The Party of Resentment

by Dennis Mick

Trump voters have a number of common traits, but the one that serves as a foundation for their political leaning is a strong sense of irritation, even persecution, over perceived wayward societal trends. They believe to their core that society and culture are changing around them in ways that subvert the country’s essential rightness.

That doesn’t sound very convincing, and that’s because I haven’t found a good way of describing the phenomenon. Maybe a few examples would help:

· At lunch once with two Republicans, we were bothered by the bright sunlight on the restaurant’s deck, as the tables had no umbrellas. They told me that there had been umbrellas at one time, but the wind had once blown one into traffic, and the restaurant therefore got rid of them.

This was related with eye-rolls and a tone of exasperation indicating that this was yet another example of the myriad cases of the oppressive and ridiculous cultural correctness and litigation fears driving the country to unprecedented heights of nanny-state-ness to the detriment of all upstanding long-suffering people.

Even though I’m sure the restaurant’s decision was driven by legitimate traffic safety concerns, the absence of umbrellas was somehow an indication of the depths of insanity the nation has sunk to.

· A woman once told me with a straight face except for the eye rolls that a couple with a new RV motorhome on their first trip set the cruise control “on” and went to the kitchen for lunch. When the vehicle naturally crashed, they sued the manufacturer and won a multimillion dollar settlement. She defended the story when I expressed skepticism, and only a Snopes search could dissuade her from the truth of the tale. I guess the point of her relating the story was that stupid people can be litigious, but I think the main point is that we have reached a point of, I don’t know, vague societal decline where stupidity is rewarded these days. I’m not really sure what her point was, but it was clear that the story was to her another of a myriad of indications of the depths of insanity we have sunk to.

She accepted the Snopes “false” verdict, but it was clear that her underlying dissatisfaction with the state of our culture remains firmly in place.

· Stories of “welfare queens” driving Cadillacs to the store to use food stamps to buy steaks and caviar are bedrock folklore among Trumpers, and they feature several of their favorite regular villans: the nanny welfare state, lazy larcenous poor (i.e. dark skinned) people, and declining general morality and decency. Such stories, regardless of their dubious veracity, reinforce the widespread belief that leaches on society, with the encouragement of liberals, are causing high taxes and generating generational dependency on the public dole by undeserving and drug-using “others” who, in turn, vote for Democrats.

Among the many things that irritate, offend, scare or anger Trump supporters:

1. “Happy holidays”

2. “Press one for English”

3. ACLU

4. Affirmative Action

5. Affordable Care Act

6. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

7. Al Franken

8. Al Gore

9. Al Sharpton

10. Antifa

11. Athiesm

12. Banning crèches from public property

13. Banning organized prayer in schools

14. Barack and Michelle Obama

15. Bernie Sanders

16. Birth control

17. Black Lives Matter

18. Blasphemy

19. Bureau of Land Management

20. California progressivism

21. Campaign finance reform

22. Canada

23. Change

24. Church/state separation

25. Civil Rights Act

26. Civil service unions

27. Climate science

28. CNN

29. Coastal elites

30. Colin Kaepernick

31. Community organizers

32. Compromise

33. DACA

34. Democrats

35. Department of Energy

36. Dept of Education

37. Dixie Chicks

38. Dr. Spock

39. Ecumenism

40. Elite colleges

41. Elizabeth Warren

42. Ellen DeGeneres

43. Enlightenment

44. Environmentalism

45. EPA

46. Equal employment opportunity

47. Estate tax

48. European socialism

49. Feminism

50. Food pantries

51. Food stamps

52. Foreign aid

53. Free trade

54. Gays in the military

55. Gender equality

56. George Soros

57. Globalism

58. Government regulations

59. Greenpeace

60. Gun control

61. Hillary and Bill Clinton

62. Hip hop

63. Hippies

64. Hollywood

65. Humanism

66. Ilhan Omar

67. Immigration

68. Interior Department

69. Interracial marriage

70. IRS

71. ISIS

72. Islam

73. Jane Fonda

74. Justin Trudeau

75. Kale

76. LGBTQ people

77. Liberalism

78. Lyndon Johnson

79. Mainstream Media

80. Marijuana decriminalization

81. Medicaid

82. Metric system

83. Michael Avenatti

84. Minimum wage

85. MSNBC

86. Multiculturalism

87. Multilingual labels and manuals

88. NAFTA

89. Nancy Pelosi

90. National Endowment for the Arts

91. NATO

92. Net neutrality

93. New York Times

94. Nike

95. Noam Chomsky

96. NPR

97. NRDC

98. Oprah Winfrey

99. Organized labor

100.OSHA

101.Pacifists

102.Palestinians

103.Panhandlers

104.Participation trophies

105.Personal injury lawyers

106.Planned Parenthood

107.Plastic bag bans

108.Political correctness

109.Popular culture

110.Premarital sex

111.Progress

112.Protesting NFL players

113.Public education

114.Rap music

115.Rationalism

116.Recreational drugs

117.Recycling

118.Removal of confederate monuments

119.Removing 12 commandments from public property

120.Rent subsidies/rent control

121.Reproductive choice

122.RINOs

123.Robert Mueller

124.Roe v. Wade

125.Rosie O’Donnell

126.Ruth Bader Ginsberg

127.Same-sex marriage

128.Secularism

129.Sesame Street

130.Sex education

131.Sharia law

132.Sierra Club

133.Simplified voter registration

134.Socialism

135.Solar energy

136.Southern Poverty Law Center

137.Sponge Bob

138.Stem cell research

139.Taxes

140.Teletubbies

141.Theory of Evolution

142.Tim Cook

143.Title IX

144.United Nations

145.Universal health care

146.Urbanism

147.Vaccinations

148.Vegans

149.Vegetarians

150.Voting Rights Act

151.Washington Post

152.Welfare queens

153.Welfare state

154.Wind energy

155.Women in combat

156.Woopie Goldberg