70 million deplorable monsters

Ani O’Brien
5 min readNov 11, 2020

There are many interesting political narratives to be explored in this predictably contentious US election. Pollsters once again proved to be entirely out of touch with the American public and some 70 million people voted for the man the media has spent four years treating as a hostile agent. And so, I find myself, again, pushing back on attacks on those 70 million Trump voters. I refuse to see such a huge number of people as a homogenous group of bigots, racists, and selfish idiots. In my opinion, Trump is the symptom, not the cause.

Once again Democratic voters took to social media to express incredulity that anyone could possibly vote for the ‘Orange Facist’. They called half of their nation “monsters” and called for any family or friends who voted for Trump to ‘unfriend’ them immediately. The ever-widening chasm between those who vote for Trump & those who see him as an existential threat now seems an impassable gulf.

A tweet from a drag queen from Ru Paul’s Drag Race who won “Ms Congeniality” of his season. He has 282,000 followers on Twitter.

Typically, news articles have already been published blaming white supremacy and patriarchy for the actions of 70 million Americans. These lazy anti-analyses seek only to reaffirm the existing hatred certain sectors of the US have for those they see as more stupid and morally…

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Ani O’Brien

Like good faith disagreements & principled people. Dislike disingenuousness & Foucault. Care about women’s rights & democracy. Opinions my own ⚢