Why They Can't Quit Trump

"I wish I knew how to quit you!" -- Jake Gyllenhaal as Jack Twist

"Then why don't you?" -- Heath Ledger as Ennis Del Mar

-- Brokeback Mountain

Trae Crowder, a comedian-turned-author from Tennessee, who calls himself and his YouTube channel "The Liberal Redneck," says that a lot of poor, rural Southern Democrats switched sides because Trump was saying exactly what they want to hear, even though, before this, he wasn't their kind of guy -- and vice versa.

And even though it's now obvious to anyone who's been paying attention that he's a liar, a hypocrite, a bigot, a lousy President, and a genuine threat to democracy, he says they can't give up on him: "They're too dug in, they're too committed... It's like sports and pro wrestling, all wrapped up in one. It's their team, and they want their team to win."

He's right. He's also right to separate sports and pro wrestling, since pro wrestling, being scripted, is no sport.

Yesterday, Donald Trump was convicted on 34 criminal felony counts in the State of New York -- by a jury, all 12 of whose members his lawyer -- and thus, Trump himself, it is implied -- approved. It wasn't President Joe Biden who convicted Trump. It wasn't the U.S. Department of Justice. It wasn't Attorney General Merrick Garland. It wasn't the judge. It was the jury, having seen the evidence, and heard Trump's defense against it.

It is official now: Donald Trump is a convicted felon. Donald Trump is a criminal. So much for being the candidate of "law and order." One thing he hasn't said in response is, "But I didn't mean me!" But, of course, he has to have thought it.

At this point, the Trump fans have invested too much, emotionally. They can't "let go." He's "their team" now. They can no more renounce Trump than they could renounce their college football team, or the Dale Earnhardt racing organization. If their favorite country singer denounced Trump, they'd just pretend he never said that, just like they do with the garbage Trump says.

Nick Hornby, an English writer and an obsessive fan of Arsenal, a soccer team in North London (which, in spite of the distance, I also support) put it this way: "Perhaps it's something you can't understand, unless you belong." These people found something to belong to, that was bigger than themselves. Some of them only previously had that with their families (but maybe not), and with their churches, and maybe (if they had it) with their military service. It's why some people become obsessed with fandom for a TV show, or a movie series, or a musical act.

Hornby got it right again: "When you've got nothing else going on in your life, Arsenal will fill in all the gaps. You get into a state about losing to Spurs, when you really ought to be getting into a state about yourself."

For these people, the things that they have fandom for have filled in the gaps. Trump filled in the gap by telling them that it was okay to be who they are, that it was okay to be a bigot, that it was okay to hate people for being another race, or another religion, or not having a completely straight sexual orientation and identity.

And when something happens that they don't like -- a singer, a brand of food, or something else taking a position that they can't stand, they "get into a state about it," instead of focusing on what's actually happening in their lives. In other words, understanding that voting Republican, including for Trump, hasn't improved their lives.

I root for the New York Yankees. The woman who lives next-door to me might be a fan of the TV show Grey's Anatomy. The man who lives on the other side might be a fan of country music legend George Strait. (That's just an example, and is really unlikely: He's not from the U.S.) And there's a guy around the corner from me with Trump stickers all over his pickup truck, even though my hometown hasn't voted for a Republican candidate for President since 1988.

They can't quit Trump. It would be admitting that they'd been fooled.

"Fool me once, shame on, shame on you. Fool me, can't get fooled again." George W. Bush said this while he was in office. He was so convinced of his own goodness that he couldn't bring himself to say, "Shame on me."

The actual line: "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." For a Trump fan to quit him now would be admitting that he'd been fooled -- not just once (2016), not just twice (2020), not just three times (2024), but continuously, repeatedly, again and still, ever since he came down the escalator at Trump Tower and announced he was running for President by spewing bigoted lies.

To admit that they've been fooled that much, and been that wrong, for nine years is more than their "real American," "American exceptionalism," "Christian," "white privilege" minds can handle. It's the same reason they don't believe in science, and simply say, "God did it": It's just... too... hard.

When my father was in college, when my mother was in high school, this country had a President named John F. Kennedy. He said, "We choose to go to the moon in this decade, and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard! Because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills! Because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win!"

Compare that with the man who may be the last Kennedy-style Democrat to become President, Joe Biden: "I've never been more optimistic about America's future. We just have to grab hold of it. We have to remember who in the hell we are. We are the United States of America. There is nothing, nothing, nothing beyond our capacity. Nothing. I mean it."

Biden gets it. Kennedy got it. America declared and secured its independence from Britain. It settled the West. It ended slavery. It took the leadership of the Industrial Revolution. It beat the Kaiser. It beat Hitler's Axis. It extended civil rights. Yes, it landed on the Moon. And it forced two corrupt Presidents out of office, one through the impeachment process (Richard Nixon resigned in 1974), one through election defeat (Trump in 2020).

None of those things was easy. All of them were hard. All of them had to be done, anyway. And all of them were done.

Prosecuting Trump has been hard. It has to be done, anyway. And it is being done.

For many of Trump's fans, quitting him may be the hardest thing they've ever been asked to do. It has to be done. It's up to them now.