Laura Bogart has a conversation with her dad to try to understand why, despite the president-elect’s comments about women, he felt comfortable voting for him

Earlier this year, I wrote an essay about the conflicts that Hillary Clinton-supporting women were experiencing with their Trump-voting fathers. That piece was inspired by my own dad – a man who encouraged me to be tough-minded and strong but who also cast his ballot for a candidate who bragged that his power let him do whatever he wanted to women, even “grab ’em by the pussy”. I couldn’t understand it, and talking about it with him only led to nasty arguments. I’d get too angry at his accusations against Clinton to hear him out. I felt betrayed.

Now, with the election over, I wondered if we might start to bridge the divide between us. I wanted to understand him and his reasons for voting Trump. So, I asked him.

Laura Bogart: Dad, I want to understand why you voted for Trump. Can you explain what you see in him? How you made sense of the terrible things he’s said?

William Bogart: I didn’t like Trump from the beginning … He said stupid things, no doubt about it. I didn’t know a lot about Hillary so I did research. I read three books, the best one was written by a Secret Service agent called Crisis in the White House and it opened my eyes about how corrupt she was. I think Hillary was in the process of selling the American people out. I did not like the fact that she was going in front of the Wall Street types and getting a quarter of a million dollars for a speech. If Democrats were smart – which they weren’t – and had they put a real candidate in that wasn’t corrupt, I probably would have voted Democrat … One thing I’ll tell you about Trump, whether I agree with him on issues, I think he’s a patriotic American. One of his biggest appeals to me is that he’s not a politician. When the forefathers started this country, the congressmen were farmers. I’m tired of professional politicians.

When the forefathers started this country, the congressmen were farmers. I’m tired of professional politicians

LB: A lot of women were hurt and disgusted by Trump’s comments on the Access Hollywood tape, and by the allegations of sexual assault that have been leveled against him. Can you walk me through how you were able to vote for a man who talked about grabbing women “by the pussy”?

WB: When I heard that tape, I thought it was disgusting. But it was 12 years ago.

LB: But it’s pretty significant.

WB: It was significant 12 years ago, it is significant now. I don’t agree with what he said. But you know if Hillary had gotten in, Bill Clinton would have gotten a job, and he’s been disrespectful of women.

LB: But do you understand why women like me are afraid of Trump? Particularly when he says he’s going to pick judges who want to overturn Roe v Wade, and that women who get abortions should be “punished”? Or when he selects someone like Mike Pence as his vice-president, who has proposed some of the most anti-choice, anti-gay legislation in the country?

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WB: I don’t think women like you have anything to fear from Trump. He’s a president, not a dictator. I’ve been in enough political elections to know that politicians say one thing to get elected, and then say something else when they’re in office. I don’t think that he will let what Pence is saying for women’s rights stay.

LB: Part of the reason that Clinton’s campaign was so exciting to women my age is that it was a chance to see a woman in the White House …

WB: That should not be the reason you vote. I don’t care if the president is a man or a woman, but they have to be the best person for the job. And Hillary was too corrupt.

LB: What were your politics like when you were my age? What sorts of causes and beliefs were important to you?

WB: When I was in my 20s I was a liberal. I was against the Vietnam war. But I did not spit or curse the veterans when they came home. When I moved to Maryland in 1967 I saw what racism was: when a bunch of my co-workers went to a bar in Dundalk they would not serve one of us [who was] black. I walked out with him and found somewhere else to go. That was just doing what was right.

There is an old saying: if you are young and not a liberal, you have no heart; when you are older and not a conservative, you have no brains. With my family background – [we were] not wealthy – I just wanted a good job, to help my family and have a family of my own. I believed with hard work in this country I could do that. I did not have time to protest other than letters to editor because I needed to work long hours to get ahead.

LB: Can you understand why people look at Donald Trump and think he doesn’t represent their vision of America?

WB: I think that slogan, whether he’s going to do it or not, “make America great again”, is right on the money.

LB: When I hear “make America great again”, I think back to the 1950s – that wasn’t so great if you were a person of color, a woman, certainly if you were gay. We didn’t have the same civil rights that we do now.

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WB: Things weren’t as good for minorities as they are now. But they progressed. We’re a minority. My grandfather came from Italy – he died when I was a little boy. When we were in the house, I used to ask my mother, why don’t we talk in Italian? And she said we didn’t talk in Italian because my grandfather said: “We’re Americans now, we don’t talk Italian, we talk English now.”

LB: I want to get back to the thing you said about things being great in the 60s and 70s. That was also a time of upheaval – do you think that pushing forward for rights is part of what made America great?

WB: Yeah. But you didn’t have to be violent to do it. And I detest that Black Lives Matter slogan. All lives matter.

LB: But the thing I’d say in response is that all lives don’t matter when you are dealing with discrimination and economic disparity. When people are locked up in disproportionate rates sometimes for the same offenses, there isn’t a full equality.

WB: I will agree, completely, that there isn’t a free equality. And this country is not perfect. It’s just the most perfect government in the world.

LB: Was there ever a presidential election that upset you in the way people like me are upset about Trump?

WB: I hated Richard Nixon. He had an enemy list and used the power of his office to harass people. When Gerald Ford pardoned him, I still remember, I was painting rooms in the house and I went berserk.

LB: The country is very divided right now. What, if anything, do you think could bring people together?

WB: Bringing this country together will be tough. We need Obama to stand down and stop passing executive orders. We need the Democrats to wait to see what Trump does.