Politics, Small Law Firms, Solo Practitioners

Why Lawyers Should Understand Trump Voters

Law practice is a business, where nothing is red or blue nor black or white.

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resume woman shannon achimalbe back in the raceThis Tuesday is Election Day. Most of the writers at Above The Law seem to prefer Hillary Clinton, while the few who support Donald Trump have stayed relatively silent. So today, I will be the conservative voice and discuss why Donald Trump appeals to half of the voters despite his many character flaws.

This is not to say I endorse The Donald. I do not agree with his characterization of undocumented immigrants from Mexico as rapists and murderers, nor do I support his proposed ban on Muslims entering the country. And it was unpresidential of him to call Mrs. Clinton a “nasty woman” during their debate. While he thinks of himself as the voice of the silent majority, his inflammatory, juvenile rhetoric makes him sound more like the voice of the anonymous internet commenter.

So who are the Trump voters? After doing some research, it appears that they are a mix of traditional and nontraditional groups of people.

The first group of people are those who want to pay less in taxes. Most of them are the rich who resent paying more to the government just because they are successful financially. They feel that they are not getting the benefits from the government that they are paying for. And most of them won’t care if cutting taxes means reducing funding for the war on terrorism or the war on homelessness.

This does not necessarily mean the rich are greedy. A lot of them are business owners and investors who would prefer to use the tax money for other productive purposes like hiring people, funding retirement accounts, and acquiring assets. Or they may want to invest in nascent but innovative and potentially profitable companies like Tesla so you can drive your Model 3 and live in a house that has a pretty solar panel roof.

The second group of Trump voters are those who want America to return to the values of the “good old days.” Those were the days when people believed in God (preferably the Christian one), respected their elders, and stopped acting entitled. But a dying few long for the days when women and African-Americans knew their place, before those pesky 13th and 19th Amendments were ratified.

The two groups I described above are the traditional conservative voter base. Most of them are Republicans with some pretending to be Libertarians. But the Trump campaign brought out another group of people who do not necessarily side with conservatives on most issues.

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We’ll start with those who are fed up with political correctness. Basically, these people are upset because that they cannot have a frank conversation about social issues in public without being called a racist, sexist, or some other kind of oppressor. Is it possible that the cause of social inequality is complicated? Can’t we talk about possible solutions that don’t involve telling white people to check their privilege? Since when did expressing criticism become hate speech?

It’s just not conservatives who are tired of this. Talk to some liberal college professors who have to deal with students who are obsessed with political correctness. They have to take severe precautions before teaching a controversial subject because they are worried that it will violate some of the students’ “safe spaces” and later trigger a reprimand from the dean. These students are forgetting that the purpose of higher education is to get a job confront different viewpoints without the use of nooses or guns.

The second group of nontraditional Trump voters are those who feel that the system has failed them. To generalize, they lost their jobs during the Bush Administration and were underemployed during the Obama Administration. They can’t see a therapist to deal with the depression because the visit isn’t covered under their Obamacare bronze plan. As far as they are concerned, no one is listening to them. They and their problems do not exist. And the only way these people will get the establishment to listen is if they install an outsider whodoesn’t play by their rules and potentially threatens to run everything into the ground.

I saw that cute Saturday Night Live sketch where the black and white contestants shared a few laughs when they realized that they had more in common than they thought. But even though people may have common problems, they may have different ideas on solving those problems. Whoever wins the presidency will have to do more than make a call for healing during their victory speech. Otherwise, it sounds like a politically correct way of saying, “We won! Deal with it! We’re going to heal our wounds with your tears!”

I write this because from my experience, most lawyers side with the Democrats and don’t think too highly of Trump voters. That’s fine, but they should be mindful that they will have to work with clients and others who do not share their political ideology. Remember that law practice is a business, where nothing is red or blue nor black or white. The only color that matters is green. That should be enough incentive to put partisan differences aside.

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Also, the next president and the next Congress are likely to face an economic recession in the coming years. This means that solo practitioners and small firms will have to prepare their practices to either capitalize on the new clients or, at a minimum, earn enough to pay the bills. This can also mean that job seekers will face a more competitive job market, with more people applying for fewer available positions. If Trump wins the election, understanding his voter base can help predict his future policy goals and which practice areas stands to benefit. We’ll find out how bad the race will be soon enough.

Shannon Achimalbe was a former solo practitioner for five years before deciding to sell out and get back on the corporate ladder. Shannon can be reached by email at sachimalbe@excite.com and via Twitter: @ShanonAchimalbe.

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