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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Comment
Peter Hyman

We can rage about Donald Trump. Or we can be curious about why he appealed to so many

An illustration by Dominic McKenzie of people looking in admiration at a gun slinger in red cowboy boots and a Maga stetson walking into an old-fashioned saloon bar.
Illustration by Dominic McKenzie. Illustration: Dominic McKenzie/The Observer

How can anyone vote for someone so… fill in the blank… racist, sexist, unconstitutional, hateful, unhinged? This is the question asked frequently in the UK and here in the States, where I have spent the past three weeks trying to understand the Trump phenomenon.

Behind the question is an implied superiority; that we, the clever people, have identified the monster that is Donald Trump, but the deluded masses are too stupid to see it. But what I have found at the Trump rallies I’ve been to is not stupidity, but frustration, pain and a longing for respect.

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