Canadian here. Trump says...
I too heard him say “excursion”.
But the “I love the uneducated” and “smart people hate me” part may not fact check.
His exact words were probably:
We won with young. We won with old. We won with highly educated. We won with poorly educated. I love the poorly educated. We’re the smartest people, we’re the most loyal people, and you know what I’m happy about? Because I’ve been saying it for a long time. 46% were the Hispanics—46%, No. 1 one with Hispanics. I’m really happy about that.²
“Smart people hate me” is likely false or misattributed to Trump.
So, “His cult base is too dense to understand that he’s literally calling them stupid” does not follow from this at least.
Trump followed it up with: “We’re the smartest people”.
A significant number of Trump voters might not value education, in the sense that “real” people don’t waste their time on the “indoctrination of higher education”.
I don’t think Trump is on the record for literally admitting that he loves the uneducated because they are easy to dupe or something like that.
Please correct me if I’m wrong.
Ironically, Trump himself seems uneducated. I read somewhere that he does hold a Bachelor of Science degree in Economics (1968). Maybe he forgot everything that he learned?
But he’s not stupid. I guess he’s “shrewd”.
So why do Trump voters vote Trump? My suggestions so far:
- They are anti-immigration
- Emotional politics outweigh material politics (identity, disgust of the other)
- They hate the cultural elites (but not so much the money elite)
- Motivated reasoning ties this all together
(English not edited, native language Dutch.)
Notes