I have a sense of how Deplorables think, since I have walked among them. The Deplorable culture is enigmatic to most educated and genteel people. Some of this will be new to you. I’m here to tell you, as an anthropologist, that it is much worse than you probably think.

I remember once having my stroller-age son with me while hanging out with a garage full of Deplorables celebrating one of their 60th birthdays. The conversation was almost entirely about wife swapping and similar themes. I had to put the kid outside on the driveway so he would not become polluted, and stayed around only long enough to verify that this was really happening. The Access Hollywood tape was a replay of a constant ongoing conversation among Deplorables (both sexes). If you were surprised by it, you are living in a bubble. A nice bubble, do stay there, you’ll be happier. But still, a bubble. This is how Deplorables talk. And think.

I’ve had enough conversations with deplorables to know that they are often (but not always) driven by racism. It is not difficult to understand Deplorable policy thinking (to the extent that it is thinking, which it mostly is not) if you know that all of the Democratic Party policy objectives of the 8 years prior to the electoral college mistake known as the “Trump Presidency” were objectives that existed under a black president. Therefore they are dirty, tainted, smudged by the blackness of his monkey skin, all kootied-up by the N*gger, not to mention all wrong. The only good policy is the opposite of his black policy no matter what that is. White is right. That is something you probably knew. You probably hate hearing the thoughts, and I sort of apologize for jamming them into your face. But while what you were already thinking, already knew, is correct, it is not sharp or true enough. The truth is disgusting.

A less known, but critical, aspect of Deplorable culture is how strength works. It is sometimes earned, sometimes given by external forces, and it defines legitimacy. It is OK to claim ownership of one’s own strengths, or to attribute them to Mother or to God, or in some cases Dog (especially a good hunting dog). But it is not OK to attribute any but one causality to lack of strength, or to weakness. That, in Deplorable culture, is entirely the fault of the individual. That is probably something you didn’t know.

So there’s this guy and his girlfriend, probably fiance, climbing a mountain. They are using ropes and other technical gear, and it is a challenging climb. They are both experts. She is above him, by tens of feet. Suddenly, she loses her hold, and falls. Her body strikes the rock face at several locations, bouncing off like an out of control rag doll, finally to rest some 15 feet below him, unconscious. Rescue squads including helicopters are required to bring her out and to the hospital. She survives, but he can never look at her again without seeing weakness. Their relationship ends because of that.

That is a horrible story, but a true one, and one that demonstrates a human frailty: Sometimes we see failure in another person where all they did was obey the rules of gravity, or cancer, or ice on the road. This seems counter-intuitive but it really does happen. It is usually hidden by cultural trappings. The person who told me that story (the boyfriend himself) was just being brutally honest.

Deplorables do this same thing other humans do, but they codify it in their culture and they foreground it in their aggressions. Donald Trump doesn’t like people who get captured. He doesn’t like soldiers who get wounded. Or drafted. Or tricked into serving by some patriotic sense that is, to him, an emotional state of being, normally reserved for chumps and cucks.

If you get this, now you can understand the Deplorable (=Republican) flauting of logical, normal, required, science-based precautions against spreading Covid-19 infection. Getting sick is a sign of personal weakness. Doing things to not get sick is personal weakness. They complained about freedom when asked to wear a mask. It is not about freedom, or at least, freedom as you think of it. It is about freedom to not appear weak.

Well, today, right now, Trump is weak because he has Covid. Indeed, somebody is probably having their way with his wife, back home, because he must also be a cuck, because he is so weak. The guy who once owned a line of suit jackets and ties has no tie and only one suit jacket. The only way he can make friends is to drive around the block in his car waving at people like some little kid or a dog.

Trump-loving Deplorables are not going to run out and vote for Biden because their beloved demigod turns out to be a [imagine the word that must go here]. But they won’t vote for him. When Trump got Covid he lost at least two electoral state wins. That was the end of the election right there.

You might think Trump getting Covid hurts him politically because it underlies the folly of science denialism, or proves that Democrats were right all align about wearing masks, and stuff like that. Nope. That is a fabrication of logic, which rules your liberal mind. To a Deplorable, science is still a lie, mask wearing is still a violation of basic rights, and Covid is still a hoax. Trump is not worth voting for because he is a weak loser with only one jacket, no tie, and somebody is fucking his wife as we speak.