An Interview with a Trump Supporter from Kansas

Here is what I learned

Her name is Janet (disclaimer: all names have been changed). She resides most of the year in Independence, Kansas but travels to help out her daughter, Valerie Ann with the kids in nearby Springfield, Missouri.

Janet and I met shortly after I became a fan of the Netflix show “Last Chance U.” Set in Independence with the very colorful head coach, Jason Brown, I decided to go onto to some local site for the town. I was looking for more information.

After a nice back-and-forth with some locals, I mistakenly slipped something into another comment about masks: Jason Brown definitely seems like the kind of guy who would have his players wearing masks 24/7. He is a real leader. By the time I wrote those words, President Trump had turned a public health crisis into yet another heavily politicized us versus them war between the Red Team and the Blue Team,

What I thought was an innocuous mention resulted in dozens of attacks. I argued with a few and that led to more attacks and a couple of threats not to visit the town. Finally, I decided to end my relationship with Independence with one last post: Is there not one person in Independence who thinks a God-damned mask is just a mask and not a conspiracy to offend Trump?

Janet answered me with find me on Facebook, honey and let’s talk, Janet O. It took me a few days of some sleuth work but I eventually located her. I sent a friend request and a message. For two weeks, nothing happened. As it turned out, she had been at her daughter’s house helping with her four grandkids. Back home, Janet answered me.

The following snippets are from our rather nice “cultural exchange.” Sometimes, the grammar and spelling were edited, and unnecessary words were removed in order to help get her points across. Otherwise, the answers below belong to her and were almost always in response to my questions. She actually didn’t ask me much about my opinion, though.

The Beginning

Janet: Hey there, thanks for the message. I just couldn’t stand watching you get beat up by them dummies (haha). You seem like a nice person and it wasn’t kind to be attacking an outsider who was so up on our town. I agree. Masks are masks and they don’t have anything to do with Trump. I agree with you.

And so, the “friendship” with Janet, which took shape in early July, would last through some rough times in our country to January 8th. After some niceties and chit-chat about the Netflix show, she had met the head coach quite a few times, we got to the elephants in the room. COVID and Trump.

COVID-19

Me: Janet, please help me understand. Maybe if someone just explained it to me, I would see what you are seeing. What is wrong with accepting that this pandemic is real and that, as a united country we can limit the deaths?

Janet: Brian, as I said. Wearing a mask is not a protest against Trump. Being forced to wear one is against our rights. So, we look at it like the government can’t force us to do so. And Trump is for freedom, not government control. But I certainly don’t agree with the people attacking others for wearing them — I have a right not to, and you have the right to wear one.

Honestly, though, I just don’t think this whole sickness is as bad as they make it out. It’s a different version of the flu. It does seem though that the world doesn’t want a strong Trump. He understands. They know he can break their hold on the power so they created this “epidemic” to make him look bad. It’s just so obvious to me, like one of those movies, you always know what happens before it does.

Besides, I know only three people here who got sick and two of them are the gay couple that travels a lot. So…maybe their lifestyle choices make them more vulnerable. Have you thought of that?

I hadn’t, and I didn’t even go down that road with her. Janet told me to be more open-minded.

Trump

Janet: Look, I know President Trump is no angel. But are any of us? If Jesus can forgive me for my sins, I was a bad girl growing up (haha) Why can’t I forgive him? Besides, the man loves our country. Just look at New York, he has dedicated his life to making it great. Most of the parks and skating rinks have his name because he paid for them (actually there was one in Central Park that Trump donated money to).

He leaves NY and what happens? It goes to hell in a handbasket. The Democrats ruin all the cities. Those cities are like stories from the Bible. Don’t get me wrong, I am not some nutty Evangelical. But God is God and He deserves a say in how we run our society. Jesus would be scared to walk down the streets in those cities. Trump is making America safe for Jesus again…haha, sounds crazy, right? Yeah, it does, but you get my point.

I told her I didn’t get her point and then reminded her that Jesus was against overt pride, covetousness and extreme wealth. She told me she had never really read the Bible, never had time to, and would take a look at any passages I might send. Her preacher, though, was a good man and she tended to believe what he said, she told me.

The Bounties on US Soldiers

Janet: I don’t really know a lot about that but once again, it’s Russia, right? So convenient. It’s always Russia. The FBI and the Miller(sic) investigation proved there was no connection. Just the Dems making things up. (She hadn’t heard about the issue of the bounties and so I sent her information).

I read the stuff you sent. Not one non-Trump-hating source. Also, those security forces are all part of the deep state. But if you really want to insist that Russia had something to do with this, I will say, what about Benghazi?

