What the president of Y Combinator learned from interviewing 100 Trump supporters

Stupid uninformed racist whiners. EVERY one of them.

I work with a guy that has a “Proud to be a Deplorable” sticker on his (brand new) truck. That guy and the supporters interviewed in Mr Altman’s essay can suck it. I am tired of journalists and armchair psychiatrists trying to get into the heads of these people. There is nothing inside them but fear, hate, intolerance and misdirected feelings of rage.

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I wasn’t talking about swing voters or moderate Republicans who may be convinced to switch their vote by a candidate who actually understands the economic anxiety of rural whites (to whatever extent that was actually a motivating factor, because it never seems to come up anywhere but in political thinkpieces). I was specifically referring to the people in this interview who said that they would always vote anti-abortion, or that immigration is bad, or that “our culture” is something that somehow needs “protecting” (protecting from what?). Those positions are untenable for any Democratic candidate who wants to motivate their base to the polls. There is absolutely no reason why any Democrat should listen to these people as though they might be convinced to vote for them. If you want their votes, run as a Republican.

But to speak of your friends, what did they hate so much about Hillary Clinton that they thought Trump was a sane, reasonable alternative? Were they just not listening to literally any single thing that came out of his mouth?

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Listen in an attempt to humanize and understand nearly 63 million people?

Nah. Fuck them, amiright?

They wouldn’t extend the same courtesy to Hillary voters or the people they are fearful of.

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I read the interview responses in the article.

These people are so stupid. Every single question had a majority of answers that are absolutely counter to what trump actually has done and said.

For instance, answering “what would make you turn on trump?”

““Based on Trump’s history before politics I don’t believe he is racist, sexist, homophobic or bigoted. If that were true it would supersede everything else since it would be even worse for individual liberty and freedom than any freedom of speech restrictions or increases in government size proposed by the Democratic Party.””

That’s ignoring lawsuits trump lost due to his bigotry against black people.

These are stupid people who don’t want to be shown evidence that they should have voted for hillary. They don’t pay enough attention to be qualified voters.

They want to be listened to, but whenever we try to engage them it always ends up with them calling us libtard cuck betas, and that we’re making up these direct quotes you can get on video from trump proving these people are wrong.

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Sadly, that attempt made them look like fucking horrible human beings with their own words. I feel like there might be an effective way to humanize some, I get that there are those among the ranks who aren’t raging fuckheads intent on harming others (if you’re living somewhere where jobs dried up and that’s really your issue, then say that, then stop right there), but summing up their issues as wanting theocracy and motivated by shocking ignorance, racism, and xenophobia doesn’t win hearts and minds.

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That is one of those big, identifiable moments when the media fucked up entirely. They exclusively focused on, and fed into. The noise about “attacking voters”. While completely ignoring the content of the speech. That was an important moment. And a good speech. Younger Americans and people with a fair bit of experience on line (particularly if they happen to be not white or not male) are typically at least some what aware of what’s been doing with the alt right. But the broader media and older folks have missed that. They haven’t seen the harassment campaigns. The toxic weirdness. And so forth. The reaction when things burble up into the national attention span is “What exactly is Gamergate?” shrugging.

And the subject needs a bit of explanation. Because that “movement” isn’t some innocuous “grass roots” bit of the GOP base. And it isn’t just Neo-Nazis. Is a very particular combination of the New Misogynist/Men’s Rights thing, white nationalism of the “we totally don’t hate black people we just want them gone forever” variety, and that weird ass dark enlightenment thing. That last bit there being explicitly predicated on removing things like education and democracy. Its like they pieced together classic fascism from the nastier bits of creepy online fan communities. The whole thing is often explicitly predicated on removing the American form of government.

So you get a big speech calling that out for what it is. Shining a spotlight on something legitimately dangerous, and directly effecting the election. And the news went whole hog on horse race coverage of whether there’d be an effect from attacking voters. And “reporting the controversy” by focusing on GOP spin and pearl clutching.

