Over the last twenty four hours, there has been a discussion about who Trump’s supporters are and if they do fall into a “deplorable bucket”. I want to clarify something right off: there is a difference between a Republican voters — even someone who may vote for Trump — and a Trump supporter. The supporters of Trump aren’t simply “no” votes to Hillary Clinton - that group also includes some, well, pessimistic or out of sorts former liberals.
True Trump supporters are a smaller group; these are the people who followed Trump from early on, who make up the backbone of his support network and who promote him endlessly in forums and in real life. This morning, I attended a parade in which Trump supporters flew the “Trump Flag”, as well as shirts that read: “Hillary For Prison” and “#endislam” shirt designs.
Of that much smaller subset, the active strong supporters for Trump, is the core really deplorable? While I looked on as Trump supporters came down our way, Senator Jerry Moran (R-KS) came to speak with us, and I asked him: “Trump keep saying heinous things; where is the political courage to denounce him?”
Senator Moran responded: “I don’t endorse those kind of things, I don’t endorse candidates in races I’m not in..” This is of course, easily proven false since Jerry Moran has appeared at fundraisers to support numerous candidates that were not, in fact, Jerry Moran.
The point, however, is simple: if you are unwilling to use your efforts to denounce and work vigilantly against something you know to be an evil, you are tolerating it. And we are a country that is better than tolerating evil.