Reaching out to Trump supporters

     Results of a poll published last week revealed that a whopping 60% of registered voters in western Pennsylvania think that President Trump is doing a good job, which was an increase over other recent polls and highest in the state and surrounding areas.  I have seen that the trend appears to be similar in WV and a few other areas where I have lived and have many friends.  While I realize that it may not be popular, I would like to address these folks directly to offer points to at least ponder.  Up until recently, I steered clear of speaking about politics and was registered as an independent.  But, I could not sit idly by with what I saw happening, starting with the crooked politics in NC and the last election cycle.  My goal is simple, to do my part to help educate the public on important topics that pop up in an effort to reach beyond the political talk from either side.  Trust me, I realize that politics have become so polarized that those in power seem to forget that they serve us, the public, on both sides of the aisle.  I’m not asking you to say that you should have voted for Clinton or made some kind of mistake if you voted for Trump.  All I’m trying to do is ask that you listen with an open mind, educate yourself on the topics instead of listening to talking points from any one particular side, and consider the damage that this president is doing to the office and, likely, to you.  I’ll try to keep my points simple in favor of brevity, but would be happy to expand on anything you may have questions about.

     You may be asking what I can bring to this discussion and think I’m just another liberal out to say whatever is contrary to Trump and the republicans.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  I’m one of you and despise the idea of always thinking solely along party lines and of politics as a team sport.  I grew up in Belle Vernon, about 20 miles outside of Pittsburgh, and have never been wealthy financially.  My grandparents were sustenance farmers and I spent a lot of my youth at their farm.  My parents were proud elementary school teachers and my mom became a substitute teacher when needed to have time to take care of her three kids.  I went to college in West Virginia, at Fairmont State, and my wife is from Beckley, WV.  I have a lot of family in both western PA and WV, some of who are directly impacted by mining.  I went for a period without insurance because I felt I couldn’t afford it (and ended up getting very lucky) and am now one of the percentage most affected by insurance spikes as a small business owner who buys my own insurance.  As for education, I was valedictorian at BVA, top of my class in chemistry and mathematics in college, then spent 2 ½ years working toward a Ph.D in physical chemistry at UNC before given the chance to start my company in 2000.  I went on to get a Master’s degree in exercise physiology and also an MBA with a specialization in entrepreneurship from UNC, and have very recently taken additional classes in the sciences, such as genetics and microbiology.   All this is just to say that, I'm not an expert, but I do know where you’re coming from and have also spent time studying economics, business, sciences, etc. that relate to current events.  I’m passionate about the topics and even more passionate about wanting to see the areas where I grew up prosper.

JOBS:  Let me start with what is by far the biggest issue in the area; jobs.  The democrats fell down on the job and ignored addressing the blue-collar worker during the campaign.  They then secured their defeat by having lavish rallies with superstar celebrities, somehow thinking that would sway voters.  Being politicians, they strategized that they didn’t need to come to most of this area to still win, and so they didn’t.  Meanwhile, Trump came around making all kinds of promises and saying whatever he knew would help get him votes.  The problem is there is no way that Trump can make good on the vast majority of his promises.

Your area is filled with folks who are very intelligent and perhaps the hardest working people you’ll find anywhere.  The current administration’s plan to ‘bring back’ jobs through deregulation is fraught with problems.  There is a chance that a few jobs will come back.  But, their method puts us behind other advanced nations in areas such as advancing technologies, are not creating quality high paying jobs, pollute and damage the environment, are unlikely to bring back enough jobs to make a big difference, and ultimately reduce job opportunities in important emerging markets. 

But, I realize that people are desperate.  What other solution is there to put people back to work at a level at which they wish to work?  Big cities and wealthier areas are very expensive for businesses.  So, local governments and other leaders can leverage cheaper real estate, taxes, plenty of potential employees, etc. to entice entrepreneurs and businesses to open shop in their areas.  There is a fellow Kenan Flagler (UNC) MBA graduate that is doing exactly this with great success in southern NC.  He turned abandoned textile mills into office space.  Unlike what people think and what politicians say, he realized that this depressed area was full of intelligent people that were underemployed.  They are educated to different levels, but ‘the talent is there’.  They just need to be given specific training and a culture that fosters learning and development needs to be cultivated.  This, then, further fuels innovation and growth.  It has been wildly successful and is becoming a model for successful sustainable business in rural America.  These kinds of ideas and models are what we need more of; not trying to ‘bring back’ jobs, but looking forward and utilizing the local talent.  Trump’s plan not only doesn’t allot for education necessary to advance, but hampers it.  I can go more into this, but will save that for a specific blog if warranted.

Frustratingly, Trump has shown that he doesn’t understand the complexity of any of the important legislations or organizations.  He fed into people’s frustrations and stoked fears by saying that EVERY SINGLE DEAL was the worst ever and he was the man to ‘fix’ them.  NATO was obsolete, NAFTA was terrible, China was a currency manipulator, the TPP, immigration policy, the Iran deal, health insurance, tax reform, job visas, trade deals, even Australia’s immigration policy, were all deemed terrible.  And, the list goes on.  The point is, he failed to see how intricate, important, and multi-faceted these all were, with countless unstated implications.  For example, you can’t just throw out there you’re going to propose a tax on China’s imports and expect that to fix everything.  Multiple relationships have to be taken into account, as well as how it would affect prices of goods, what retaliation China would likely take, etc., especially after getting out of the TPP, which was meant to balance the trade dominance of China and India and give the US the right to intervene in trade disputes.  Yes, TPP had issues, but the complexities didn’t seem apparent to the administration until afterwards.  The same goes for NATO, NAFTA, and everything else that Trump has had to realize while in office.  He failed to see past the very surface of each issue and is finding out that he was mistaken on almost all of it.

