The red and blue political bunting and yard signs planted on suburban lawns are mostly gone and with them the outward signs of America’s fiercely oppositional election. But in other respects, the tensions of the 2020 contest remain as acute as they were on polling day for many Trump supporters.
“Not many care about people as much as Trump,” said tow-truck driver Vinny Nolan as he took a rest at a highway truck stop near Hackensack, New Jersey. “The [Russia] collusion bullshit was a set-up. He gave everyone money while we iron this virus situation then they announce a vaccine two days after the election. Why didn’t they do that a week ago? He would have won.”
To more than half the country’s voters the election is resolved with Democrat Joe Biden as the winner but to a marginally smaller share of Americans it remains an ongoing contest – no matter all the evidence against that. With Donald Trump as yet unwilling to recognize defeat, and papering swing-states with baseless legal petitions challenging vote counts, many of his supporters still say they remain behind the president.
A pre-natal office administrator in suburban Rockland county, New York, who preferred to give only her first name – Emily – citing pervasive fears of being shunned for her support, conceded that Trump had failed to adequately address “the George Floyd thing”, as she called the killing of a Black American by a white Minneapolis police officer that triggered a summer of unrest and anti-racism protests.
But Emily reasoned that Trump was not fundamentally a politician, a characteristic that lies at the heart of his enduring popularity for many of the 71 million Americans who voted for him on 3 November. And like many, protesters’ calls to defund the police had worried her. “They talk about the community policing. But what community? No one wants to get involved.”
Ten days after voting closed, Republican voters are at a crossroads over whether to support Trump’s ongoing and unprecedented challenge to the vote counts or to accept defeat by Biden. Whichever path supporters choose to follow, for many Trump’s popularity is undiminished, perhaps even enhanced, by the manner of his defeat at the hands of what they regard as a political establishment.
Leo Basa, a veteran from Aerial Lake, Pennsylvania, said he didn’t see evidence of a stolen election but politicians “had made a mockery of the system”.
“The tables have turned. It is Republicans’ turn to say, ‘No, you didn’t win’, just like the Democrats did in 2016. It’s really a shame. They’re acting like children with the bickering. The media has a lot to do with it. State the facts and just the facts. I’ll make my own opinions.”
On Wednesday, the widely publicized #StopTheSteal campaign was augmented with #stopthetires2020, a protest by truck drivers billing themselves as a “bonded group of brothers and sisters to show America who runs the country”.
With stoppages on Wednesday and later this month, many showed their support on social media, and called on drivers to interrupt deliveries to coastal Democrat-controlled states from the industrial and food-producing central red states “to keep the movement going”.
But on arterial highways leading into the disputed swing-state of Pennsylvania, many truckers said that they had either not heard of the protest, or had no wish to forfeit their daily haulage fees.
Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
