This Week’s Q&A: a Trump Supporter

Daniel Parker is a junior in the Bloch School of Management. After seeing him several times in class wearing a “Trump: Make America Great Again” hat, I asked him to sit down in the spirit of open discussion and tell me about himself and his support for Trump. He agreed. This is an excerpt of our conversation.

Q: Can you tell me a little bit about yourself? How old are you and so on…

A: Okay. I’m 21, business major. I want to open my own restaurant when I get older. I played soccer. I have a brother that’s older than me and a brother that’s younger than me. My younger brother is at basic training in Fort Gordon in Georgia. My older brother goes to UMKC law school. He’s in his third year of law school. My father’s from the military and is the principal of a high school in Richmond, MO. My mom’s a teacher in Liberty…. My favorite color is blue.

Q: Where do you get your news?

A: My dad. My dad is really into Fox News. I guess I get most of my information from him. And CNN. Whatever channel the presidential debate [was on] — was that CNN?

Q: So it sounds like your dad has a lot of influence on you.

A: Yes. I would say that a lot of people get influences from their parents. They pick up traditions or whatever. I value his opinion because obviously he has more years…

Q: I guess I shouldn’t assume. Is he voting for Trump as well?

A: Yes. He is. Definitely.

Q: And your brothers?

A: My older brother’s voting for Hillary. My younger brother is voting for, I would assume, Donald Trump. I don’t actually know. And my mom doesn’t like Donald Trump and was, I think, a Ted Cruz voter. But she just doesn’t like the… what… I don’t know, what Hillary brings to the table.

Q: Is this the first election you’ve followed, or did you also follow the Obama one?

A: I followed it, but I couldn’t vote in it or anything. I followed it though. His second term I didn’t really follow because he didn’t really go up against anyone. His first one I followed because he could just bring a crowd. He could just be—he had a lot of good—I don’t—What Obama implemented is—I don’t have a problem with Obama. I just think his healthcare, it was good with the cover, but when you start to look into it, it kind of definitely—it hosed my brother. His deductible is like $6,000 now. The older one. He’s not on my parents’ anymore, he’s 25. My dad has tri-care, which is USAA, which is for the military, and once you’re 25 you don’t get on that anymore so he had to get his own insurance. And the deductible for my parents’ is $2,000, and his is $6,000. And he doesn’t make—I mean, he’s a student.

Q: But he’s still voting for Hillary?

A: Yes. Well, my brother just loves her. I don’t know. I mean, Hillary — we’re getting into the Hillary-Donald thing. Obviously Hillary is more political, and she’s more presidential for sure. And she has a poise about her that my brother just really likes.

Q: What about her policies?

A: I don’t know if it’s because my brother just likes to choose the opposite side of my dad. But he’s liked Hillary for a long time. He’s been a fan of Hillary for a long time.

Q: Interesting. Did you know about Donald Trump before this election?

A: I did. Yeah, I don’t know if you know this, but Donald Trump is in The Little Rascal. He’s the father of the rich child… I don’t know if you’ve seen YouTube videos of Donald Trump, but he’s kind of, he’s stayed consistent in his views since the 1980s. And that’s something, as a business person myself, he’s stayed true. He didn’t want to be president in 1990, he didn’t want to do it. He thought someone else could do a better job. Now that he’s running, he thinks he’s the best candidate. I like the fact that he’s stayed true to his morals.

Q: Let’s talk about top 3 voting issues.

A: Such as…

Q: Are you more of a fiscal voter, foreign policy, social issues, etc.?

A: Could you give me a social issue example for Donald Trump real quick?

Q: So [an issue] in the election for social policy, for example, maybe abortion, gay marriage or marriage equality, maybe even family leave act would be part of that. For foreign policy, in terms of whether you are for more of an aggressive stance or isolationist approach.

A: Aggressive, I would say. Abortion, I’m more pro-choice I would say. It’s all situational obviously. For that situation. I don’t know…

Q: So out of the different issues to vote for, what are your top 3 issues for voting for Donald Trump or not for Hillary Clinton?

A: For that person? That’s the thing. I would say the reason–there are a lot of things I agree with that Donald Trump doesn’t necessarily agree with. Which would be like–I believe in gay marriage 100 percent. I have a lot of people in my life that are gay, so I have to go that route. For Donald, the kind of something that makes me want to vote for him is that he’s stuck true to what he wants. I understand as a business person, I understand the competition among employers—we keep saying that. But at the same time, I really want to go into the food industry. We’re sitting on a street that has five restaurants within [one] block. And that’s competition in itself. With the healthcare, Hillary brought up a thing in the last debate, something I didn’t know, 20 million people got healthcare from Obamacare. Which is amazing, that’s what we need. But if it raises deductibles and raises your monthly rates, which it’s supposedly free, so it’s like there’s some misinterpretation there. Some oversight. So I liked how Hillary said she would change it and Donald wants to get rid of it. Either way would benefit the United States. Building upon it or completely getting rid of it.

