Hooked on a feeling

For months I’ve been asking why so many people are so enthralled with Donald Trump?
Some are people I’ve known and respected for years. What is it about this man I find so uncouth, narcissistic and mean that others admire and follow?
 
I’ve ask those questions to Trumpers and the common answer I get is that they don’t like the man, but they like his policies. I ask them to tell me what policies of his they like. They recite all Trump’s talking points: the wholesale influx of immigrants into America who threaten our jobs and our communities. Crime is out of control they say, blaming immigrants as well as implied but not spoken, Blacks. Biden and the Democrats have ruined our economy, adding the obligatory recitation that gas prices were $1.87 the last year of Trump’s presidency instead of the $3.50 or more today.
 
John Adams said that facts are stubborn things, and the facts don’t support these Trumpisms, but truth has never hindered Donald or his followers. They don’t hear nor believe them.
 
If the conversation hasn’t become too heated, I probe further. How can you possibly support Mark Robinson for Governor? Or Michele Morrow for Superintendent of Public Instruction or Dan Bishop for Attorney General? When I read the outrageous statements they have made or recount their history, NC Republicans just shrug their shoulders.  
 
What is really going on here? Why is it that the economy has made an incredible and dramatic rebound since Covid, real wages have risen steadily, violent crime has declined and inflation has fallen dramatically, yet many blatantly refuse to accept the facts? How can Trump possibly complain about immigration problems when he single-handedly scuttled a bi-partisan immigration plan that all agreed would help fix immigration problems?  He wants to argue both sides of immigration. Sadly, his followers parrot his claims.
 
What am I missing? I gained some insight into my questions when reading an article in the New York Times written about Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy.
 
Murphy said, “The challenges America faces aren’t really logistical. They are metaphysical. And the sooner we understand the unspooling of identity and meaning that is happening in America today, the sooner we can come up with practical policies to address this crisis.”
 
To paraphrase Murphy, the problems are not factual, they are spiritual. It doesn’t matter what the facts are if they don’t line up with how people feel. The stinkin’ thinkin’ being spouted has folks feeling most everything is bad, that government bureaucracy is the reason their lives are more difficult. The country is going to hell in a handbasket and leaders are lyin’ crooks. They acknowledge that America has a place on the world stage but say we cannot be the world’s policemen or big brother. They claim our escalating national debt is further proof that we have lost our vision of what America should be and are failing to reorient our philosophy back toward a strong middle class that makes things.
 
Republicans and Trump don’t often posit these feelings very articulately, but their intent is to play on peoples’ fears and grievances. Chris Murphy says that Democrats have neither understood nor responded to those feelings. 
 
But July 21 was a turning point. A light switch flipped when President Biden stepped down and Kamala Harris became the presidential nominee. An amazing new feeling suddenly swept the country. Governor Cooper, in introducing Harris in Raleigh, acknowledged the change when he said there was a feeling in our state like he hadn’t seen since the 2008 Obama campaign.
 
And it’s not just in North Carolina. The campaign Trump and Republicans have run focused on the negative and mean-spirited malaise in the country, but the about-face vibe coming from the Harris campaign is positive, joyful, hopeful and inviting. Political operatives, hard pressed to explain this phenomenon, say Kamala is enjoying a honeymoon and wonder how long it might last. If Chicago’s Democratic convention was any yardstick the euphoria might continue until election day.
 
Here’s my spin: Folks are sick and tired of being made to feel sick and tired. They are fed up with demeaning, divisive and negative campaigns. People are finding great joy to once again be enthusiastically FOR someone instead of deciding between the lesser of evils. Large numbers are attracted to the magnetic energy, enthusiasm and hopeful message of Harris, along with the down-home wisdom of VP nominee, Tim Walz. When she says, “We’re not going back,” she is striking a chord with young and old alike.
 
Our nation has always believed our future will be better than the past. We’ve been an optimistic nation. If feelings are going to determine the outcomes of November’s elections, a growing plurality of voters are hooked on the feelings of optimism, joy and hope. And it feels pretty darn good.
 
Tom Campbell is a Hall of Fame North Carolina broadcaster and columnist who has covered North Carolina public policy issues since 1965.  Contact him at tomcamp@carolinabroadcasting.com