They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.Donald Trump

I’ve been reading comments, from all my friends on facebook, that the people who like Donald Trump are stupid and I don’t agree. In a New Yorker article, about a week or two ago, they described a typical Trump follower, She worked at a furniture company, she said. “But the industry went down the tubes.” Her husband, Charlie, used to build household electricity meters at a General Electric plant, until the job moved to Mexico. Now he parks cars at a hospital. They weren’t exactly living the American Dream, but they had good jobs and now they don’t.

These are the kind of people who – 25 to 50 years ago – could have reasonably expected their kids to go to a good state college and move up to a white-collar job. Now they get paid way less and that once inexpensive college costs way more. These are the kind of people who could have reasonably expected to have a decent retirement from their company pension and are now worried about being homeless. They have voted for Democrats and Republicans and it doesn’t make much difference, their lives just keep getting worse. They played by the rules and they got poorer while the rich – who seem to have a different set of rules – just get richer.

Now, Donald Trump comes along, and he doesn’t fit any stereotype, he is that rare bird, a Republican populist. Somehow, that gives hope to alot of people. They think that in influx of Mexicans who are willing to work cheap has lowered their wages and they think that the various trade deals have made the rich richer but left them poorer and they are – at least partially – right.

It doesn’t mean that they are stupid, it just means that they don’t think the usual suspects give a damn about them.