But, what I find perhaps even more disappointing is that, while Trump got elected by saying he would fight for you and I, his actions have been to benefit the very wealthy, usually to the detriment of others, at almost every turn.   Again, I can go into more detail on these, but look at how he allowed our online information to be taken without any notice.  Can you say you are happy about that?  It’s very obvious who benefits there.  His ideas on education and choice for education secretary don’t help your area in the least as it severely hampers public schools.  He has said we need a government shutdown, but doesn’t seem to realize the real effect it would have on the common citizen.  He got rid of healthier lunches for schools, which leads to many issues both short and long term but, again, you can see the only people who would benefit from this.  His actions on coal are really mostly helping the executives, as evidenced by getting rid of the requirement to state foreign investors, which was put in place to combat rampant corruption.  He wants to not allow immigration from a country he’s willing to bomb, but is all for putting visas up for sale for investors in his son-in-law family’s business.  The regulations that he wants to cut are all to benefit his wealthy business leader friends, often oil executives.  The health care plan dramatically favors the wealthy (and CAN be fixed if politicians actually cared about trying to do what’s best the US instead of fighting with each other), and the tax plan is even more of a joke.  My personal biggest peeve is what he is doing against science, the EPA, and climate change.  All of his moves along this line benefit big organizations, largely the oil industry, with potentially very grave consequences that get pushed aside for the sake of money. 

Speaking of the tax plan, let me mention a couple of facts.  First, the US is NOT the highest taxed nation in the world (see chart).  I’m not against a bit of a tax break, but that dramatic of one when we have such a huge debt is completely unrealistic.  Also, the idea of the money trickling down from the wealthy has many issues.  He’s not ‘priming the pump’ as he likes to say.  Data shows that tax cuts like this typically do not lead to economic growth.  To give you a situation you’ll likely recognize, we all know that there has been a severe problem in our recent past with business leaders taking enormous salaries and bonuses while the working class stays at the status quo, which has led to a great deepening of the divide between the upper class and the rest of society.  So, what makes you think that giving them a large tax break is going to lead to anything different, especially as Trump strives for less regulations to fight corruption? 

Further points:

·         Going beyond the essential policy issues, you also have the fact that Trump is making a mockery of the office of President of the United States by acting like an immature child.  He has his supporters using his phrase saying that bad press is ‘fake news’, when he is the one that has spread falsehoods and outright lies almost daily, even quoting actual fake news from press that he does support.  The President should be a man of strong morals and conviction, not petty, easily manipulated, and vindictive.

·         He is purposely disrespectful to just about everyone, again making a mockery of his position and appearing anything besides presidential.  He childishly will call reporters’ shows derogatory names during interviews, calls Elizabeth Warren Pocahontas knowing that it has racist undertones, mocks former American leaders, judges, the intelligence agencies, and whoever else dares to disagree with him on anything.  Remember, he even called the POPE, yes, the Pope, disgraceful and a pawn of the Mexican government, of all things.

Presidential?!  I don't think so! (https://youtu.be/EqRTbzdAFbo)

·         However, it’s important to note that there is one type of person he doesn’t mock: crooked, violent, leaders.  Somehow people find it okay that he compliments, congratulates, and verbally admires the likes of the Philippine’s Duterte (admitted murderer), Turkey’s Erdogan (cracked down on protests and free press and masterminded a major power grab, which Trump congratulated), Egypt’s el-Sisi (authoritarian leader who took power through a violent coup, gunned down protestors, and silenced the press), and of course Putin (countless known atrocities).  This all just shows his ‘weak man’s strength’ and bully attitude and mentality.

·         Trump’s supporters like to talk about protection of the constitution.  However, he continually attacks the press and degrades their right to free speech.  The administration has even said that they looked at possible changes to the libel laws because they didn’t like the press. 

·          All of this doesn’t even include the controversies that are ongoing with the various investigations, Comey, Flynn, leaking classified intel, etc.

Again, I’m only asking that you look at the facts and implications and don’t blindly support this president and his dangerous rhetoric.  So far, Trump and several of his staff’s actions and ideas are damaging to America’s standing in the world, set us behind several countries in advancing technology, energy, and climate science, are likely to lead to corruption and pollution if they get their way, and are very unlikely to create any significant and lasting jobs.  We need to demand more of our political leaders, starting from the top down.  Let’s get some RESPECT back and strive for REAL and SUSTAINABLE progress! 

*http://www.kenan-flagler.unc.edu/news/2016/08/Steven-Bean

*http://money.cnn.com/2017/04/27/news/economy/donald-trump-middle-class-taxes/index.html?iid=hp-stack-dom