Janet had stumped me, which led her to think she had stumbled upon a real “gotcha moment.” Whenever I began to change her mind with facts after this exchange, she would remind me of the “Benghazi” comment as if it were proof that there was more than meets the eye. The frustration with this line of reasoning usually led me to rip off articles about Trumpists. I didn’t want to upset Janet with my growing frustration, I wanted to learn more about their views.

Black Lives Matter

Janet: And you ask me why we love Trump? Because enough is enough, Brian. Look, the murder of that poor fellow in Minneapolis was awful. Imagine how his poor mother felt watching that. But why do they always have to tear everything up? Then who pays for it? Not them! We do with increased taxes.

If they wouldn’t always be acting up when the police stop them, they mightn’t get shot. I mean, my dummy son-in-law is a deputy over in Missouri. He says every time he approaches a “black,” his stomach gets all knotted up with stress. I know a lot of them have it bad. I am not against them like the Klan boys and some of the old-timers in town. But come on, they just make a lot of good, Christian folks who might support them, hate them. I just want to tell all them Blacks, be calm. Be respectful.

There was just nowhere to go for me when Janet sent me that response. The answer above is condensed from the original, which was much longer and tended to drift in between pure racist rhetoric and apologies for such thinking.

Janet’s feelings on race were not easily expressed and tended to be peppered with a lot of the sad, dumb-downed generalizations heard on Fox News or right-wing radio. She was struggling with breaking free from the racist sentiments, but then when violence picked up and Trump’s words pulled her back into the vortex of stupidity, she would readily succumb.

Janet: President Trump has a lot of them (Black Americans) in his administration. He supports them but he also wants America to be great! He wants Main Street to be safe. So we can walk down it free from how some of them act — like animals, you know? Doesn’t matter if you are white or Black, break the law, pay the price. Our lives matter, too, right?

I was angered by her messages on race, and I fell silent for a bit. I let the moment pass.

QAnon

Janet: Oh boy, those are some real whack-a-doodles, huh? I have never been into them conspiracies. That’s why I couldn’t believe that the whole thing about Russia putting Trump in was real. It’s all just a little too much if you ask me. And I know some Democrats. I never thought they were holding little kids in their basements. Just really stupid stuff. I think people just have too much time on their hands. I used to work fifty hours a week and went to bed at night exhausted. Now, I am lucky to get twenty hours and sometimes have to force myself to turn off the TV.

I was so happy to see that Janet was not into the lunacy of QAnon. When she opened the door a bit on Americans who don’t work enough, which leads to them having too much time to kill each day resulting in criminal mischief, I hit her with some economic facts. The policies of the GOP disproportionately support the super-rich, I explained, and so exacerbate the income inequality in the country. I sent her a bunch of really easy-to-read statistics.

Janet: Do you really think I am going to read all them numbers? All I know is that until Trump became president, nobody was talking about the lack of jobs for us White Americans. Finally, someone has heard us. Instead of giving all the welfare to the cities (a term Janet started using to replace what she realized might be the racially insensitive Black Americans and “illegal immigrants”), we are getting some love tossed our way.

The Super Rich and America’s Misdeveloped Economy

Janet: I used to work at the Cessna factory here. They laid me off back about eight years ago now. A lot of the folks say it was because they were losing profits, but then you read how much those planes cost. And I can tell you how much we made over there. You hear how much those owners and managers make and it does hurt you, you know? It’s greed. They’re buying boats for the lake houses in the Ozarks, and I’m buying Kraft Macaroni & Cheese in the bulk store — big difference, believe me! (haha) Something does seem wrong. But then again, I’m not a communist. Americans have a right to make profit. It’s right there in the Constitution, and we are a capitalist country.

But it’s not in the Constitution, I told her. She told me it was and said she had heard it on Tucker Carlson’s or Sean Hannity’s show — she couldn’t remember which one. I did a Google search of the word “capitalism” and the “US Constitution” and sent the link to her. Her response was, that’s odd.

Fox News

Janet: I don’t really watch it much. Turn it on in the morning for the weather and to catch up on stuff, and then it sort of keeps me company throughout the day. I really think they are better at getting to the heart of issues. You go over to CNN, and it’s all Trump bashing, nothing else. Well, of course, a lot about how the Blacks are mistreated. Nothing about us, though.

I eat my dinner with Tucker. I like him. He’s smart and bipartisan — sometimes too friendly to the Democrats.

I didn’t feel it necessary to counter her feelings for Fox News. It was just too long and slippery of a slope, so I avoided taking it further. Besides, Trump caught COVID, to which she wrote me joyfully, see, it’s nothing more than a bad cold.