To be fair the deplorable line was poorly delivered, and poorly conceived. It should have been obvious that the Trump camp at least, if not the entire GOP would focus on that to avoid the implications of the rest of the speech. But the major news coverage just went with that to report on another shocking gaff. OH MY GOD YOU GUYS A GAFF.

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Well, from what you put in the description I’m not seeing anything new here.

One of the strangest things I’ve heard recently is Trump supporters saying “the left pushed me to vote Trump because you are so angry and condescending and won’t consider other points of view.”

The problem with that logic is it means you voted Trump not because you though he would be a good President but because of spite.

Nevertheless, if every single liberal in America had said politely and calmly “Trump is more corrupt than Hillary, plus he’s not particularly smart or competent” would you have listened? There were a lot of well-known conservatives pointing out that Trump was defective not only as a politician, but as a human being, and they weren’t being condescending.

And you know, it’s hard to have respect for Trump voters because 1.) so many of them are just as unwilling to consider opposing points of view as they claim liberals are, and 2.) how do you respect someone who fell for what amounts to The Nigerian Prince scam?

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So the real question is: would they vote for Elizabeth Warren? Or would they come up with some other excuse why it would have to be the other candidate instead?

Remember, all the things that were supposedly so bad about Hillary, were actually true and much worse about Donald, much of which was known by election time. So really, it’s not that they had a principled stance against a specific person who happened to be a woman.

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Yuuuuup!

“The thing I’m most worried about is war, and that he could destroy the whole world."—45 supporter

versus “abortion be bad.” WTH?

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You don’t beat fascists with persuasion. You beat them with turnout.

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Typically the only way to beat them is with bullets and bombs and knives.

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And sticks.

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Every now and then some disingenuous smarm compares the keep-out-Trump people to the keep-out-Clinton people. Only the former I know were desperate to do better, while the latter were apparently not just willing to accept literally any stack of garbage in place, but went out of their way to prove it.

Does humanize mean pretend they’re not basically the continued anti-civil-rights movement? Because I have listened a lot, and that’s what I keep hearing, right up to these very answers. Yet for some reason people who ask for understanding keep wanting me to ignore it, because of course the only acceptable answer is to fault the left that isn’t nice enough to them.

This line of reasoning never seems to have any evidence, and yet people keep bringing it up again and again, as if all the hate against Mexicans and Muslims and gays and climate scientists and blacks and libtards and trans* and Jews and women’s rights never really mattered, it was all just about our terrible shrill voices. It’s exhausting and pointless, and I wish people would figure it out already.

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A true liberal should always be capable of compromise and understanding. Thats where phrases like ‘bleeding heart’ come from after all.
Well, I have rage in my heart. But I’m also old enough to know that in the end it is always going to be whether or not we take the high road. If we do not, then we are just like them. We must not lose ourselves. The only real way to fight back is to get active. Support your reps who are standing up.

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We’ve been plenty generous in letting them try to explain themselves.

And they’ve explained that they’re selfish, dumb assholes who would rather piss off the left out of spite than save themselves from a burning building.

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Tactically, the speaker is right. If we want these people to admit they fucked up and start fighting Trump, we need to give them a path to doing it that lets them preserve some dignity. Because the other option means they dig in their heels and fight to protect Trump in the face of worse and worse behavior

What’s more important? Being right, or getting results?

But as one of the fuckups himself, he doesn’t get to deliver that message. There does have to be some consequences for deliberately turning a blind eye to all the regressive, illiberal and outright evil campaigning.

I’d be happy with a legally enforced commitment to never vote again. They fucked up so badly they’ve forfeited their right to ever vote again. If we are unlucky Trump will take care of that himself…

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And they’ll volunteer to eat an ice cream cone dipped in shit if it means no one else gets ice cream.

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One reason I was given was that Hillary’s voice is too shrill, too annoying, and they couldn’t take four or eight years of that.

From this, I guess I’m supposed to infer that Trump’s voice is dulcet, peaceful, and reassuring, and that they wouldn’t mind four or eight years of that.

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More like they’d be happy to force everyone including themselves to eat a shit-cone in order to prevent dirty foreigners and sexual deviants from having a sandwich.

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