THE LACK OF THE VOTER'S KNOWLEDGE IS FRIGHTENING

…An anti-Clinton Tee Shirt

 

What’s available for sale at Trump Rallies says it all.

 

There are things going on within the groups that are backing Donald Trump, and those things are getting very ugly.

 

As an example, one of the shirts above that was seen at the Trump Rally in Greensboro, North Carolina.  Instead of a comment on the shirt that used the Trump coined name of “Crooked Hillary”, many of his fans have instead chosen a different nickname for her.  This one is a name that rhymes with “witch” and starts with a “B”.

 

As with all of Trump’s Rallies, after listening to the real estate mogul’s rants, thousands of Trump supporters that were streaming out of the evening rally had to walk past a handful of vendors.  These vendors were selling simple white T-shirts featuring Hillary Clinton and Monica Lewinsky on the front, and the vulgar joke on the back.

 

One woman who first saw the shirt laughed and said to the man with her: “You have to get one!”

 

A group of four middle-aged women pulled out their wallets and tried to bargain the vendors down from the $20 price. One of the vendors was shouting again and again: “Trump that b----! Trump that b----! Trump that b----!”  Another man that was walking past the vendors responded with: “That’s right!”

 

Apparently, at most of Trump’s rallies, there is always a palpable hatred of Clinton in the air.  Some of Trump’s strongest applause lines come when he attacks the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, calling her “Crooked” and accusing her of playing “the woman’s card.”

 

Amanda Feather, a 35-year-old mother of six said, “I’m a pretty blunt person, so it’s kind of how I feel about things”.   She bought one of the T-shirts before attending the rally with her husband and two young daughters. “I think coming from Trump it would probably be inappropriate.  But from a voter’s point of view, I think we have the right. . . . If that’s how we feel, we should have the right to say it.  And I would tell it to her face if she walked up. That’s how I feel about her.”

 

But even as this sounds so positive for the Trump campaign, since the campaign went from the primaries to the general election, now 7 out of 10 Americans have an unfavorable opinion of Donald Trump.

 

Trump still vows to beat “Crooked Hillary” and Trump has targeted Hillary Clinton saying, "We are going to beat 'Crooked Hillary' so badly that your heads will spin."  It was after this statement that many of his fans decided to choose a different nickname for her, the one starting with a “B” and rhyming with “witch.”

Another Anti-Clinton Tee Shirt

 

This new word is often shouted from the Rally audience as Trump attacks her. It has also appeared on a popular button sold by vendors at the rallies.  The button says,  “Life’s a B----, don’t vote for one.” And, most prominently, it is now on those white T-shirts, created by the Ohio-based Street Talk Tees and is now sold at nearly all of Trump’s rallies.

 

In an interview last month, Trump said he was unaware that his fans were using that word, but he made no request that they should stop.

 

“Everybody has gotten too sensitive with terminology,” said Amanda Michael, 27, who attended Trump’s Greensboro rally with her husband, who wore one of the shirts. “Everybody’s just so sensitive now. Trump supporters just go out and they just say how they feel. . . . I’m not offended by it. I mean, it just is what it is. It’s just a feel-good American-type thing. We are not over-analyzing every little thing that we say or do.”

 

At a rally in Charleston, W.Va., last month, Matthew Chapa attended with a group of friends and bought one of the shirts.

 

“I just really don’t like her, and I thought it was a funny shirt,” said Chapa, 19, a freshman Marketing Major at Marshall University in West Virginia. “I’m in a fraternity, so guys will get a nice kick out of it when it’s hanging in our fraternity house.”

 

Chapa, who grew up in Houston, said his dislike of Clinton has nothing to do with her being a woman.  He’s really upset about the attacks in Benghazi, Libya, which he believes she could have prevented, but did not.  “The Benghazi thing makes me sick talking about it,” he said as he bought a hot dog before the rally started.

 

However, it's interesting that some in the Republican leadership have joined Obama in condemning many of Trump’s statements.

 

Discussions of the b-word and Clinton often leads to Trump supporters saying that their attacks on Clinton have nothing to do with her being a woman. But a mother of six wearing the “TRUMP THAT B----!” shirt in Greensboro had some bizarre statements when she said that the country would suffer with a woman in the White House.

 

“There are too many countries who demean their women that I think if we have a woman in office, it’s really going to hurt our country more than anything, because they have no respect for women,” said the mother as her two young daughters listened. “And then I think our attacks in our country and our issues in our country are going to become even greater, because those countries are not going to have that respect for us. We’re already starting to lose it. And I don’t think we need a woman to make us lose it even more.”

 

William Redwine, a 29-year old who lives outside of Greensboro, bought one of the shirts at the rally after seeing it online.

 

“I’ve been wanting one,” said Redwine,  He was a former Democrat who said he became a Republican when Obama started running for office. “It’s kind of funny. . . . I’m not politically correct on a lot of things anyway. . . . There are better words to describe Hillary, but — why not?”

 

Redwine said he thinks that Trump will stabilize the job market, which holding a job has been difficult for him in recent years.  He also doesn’t like Clinton because of Benghazi, the donations she and her husband accepted for their foundation and the [false] conspiracy theories about her connections to the Islamic State terrorists.  “It may be true, it may not,” he said. “But I think the dots kind of connect.”

 

Ariel Kohane, a 45-year-old who works for the Republican Leadership Initiative, he bought a variation of the shirt at a rally in Rhode Island and wore it to a GOP fundraiser in New Jersey.  He said it is an eye-catching conversation starter, especially when walking on Jersey’s Upper West Side.

 

“I’m just trying to be funny and get attention while trying to get people to approach me and talk to me about it.   Once they do that, then I can talk to them about Trump,” Kohane said. “I definitely get more positive reactions from men than women, but among the Republican women, among the Trump women, they actually love this shirt. I get a lot of high-fives and hugs.”

 

Two cousins. Dustin White and Matthew Gent, both live in rural West Virginia.  Their top reasons for liking Trump are that he is not Clinton and that he is not a Democrat. Gent bought one of the shirts.

 

“I couldn’t resist. I said: ‘That’s too funny not to buy,’ ” said Gent, 22. “I mean, people pick on both sides — that’s kind of how politics works. It’s better to not get mad at it, really. It’s all in good fun at the end of the day.”

 

His cousin Dustin agreed that it was funny, but he didn’t like the shirt. Then again, he said, he also didn’t like many of President Obama’s jokes made against Trump during the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.

 

 

“If we’re at a point where the man that has already been elected can stand in front of many serious people from the media, celebrities and other politicians and throw jokes, then I think we are at the point where we can sell shirts that say b---- on them,” said White.

 

Finally, there’s a team of four men in a van with Ohio plates that has been traveling from rally to rally selling the offensive shirts. They said sales have been strong, although sometimes parents with young children reprimand them for the foul language, while anti-Trump protesters always pepper them with questions.

 

“It’s because I’m black,” said one of the vendors, who calls himself “Clinton Sanders”.  The 28 year old is a member of the all-black sales team that sticks out in the sea of white faces at the Trump rallies. “They want to know who I’m voting for, and I tell them: ‘That’s confidential.’ And they ask me why I’m doing this, and I say: ‘It’s just work...that's all.’ ”

 

This is all just another look at why this will be one of the strangest and most important elections of our time.

 

And I believe that most American voters don’t realize how important this election is for the make-up of the US Supreme Court and as to which party will be running the Senate and the House.

 

It’s truly pitiful how ignorant our voting public has become.

 

Copyright G.Ater  2016