Political Teams

There is a term used for serious devotees; they are called fans.

I would say that the American people are the biggest fans on earth.

They have their chosen teams; often having favourites in each of many popular team sports. The root of the word fan, is the more intense word, fanatic. American sport fandom truly approaches the fanatical. Any loss can be a cause of rage, and an important loss is a time for tears. They scream at television screens across the nation on every game day.

They love their teams with an incredible level of commitment. Often, they will follow their team from cradle to the grave, longer than they are with any spouse, parent, or child. It takes a lot for a team to break this tie. Wins certainly don't do it, nor do losses. Criminal behaviour by players is overlooked, as are cash grabs by management. About the only thing that can end the affair is if a team leaves its home base and relocates somewhere else far away.

I don't understand or feel this kind of commitment to any sort of sports team, but I can certainly see that it is a very real thing. One would have be blind not to.

Even stranger to me, is that Americans treat political figures and parties with the same kind of fanaticism. They do it with the as much commitment and intensity as they do their sports loyalty. This would be fine, except that politics is a much more important endeavour.

Their 2016 election is plagued by exactly this type of team loyalty.

The two sides are called Republicans and Democrats. It is this way in every election, and the outcome is largely decided by a very small category of voters known as the undecided. This year it is quite different.

A while back, the two teams picked their candidates, and they were Trump and Clinton.

The loyalty damage hit right away. A lot of younger Democrat supporters had wanted Bernie Sanders to be their party's representative, and in a huff decided to vote for a third-party candidate. This would make some sort of sense if the third-party choices were not anti-everything-that-the-young-Democrats-liked-in-Sanders. Sanders himself seems unable to convince them of this, although over time the third-party candidates have been doing a pretty good job doing so all on their own.

On the other side, an even bigger split has been occurring. Typical Republican Party and voter behaviour is to support their boy with pit bull-like intensity. However, the candidate himself seems to be unlike any before. As the months have gone by, a great many extremely stalwart Republicans have felt themselves unable to support Trump. For example, there are two living Republican former presidents. Neither publicly supports Trump, which is unheard of.

Many other prominent Republicans have also come out as not supporting Trump. Doing this means that they are actually saying they want Clinton to win, which is also unheard of. The list is growing constantly, and includes a great many Congressmen, Senators, former presidential candidates, Governors, party members, and other notables. There are likely more than are known about, but who are doing so privately.

At the recent debate, Trump did very poorly, and has since been acting very unstable. He has been lashing out at irrelevant adversaries, and in ways that weakens his own appeal.

It is becoming harder and harder for Republican supporters, and even for Trump fanatics to stick to the plan. Do you follow the official Republican line that Trump is the one, or do you follow the significant part of the party that says he isn't? Can you stick to Trump regardless, and really think that you will be voting for an acceptable candidate?

It is like making the decision to stop supporting a beloved football, baseball, or basketball team, but also quite different. There can be something noble about sticking with a team, and not abandoning them just because they have been having major troubles, and have no chance of winning. There is nothing noble about sticking with a candidate who is having major troubles, wither they have a chance of winning or not.

If the candidate is turning out to be a horrid choice, sticking with them is exactly the wrong thing to do. Doing so is even a worse decision if they actually have a possibility of winning.

I think a great many Trump supporters find themselves in just such a situation. I suspect there is a great deal of soul searching going on right now, or at least I hope there is.

There will always be hard-core Trump fans who will vote for him on November 8^{th regardless. They} will do so even if it turns out he attends Satanic religious services, gets arrested for rape, admits to incest, is found to be on Russia's payroll, and is a drug addict, and switches back to pro-choice, and to pro-gun-control, and admits he actually isn't rich at all. “Trump all the way!”

It is the other Trump supporters who are suffering right now. It is the ones who have it in their DNA to stick with their candidate, but who are seeing too many flaws in his behaviour and character. When do they pull the plug? It certainly doesn't look like he's going to start looking better between now and election day. When will enough be enough? What if he is clearly the wrong man, they vote for him, and somehow he manages to win? That would be the exact the opposite of an optimal outcome.

I feel real empathy for these people, and hope that they can reconcile everything in a way that works for them, and for their country.