In 2008 the current President said
You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and... it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.
I'm from small town Pennsylvania. I've supported Democrats unabashedly me entire life to that point. I'm from a family of immigrants who earned their right to live here with blood before even stepping foot in the country who have also voted Democrat since they've been here. Despite this, they are very devout Catholics.
Why in the fuck would I support a party where some yuppie lawyer who lived in Hawaii, got a free ride to some very exclusive schools, and knows nothing of living in a trailer in one of the most economically depressed areas of the country, calls me, my family, my friends, and everyone from my state some bitter, xenophobic, religious extremist nut.
I worked for one of the most prominent Democrat House Representatives of the last half of last century. Knowing him personally, and having completely opposite views of the current Democrat party, they were the last Democrat I voted for.
It's almost fact here that apparently Republicans are so extreme that they aren't even real. But from the Democrat party I supported only 10 years ago, Democrats are so far fucking left that to me they might as well be the populist socialists that killed my uncles and great uncle only 70 years ago.
Republicans are the only ones who want to do anything for immigration. I have no problem with legal immigration at all, but Democrats don't give one fuck, cheer it on, and it harms the poor and lower middle class in this country, and not the yuppie middle class entitled fucks here on reddit who went to college for a nice degree, and lives in suburbia or silicon valley, and votes a straight ticket D because someone told them that Republicans are racist. I'm against anyone who is against gun rights, it's a constitutionally protected right, and anyone who looks to restrict that right, is nothing more than the same anti-gay bigots like Kim Davis. Democrats have lost me there. I'm against taxing the fuck out of everyone to pay for someones college. I didn't go to school, I took out a loan and started a business, are Democrats going to pay off my loan? Make my interest rate go down? Give me free shit? I created a job, instead of hoping for a job by going to school, why should I have to pay for someone else's poor choices, when no one will pay for mine if I fail? I live in a trailer park in the middle of nowhere, barely spend any money, grow and hunt for the majority of my own food, and save every penny I can and invest it. Why should I support plans to tax me more, to pay for someones failed college degree, to live in some fucking expensive city, eat out, drink starbucks, pay for netflix or their next video game, when I don't even enjoy those luxuries?
The Democrat party has left me. They have went so far left, that the are willing to sacrifice hard working Americans, who want to live their lives in peace, to being some populist, socialist, and almost fascist party that looks to punish me for merely existing and working a job. I'm a young, healthy millennial, who hasn't been to this hospital or Dr. in years, yet I'm now forced to pay for someone else to have those luxuries. I apparently make too much money, and will have to continue to pay a private company, or a fine to the government, without receiving anything back.
I'm sorry this is a long rant, but I don't vote because I want to want to smoke some plant. I don't vote because someone tells me abortions should or shouldn't be illegal. I don't vote because of some crazy social policy that effects <1% of the population. I vote what I think is right for the country, and how it effects me as a lower middle class person, who just wants to live their life, and be left the fuck alone.
You take my money to pay for roads, I don't complain. You take my money to pay for social security, welfare, medicare, financial aid, bombing Yemen, Pakistan, Libya, I don't complain. You take my money to pay for schools, and to subsidize peoples cell phones, I don't complain. You give people government backed mortgages with little income, while I don't qualify for one because I run my own business, I don't complain. I honestly think it's enough. If you can't get by with taking almost 40% of my meager income in some form of local, state, or federal income, to fund shit I don't even use, or care about, I'm not supporting you anymore. Enough is enough, and Democrats only want more. I can't support them any longer.