Q: So you’re voting for Donald’s getting rid of Obamacare? I might have misunderstood you. Is that why you’re voting for Trump?

A: No, that’s not why. It wouldn’t be healthcare. It’s hard. I don’t know. That’s a good question. Hillary wants to change it from the inside, and Donald wants to change it completely, the whole system. I don’t know if healthcare is what I would say why I’m voting for Donald Trump.

Q: What about as someone entering the workforce? How does that change your voting issues?

A: Okay, thank you, that’s perfect. So the flat tax. I believe the flat tax could be a good thing.

Q: Explain the flat tax?

A: So what Donald Trump wants to implement is a 15 percent flat tax which could be for anybody that makes any amount of money. So like if you were a business corporation, or if I was the owner of a restaurant and I wanted to franchise it out, it could benefit me to pay only 15 percent.

Q: How does that compare to what you would pay now?

A: I don’t know, actually. That’s a good question.

Q: Did you support Donald Trump from the beginning, or was there another candidate?

A: I didn’t support Donald Trump from the beginning. I was kind of with my mom on Ted Cruz because he was more presidential—more composed. I don’t know.

Q: He’s very conservative.

A: Very.

Q: But from what you’ve said about social issues, it doesn’t sound like Ted Cruz’s policy would necessarily align with you.

A: Align with me, correct. Right. Exactly. The thing that would more align with me would be Bernie Sanders, the ‘everything is free’ kind of thing. I just—his stuff was too much for me to get behind and support. I supported Ted Cruz, but when it came to Donald Trump and Hillary— just can’t do it for Hillary. I’ve just seen too much stuff on Hillary to vote for her.

Q: There is a lot of stuff on Hillary, but there’s also a lot of stuff on Donald. So I would like to ask, are you a Donald Trump supporter or a Hillary Clinton opposer? Or somewhere in—

A: Yeah, I would say Clinton opposer. So what was released on Friday, Trump stated it was locker room talk. I feel like a lot of people have conversations that if they were released would make other people look at them differently. And that was eleven years ago. I mean, personally I’ve never said anything like that in my life. But I have said things that if they were released I wouldn’t be like ‘yeah, I’m glad that was released.’ So when he refers to it as locker room talk— but they always go back to the emails. And she got a subpoena, and I work at a law firm—so if she kept doing stuff wrong, that’s illegal in itself. And I keep going back to Bernie. I thought he was going to win it, I thought he was going to beat Hillary. You go to Bernie’s and Trump’s rallies—they’re packed. Bernie could fill up a football stadium. Hillary could barely fill anything. And Trump could do the same thing. You go to a Trump rally, and people are just over the top. But so how could she beat Bernie if he just had supporters everywhere he went?

Q: Do you think there is merit to the sexual allegations against Trump?

A: We’ve looked past it in the past, like Bill Clinton, and I don’t know, Roosevelt or Kennedy. There’s been past presidents who had the same issues.

Q: So should we keep looking past it, or should this be the chance we can say ‘hey, you’re not going to’—

A: Yeah, actually, I would almost agree with that. Maybe. Maybe it’s time to say we’re not allowing this, time to step down. I don’t know. It could be.

Q: What do you think about the racist policies at Trump’s hotels? Do you think Trump is a racist or has exhibited racial insensitivities?

A: No, I don’t think he’s a racist. He says things. So the biggest thing is Syrian refugees into this country or into other countries—I don’t think that’s a good idea. That’s a terrible idea. I understand that America was founded on letting people in, but they’re bad people. We’re not checking them when they’re coming into this country—

Q: Well, we are.

A: But it’s not an extended background check or anything.

Q: It is.

A: Is it?

Q: It’s almost a 2-year process. One of my friends is actually a refugee officer, and they do hours and hours of questioning, and they run background checks. They look at everyone they’re associated with.

A: Interesting. I was not aware of that.

Q: And so far no refugee has been found to have done—

A: Do something bad.

Q: Most of them have been homegrown.

A: Right.

Q: How does that change your—

A: Okay. That’s fair. Wow. I was not aware of that.

Q: So going back to the racism, I think, specific incidents would be Trump has said all the Mexicans are criminals and racists. He singled out a black man at his rally recently and called him ‘his black man.’

A: Really?

Q: Yeah, so, my question would be how do you support someone who has demonstrated those insensitivities and almost campaigned on them?

A: Wow. That is a great question. That’s a nice question. I don’t know.

Q: And to be fair, Clinton has had criticism from minorities as well.

A: For sure. And I don’t have any research or anything. That’s a good question. I don’t know that I can say I support someone who does that.

Q: But you do.

A: But I do, right. But the reason I do is that the person he’s going against—like the question you said earlier—am I a Clinton opposer? How can you have someone—I saw a video of her where she was saying when she entered a country she was under sniper fire, and the actual video of her was a ceremony. Like a celebration. So how can you say something like that along those lines?

etseng@unews.com