Why do some people hate Donald Trump and others like him?

Let's focus not on why Trump is a monster, or on why Trump is a saint, but on why there is such a split in American society in attitudes when it comes to Trump.

To assure everyone that the split exists, the most recent Rasmussen reports survey indicates that there is a 38%-38% match-up between Trump and Hillary if the national election happened now [Trump 38%, Clinton 38%].

As evidenced by many answers to this question, there is a large group of people who believe Trump is a liar, bigot, racist, con-artist, and also not good on foreign policy (on foreign policy, Trump has often avoided details and has offered some radical and not broadly accepted ideas - such as giving nuclear weapons to Japan and South Korea).

This group of the US population would agree that he is completely unpresidential, very offensive, and some might even think he would bring about the end of the world if elected [Introducing the Trump Apocalypse Watch] or could be a new Hitler.

In the eyes of this group, the fact that 38% of voters in the US support Trump might be quite unexplainable, or the explanation is that those voters are uneducated, gullible, racist, bigoted, hate women, hate minorities, or are simply nuts. In contrast, those who oppose Trump, are the sane ones and have seen through his lies.

Trump supporters would largely ignore the accusations of racism. Where the jaws of the Trump opponents drop when they hear Mexicans called criminals, Trump supporters are quick to point out that Trump's anger overall is directed not at all of Mexicans (as it may often seem from his words), but only at those who are in the US illegally. In such a case, why would someone not condemn the violators of the law?

Trump supporters, while not necessarily believing that the wall between the US and Mexico will be built, find it to be a beautiful symbol and smart negotiation tactics to force Mexico officials to help crush the drug traffic into the US, whereas Trump opponents ignore the potential benefits of this idea in negotiations and instead focus on how hard it would be to do economically.

When Trump suggests that he could develop good relations with Russia and Putin in particular, Trump opponents are not really impressed (they might view Putin as mainly a journalist murderer [The complicated reality behind Trump’s claim that there’s no proof Putin had journalists killed]).

However, Trump supporters might see in this a chance to finally normalize the relations between 2 leading world powers, which could have immense impact on the world stability (it is true that a lot of progress could be made on many of the world problems if the US and Russia stopped blocking each other's proposals in the UN security council using their veto rights [Russian vetoes are putting UN security council's legitimacy at risk, says the US, ‘US has been veto champion in UN for decades’ – Chomsky to RT ]).

The list goes on.

The truth is, Trump supporters do not care about offensive language and about the face-value of Trump ideas, and are always able to give a positive twist to what Trump says, focusing not on the details in his words, but on their perceived purpose.

Trump supporters are also enamored by his ability to say what he thinks, even if it offends someone, and by his ability to preserve and accumulate wealth despite multiple setbacks. Trump supporters are attracted to his leadership skills (Trump has employed thousands of people), and the fact that he has so much money (be it 2 bln or 10 bln) that it would be harder for lobbyists to influence him as a President.

Finally, where Trump opponents view Trump presidency as a disaster and the end of the US as we know it, Trump supporters hope for the creative destruction of the government, where Trump won't have enough power to do real damage to the country because of the limits on executive power, but will be able to stir everything up enough to bring about some change.

As can be seen from the above, neither group is irrational.

One group values civility, respect, politeness above all - and for them Trump is unacceptable.

This group also tends to take Trump's words literally at their face value and detests the idea that Trump might be saying something that he does not actually think in order to achieve his goals. For this group, such behavior is lying.

The group of Trump supporters views economy to be the most important thing for the US and is of the opinion that too much politeness in political discourse leads to groupthink and lack of progress.

Instead, they want more straight talk even if it offends someone - for even if someone is hurt by the words, they can get over it, but at least politicians can start discussing the issues they were afraid to touch before because of the political correctness police.

This group tends to be ok with not taking Trump's words literally - they understand that a person can say something he does not really think in order to achieve his goal - and in their opinion, it is a smart PR strategy. (For example, a claim that President Obama was not born in the US - how much free media has this claim earned Trump? And do you think Trump really believed it?)

The existence of these 2 camps that view and value things differently explains why there are so many Trump haters and so many Trump fans at the same time.

Neither group is dumb (although there are some not very intelligent individuals in both groups), and each group is quite diverse in terms of age, race, gender, education, and income levels.

Addressing and challenging the views of either of these camps is something campaigns on both sides will have to do to defeat Trump or bring Trump to victory.

Trump Agrees With Democrats on High-Speed Trains

In a freewheeling speech Thursday afternoon, Republican frontrunner Donald Trump stumbled into a riff about how great trains are. It's sad, he said, that the American rail system is so dilapidated while China's is now slicker than ever.

"They have trains that go 300 miles per hour," the populist billionaire exclaimed. "We have trains that go chug ... chug ... chug."

The line got a laugh—it's not often that one sees a presidential candidate imitate Thomas the Tank Engine—but it also underscored one of the most solid planks in the billionaire businessman's rickety policy platform: to fund and rebuild U.S. infrastructure, including its crumbling railways.

The thing is, that's usually a Democratic talking point.

President Obama spent the better part of his second term pushing for a $478 billion infrastructure bill to fund roads, bridges, and rail lines. Before that, Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, who at one point practically moonlighted as Amtrak's spokesman, pushed a new U.S. Department of Transportation initiative awarding $8 billion to states to build new high-speed intercity rail.

"[T]here’s no reason why Europe or China should have the fastest trains when we can build them right here in America," Obama announced in a 2010 statement.

“By investing in high speed rail, we’re doing so many good things for our country at the same time,” Biden added. We’re creating good construction and manufacturing jobs in the near-term; we’re spurring economic development in the future; we’re making our communities more livable—and we’re doing it all while decreasing America’s environmental impact and increasing America’s ability to compete in the world.”

Trump's language, six years later, is nearly identical.

"Our airports, bridges, water tunnels, power grids, rail systems—our nation’s entire infrastructure is crumbling, and we aren’t doing anything about it," he wrote in his 2015 book, Crippled America. He went on to promise that fixing it would spur economic growth.

"These projects put people to work—not just the people doing the work but also the manufacturers, the suppliers, the designers, and, yes, even the lawyers. The Senate Budget Committee estimates that rebuilding America will create 13 million jobs," he wrote. Which, incidentally, was Obama's point in 2011, when Congressional Republicans blocked his $60 billion infrastructure jobs bill.

Republicans have generally fought efforts to increase federal spending on principle. That includes vast infrastructure projects, even popular ones. In the hours after the deadly Amtrak derailment in May 2015, for example, the Republican-led House Appropriations Committee voted to slash the rail budget by 20%.

In December, a bipartisan group of lawmakers in the House and Senate joined to pass a less sweeping $305 billion version of the infrastructure package. But both of Trump's top rivals for the Republican nomination, Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and Ted Cruz of Texas, voted no on the bill.

In a nod to the fiscal conservative tradition of the Republican Party, Trump has admitted that rebuilding American infrastructure would cost taxpayer dollars. But then waved away the concern with Trumpian bravado."On the federal level, this is going to be an expensive investment, no question about that. But in the long run it will more than pay for itself," he said. "It will stimulate our economy while it is being built and make it a lot easier to do business when it’s done—and it can be done on time and under budget."