A Conversation with a Trump Supporter
We talk Trump, the Paycheck Guarantee Bill, and More.
By Phillip | 5/3/20
On one of my daily walks with my dog I was stunned to see a Trump sign in someone’s window. Although I’ve spent the past four years demonizing Trump supporters and calling them morons, I haven’t talked to one since the last family reunion (and we tend to avoid the touchy subject of politics). I was surprised, because the Bay Area is one of the most liberal areas in America (my representative, Barbara Lee, won in 2018 by 70% of the vote to… a Green Party member, a Republican did not even make it to the general election) and vocal Trump supporters are ostracized.
The next time I passed by the house, I left a note requesting an interview. To my surprise and delight, the responder, Jeanne Solnordal, has run for office in Congress and the State Assembly. In this interview, I tried to simply observe and learn, and not impose or argue my views. I hope you’ll enjoy it.
Here’s an edited section of our conversation (to get rid of all my ums), which we will release in its entirety this week on the Motivate U.S. podcast.
Phillip Chin:
So you want to increase teacher wages and get rid of homelessness. Those things will cost money. And how will you raise money if you're planning on cutting taxes?
Jeanne Solnordal:
Well, there's already money. There's a slush fund already at the State Capitol. And I also think that we shouldn't be giving all these free services to illegals. One of my pet peeves is that we give all this free money to illegal immigrants and I don't think that we should be doing that.
Jeanne Solnordal:
I think that if people want to come into this country then they should be able to support themselves. I don't have any problem with immigration because we're all immigrants. We all came here as immigrants, but if you come to this country, you shouldn't expect handouts, you should be able to be self-sufficient. That's actually the criteria for immigration is that you'd be able to come here and be an asset to the country, so you shouldn't be able to come to this country and immediately ask for welfare. We shouldn't be handing out welfare. So if we stop handing out welfare to immigration immigrants as soon as they come to this country, that right there is going to be savings. And so we should stop doing that and that will, that right there will be a big chunk of money that will save.
Phillip Chin:
Can I ask you, who did you support in 2016 and why?
Jeanne Solnordal:
I supported Donald Trump and I still do. I think [politicians are] all lazy. All they do is sit. We should fire them all because all they do is sit up there and fight all the time. They don't do anything for us. Instead of doing things for our country, they're supposed to all work together and they're supposed to do things for us to make this country a good place for us. And they don't. They just sit up there and squabble over politics.
Jeanne Solnordal:
And that's not what they're supposed to be doing. So Donald Trump is there. He's trying to make everybody work together and he's trying to kick everybody out of the government up in Washington DC. Because he's not really a Republican or Democrat. He's just trying to make the government do what it's supposed to do and they're not doing what they're supposed to do. They're just up there fighting each other.I just get so mad at all of them because they're just sitting up there wasting our money.
Phillip Chin:
I can think of one other politician who promises to fix the crooked system, make the government do what it's supposed to do. And that's Bernie Sanders. It seems like you're drawn to Trump more because of his promise to drain the swamp than his actual policies. Would you ever consider supporting someone like Bernie Sanders?
Jeanne Solnordal:
You know, and I've gone to Bernie Sanders rallies before and I've listened to him and half of what he talks about, it's right on point for me. And then when he gets to his socialism ideas. I can't go along with the socialism ideas because that's not what our country is built on. But I love some of his ideas and actually a lot of his stuff makes perfect sense, but until he gets to his socialism stuff, because that's not what our country is built on, our country is a Republic. It's not socialist. And I don't believe in flipping our country into a socialist country. We're not a socialist country. And so he wants to turn us into a socialist country. And that's not what we are. That's not what our Constitution says. Sorry. That's not what our Declaration of Independence talks about. That's not what our constitution is about. And so he's got that part wrong.
Phillip Chin:
Okay. How do you think Trump is handling the Coronavirus pandemic?
Jeanne Solnordal:
I think he's doing the best he can with it. So, I think he should put more people back to work. I think [Coronavirus is] over. So I think we can probably get things back to work. I think people will be a little more cautious than we need to be right now. But then again, there's so many people that are really scared. So I think he's got to balance that too. So I see both sides. I see this one side, people that are really nervous because their savings are gone. Now I think most people had one month of savings, and lots of that savings is gone. So now they're freaked out because they don't know what to do financially.
Jeanne Solnordal:
Then we've got these other people that don't care because they have all the money in the world. Saying well let's give it some more time cause you know, we better be safe than sorry. So he's got to balance the two. And so, actually he doesn't have the rights. I mean the rights are on the governors. To stay within what he has the rights to do. China, China didn't disclose [Coronavirus] when they were supposed to. So I think he's probably doing the best he can.
Phillip Chin:
Okay. In terms of getting the economy back, we've spent $3 trillion on stimulus, which has gone to big businesses, small businesses, increasing unemployment benefits. Do you think we should keep on spending money and where do you think we should keep on spending money?
Jeanne Solnordal:
I don't think we need to spend any: if we get back to work, things will go to normal. But I think it should go to the small businesses, right. And the reason why we do need to give it to businesses is so that the businesses can continue to give it to people and so that they can continue to give them their paychecks because if they can continue to get people their paychecks, then people can continue to pay their mortgages and their car loans and their landlords. And so things will continue on as normal.
Phillip Chin:
Yeah. I mean, definitely. I totally agree with you on that. I think there's a bill from Pramila Jayapal to guarantee workers’ income. So we would pay companies to pay workers their income. Do you think there should be a mechanism by which companies are required to do this?
Jeanne Solnordal:
Yeah. Right.
Phillip Chin:
So the question that I actually first contacted you about: what is it like to be a vocal conservative in a liberal area? I've heard that liberals own the culture and conservatives own the political power. How does that feel? Especially in Piedmont (a very liberal town).
Jeanne Solnordal:
There's a lot of Republicans here in Piedmont. We have a Republican women's group. We usually meet over at the Claremont country club and we have lunches. We have speakers that come in from all over the place. It's usually okay. Usually, I don't have a problem. People are afraid to even put up lawn signs. So I have to tell you, sometimes people are very intimidated and they're very worried about their property getting damaged because most Democrats are down to earth and they don't care about Republicans and they are just normal people. But there are some Democrats that are crazy and they will damage your property.
Jeanne Solnordal:
They think Republicans are Nazis and they just assume if you're a Trump supporter, that there's something wrong with you and they will damage your vehicles, they'll damage your property. So if you happen to notice my house, I happened to have security cameras all over the place and that's because I have had my property damaged. And for a while I wouldn't put up any signs and stuff, but I got to a point where it was like, I won't let people steal my speech.
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