This 74-year-old left-of-liberal white guy chipped in $25, plus a $4 tip, to that new group called White Dudes for Harris.
Their Monday night mega Zoom call raised more than $4 million for the Harris campaign. But the outfit also aims to show that not all white guys are partial to red MAGA ball caps. There are navy and charcoal White Dudes for Harris ball caps, too. I just plunked down another $44.57 for a navy one.
I’m smack in the middle of the Trump demographic: white geezerhood. My accent gives me away as a lifelong resident of western Kentucky, arguably the most crimsoned corner of one of the reddest of Republican Red States. Both times he ran, Trump carried 118 of Kentucky's 120 counties, all but Jefferson (Louisville) and Fayette (Lexington). Carlisle, where we live, went for Trump by 80.5 percent in 2016 and 81.8 percent in 2020.
Hence, I sometimes get mistaken for a Trumper, mostly by Trumpers, but occasionally by liberals.
I am quick to disabuse Trumpers of their wrongheaded notions about me, politely or pointedly, as the situation dictates. But I get a kick out of watching liberal jaws drop when I set them straight, too.
Admittedly, I especially relish telling Trumpers — thickening my drawl for effect — that I pack a union card and happily voted for Barack Obama twice and once apiece for Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. But it’s also fun to similarly enlighten liberals who erroneously suspect that I believe that “GOP” stands for “God’s Own Party,” that unions are satanic, and that I’m a follower of the “Jesus is my Savior, Trump is my President” faith.
Okay, most rural, small-town Kentuckians who look like me and sound like me — I say “dawg” and “nekked” and “bless your heart”— voted for Trump twice. They’re gung-ho to make it a threepeat.
It’s not just Kentucky. If you’re an old white guy from any Red State, it’s commonly assumed by most Red (and many Blue) Team partisans, that there’s no way you voted for Obama, Clinton, and Biden — and plan to vote for Harris.
Note to both teams: I’ve voted for every Democrat who’s run for president since Hubert Humphrey in 1968, the first year I was eligible to vote. (I’ve never voted for a Republican at any level, though I’m a big fan of the original GOP, and John C. Fremont would have gotten my presidential ballot in 1856, Abraham Lincoln in '60 and '64, and U.S. Grant in 1868.)
“People make a lot of judgements about identity based upon age, sex, and race,” Greg Leichty, a University of Louisville professor emeritus of communications, told me a few years ago. “It isn’t a good practice because you end up surprised a lot of the time.”
But, he added with a chuckle, “If they know you’re from western Kentucky and make a guess that you’re a Trumper, it’s a pretty good guess.”
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