one of the big reasons why the USA is the most dominant power on Earth, but it doesn’t seem sustainable.

I support free speech in all regards including egregious traits like racism – You can be racist in my book. I may not want to associate with you, but you can be racist. I don’t know you and why you are the way you are so I won’t judge you. When I was living in San Francisco, where they allow only certain types of free speech, I was walking down Market Street when I encountered a group of men. They were racist. They called out crackers (a derogatory term for white person if you’re unfamiliar), talking about the white devil, they even riled up a black woman in the crowd who started getting in the faces of white bystanders. The funny thing is my gay, black friend was visiting me from Las Vegas and he couldn’t understand what was going on. We walked away before things got more serious.

Why I Voted For Trump?

I suppose there are a few reasons, but it mostly comes down to me not liking the idea of a career politician. That doesn’t sit well with me.

Trump was an outsider. The establishment hated him. Fox didn’t even really like the guy, they just had no choice but to support him.

No matter what I thought of Trump as a human, I knew that if he won, he’d pave the way for other business leaders, entrepreneurs, and successful people to run for office (read: NOT lifetime politicians).

On a side note, Kayne West, while a genius, has no chance of winning the presidential election. Unfortunately for him, I don’t think he learned that in 2020 with an abysmal voter count. He will run again in 2024.

He doesn’t drink. For being President of the United States of America where you might be needed at any time, this is most definitely a positive trait.

Trump loves America. I truly believe his intentions are pure. Many will disagree with this. But why else would such a wealthy person, living such a charmed life, full knowing the downsides of running for president have to gain from this? Any positive that come for his business will be offset by the loss associated with the 4-year smear campaign by international media.

How Do I Think Trump Did As President?

Great because he drained the swamp!

Just kidding ha…the swamp is not drained.

For starters, he closed a tax rule that I was able to take advantage of as a remote entrepreneur living outside of the USA. That cost me tens of thousands of dollars. So fuck him for that.

Additionally, he wasn’t a good fit for the COVID situation. That’s for sure. I don’t think he made any egregious mistakes. In fact, closing the borders from China early was probably a smart move. But, his non-PC communication style didn’t help matters.

That unfortunate and dire incident aside, the economy went bonkers as did my 401k.

Trump is the only recent president to NOT start any new wars. That’s a plus. I heard of many unprecedented peace deals in the middle east. Personally, I don’t give them much merit. Those folks are constantly at war for the stupidest of reasons: religion. Religion is fake just so we’re clear. It’s totally fake.

Let me admit, I don’t know sh*t about international trade. However, as objective, as I can be by sifting through all the fake news on both sides, it appears as if Trump was successful in negotiating beneficial trade deals for the US.

Speaking of fake news, the most impactful thing Trump did for me personally is pull back the curtains on mainstream media. Remember when Mom reminded you to not believe everything you see on TV? Ya, ya mom. Well, Trump reinforced that truth. To be clear, I’m talking equally about both sides. ALL mainstream media is fake.

If that sounds too strong for you, let me explain. Have you seen the movie Vantage Point? It’s a movie about the same event, told by numerous people who had their own unique perspective. So even if you don’t think the news is fake, at the very least you have to know they’re presenting their perspective with is equally true (or wrong) as the other side.

This was a grand realization in my life in understating how the world works.

But all that aside…

Conclusion

Here’s what keeps me sane and knowing that I’m fully in reality and open-minded: I recognize that my choice could’ve been the wrong one.

Many Hillary supports wouldn’t say the same about their choice. They know they’re right and they know I’m wrong. That’s a recipe for future disaster and embarrassment.

I support the President of the United States of America. Go Biden. I hope you have American’s best interests at heart, both short and long term. I wish you good health.

I wish for America to stay as the most dominant power the world has ever known and to be the land of opportunity. I can say with certainty, after having been to 35 countries, I’d rather be born in America as a lower class citizen than anywhere else on Earth.

Next Up: Check out my country rankings.