William Voegeli's wonderful defense of Trump supporters

The fact that Trump has become a credible contender despite, or even because of, his obvious faults argues, however, for taking his followers’ concerns seriously rather than dismissing them. It is not, in fact, particularly difficult to explain the emergence of Trumpismo in terms of legitimate concerns not addressed, and important duties not discharged. That such a flawed contender could be a front-runner tells us more about what’s wrong with the country than about what’s wrong with his followers. People have every reason to expect that their government will take its most basic responsibilities seriously, and every reason to be angry when, instead, it proves more feckless than conscientious. Governments are instituted among men to secure their inalienable rights, according to the Declaration of Independence. This means that when we and our rights are left avoidably insecure, government has failed in its central mission. We may, then, have reason to doubt that if Trump supporters were better informed and more temperate they would have reacted to the San Bernardino massacre with stoic resignation. Perhaps something other than a lack of insight into the way the world works accounts for their refusal to accept that the government that welcomed Tashfeen Malik to this country the year before she and her husband murdered 14 people was sufficiently vigilant about securing its citizens’ rights. Rights, of course, often need to be balanced against one another, and the indignant Trump voters fail to grasp the rationale that led the federal government to conclude that increasing risks to Americans was an acceptable trade-off for a policy that “prohibited immigration officials from reviewing the social media messages of all foreign citizens applying for U.S. visas.” The Cabinet officer in charge of Homeland Security, as the president understands that concept, favored the policy because he feared more aggressive scrutiny of visa applications might trigger “a civil liberties backlash and ‘bad public relations’ for the Obama administration,” according to ABC News.

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