Answering Silly Conservative Questions: My Reply to 'Why Don't Liberals Understand Trump?'

On Quora, I recently replied to this question by conservative Michael Chaplan:

Why don't liberals understand Trump?

Actually, most wide-eyed, rational, and intelligent Americans from both sides of the aisle understand Donald John Trump. All too well, as it turns out.

We understand, for instance, that Trump is a shameless opportunist who changes his party affiliation to suit his financial and personal needs. It’s no secret that he was once registered as a Democratic Party voter and cozied up to New York City’s mostly Democratic establishment. It’s also a matter of record that Trump also made campaign contributions to politicians from both parties, including his current nemesis du jour, Hillary Clinton (during her successful bid for a U.S. Senate seat from New York).

His party affiliation track record goes like this:

1987: Registered as a Republican

1999: Registered as a Reform Party member and briefly ran for President against George W. Bush and Al Gore

2001: Registered as a Democrat

2009: Returned to the Republican Party but donated to politicians of both parties till 2010.

We also understand that Trump is not above exploiting the many divisions in American society, including class, racial, and religious. Of these, the latter two seem to have helped him gain supporters among those conservatives who espouse racist and xenophobic views, as well as evangelical Christians who have nihilistic “End Times” theological beliefs.

A case in point: Although President Trump did not originate the false narrative that Barack Obama was not a legitimate President because he was allegedly not born in the U.S. (the infamous “birther” slander), he was one of its most prominent promoters.

Of course, once Trump was inaugurated, he backtracked from his former embrace of the birther conspiracy against Obama, albeit reluctantly and, dare I say it, not too convincingly.

We also understand all too well that if Trump can lie for years about something as patently untrue as the “birther” story, he will prevaricate about many other things. That’s his shtick, his most distinguishing tool of the trade. And that’s why most liberals don’t like him.