About a week before the election, her ex-husband died from complications from Covid-19. Around the time her husband passed, Janet’s daughter Valerie Ann was dealing with COVID. Her husband, Eddie, had attended a Trump rally outside of Omaha, Nebraska. By election day, he was in the ICU on a ventilator. Obese and a smoker, his refusal to wear a mask, despite two of his four kids suffering from asthma, created a significant rift with Janet’s daughter. Eddie chose “defending his country” over the well-being of his family. Since August, he lived in a small room over a friend’s garage.

Janet: They were both always pig-headed. That is why I divorced him. He was just never wrong. But that Eddie. He’s just dumb and now it looks like he is going to die. He was putting those little kids in danger with his no-mask stuff. And he’s a deputy over there in Springfield, you know? We got into it once and he said I didn’t support Trump because I wear a mask. I was helping and abetting the enemy, he told me. Dummy. I feel so badly for them kids if they lose their poppa at such a young age. By the way, who you voting for? Hahahaha.

The Election

Janet disappeared until just before Christmas. I figured she wasn’t taking the election loss well and when she resurfaced it almost seemed like someone had taken over her account. In the time she had been away, the son-in-law recovered but was too weak to take care of himself. He was back living with Janet’s daughter, Val. One of her grandchildren had become severely ill with COVID, and the doctors didn’t think the little girl would survive. She recovered. COVID had become very real in a hurry in Janet’s life. The medical bills were their Christmas present.

Janet: Hey there. Sorry I was gone for so long but I don’t know if I can keep going back and forth with someone who is probably very happy about the stolen election. It’s so sad and so wrong. The people spoke and our country is being taken from us. There is no way Biden won this thing. I don’t know anyone who voted for him.

I am ready to admit that the COVID thing is real but it seems so odd how it got really bad in Trump country just before the election. Some were saying that a busload of infected people were brought down from New York. If that is true, I will shoot them myself. My little granddaughter got really sick. Democrats not letting us open up and get back to our lives. And now they openly steal an election. Please don’t tell it wasn’t stolen because I will find you and do bad things (haha). Really, it’s a nightmare what has happened to our country in the last four years. President Trump tried to help us and now they are trying to destroy him. The deep state has won.

I responded only with a Merry Christmas, Janet. Stay healthy. She wrote back, amazing we are still allowed to celebrate it, Brian. And you. Stay safe over in Russia. Sure, it is more democratic than here.

I couldn’t continue listening to the nonsense she believed. I wanted to refute her comments but it was senseless. She had lost family and almost lost a granddaughter to COVID and still somehow blamed Democrats. It just boggled my mind. Having hoped to find some line of logic in her comments, the only two things I could extract were 1) she watched way too much Fox News; and 2) she was underemployed, which meant a lot of time was spent not working but getting angry thanks to the Fox News lies.

I also noted that each time Janet started to see how Trump was making things worse by lying and being really not such a good president, Fox News and the rest of the Republican Party would do some emergency damage control by fanning flames on old and new conspiracies. In this manner, they could dispel any rising doubt, cover up the latest disgraceful act by Trump, and get the Janet’s of America angry as hell and back in line by the end of Tucker Carlson’s hour.

The last message I got from Janet was on January 8th, two days after the insurrection in the nation’s capital.

Janet: Those people were not right, Brian, but I feel their anger. Fox says it might have been those “Antfa” (sic) people but to be honest, the faces I saw in the crowd looked just like pretty much everyone around here.

Yeah, we are mad, and it’s so sad the election was stolen. I just feel so bad for President Trump and his family. They did so much for us. Also, those traitor judges make me so angry. He appointed them, and the least they could’ve done was had his back. I don’t know. I am so confused by all this. Maybe Biden will do something good; maybe he will keep the bad Democrats in line. He is so old, that he ain’t got nothing to lose. He can be a good president. I hope.

I wrote back that judges aren’t supposed to have a president’s back. They are supposed to uphold the Constitution. Janet got angry and wrote back, “bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.” The Constitution, she said, was thrown out the moment the vote counting continued in the days after the election. You are being like a typical Dem election-stealer, a sore loser, B.

I sent Janet this link on vote counting. She didn’t respond. I went to her Facebook page a few days later and liked a photo of an apple pie she made with her grandchildren. She defriended me the next day. Fearing, I would get blocked, I started to make screenshots of our messaging history.

She blocked me on inauguration day. Nevertheless, she taught me a lot. Thanks, Janet, and good luck.

The most important thing I learned in my assessment was that so much of this comes from an economy that has left so many Americans behind, an economy that glorifies those making derivatives, which then crashes the world’s economy. Main Street has been decimated, and quite oddly, they support the one party sitting in the bulldozer’s driver’s seat.

And, of course, Fox News has to be silenced, which is impossible; but the least we can do is reinstate The Fairness Doctrine.