Homer Simpson, Tony Stark, and more fictional characters that definitely would've voted for Trump
Last night, Twitter user @malkatz asked a cursed, potentially deeply depressing question: “Name a fictional character who absolutely voted for Trump. No villains.”
The first responses started out with some unfortunate, “yeah, probably,” type answers in the form of your favorite middle-aged, vigilante, ultra-rich white males, namely Tony Stark and Bruce Wayne. Tony Stark is at the very least friendly with Trump, and Batman might be the World’s Greatest Detective, but if you don’t think he’s played his share of rounds at the Trump International, you’re kidding yourself. “Batman is definitely a never-Trump Republican who then voted for him anyway,” wrote one user.
From there you have your standard action heroes. John McClane? Along with basically every TV cop, he probably has a Thin Blue Line bumper sticker, and maybe went to see Trump speak at his Fraternal Order of Police local. John Matrix? C’mon, don’t kid yourself.
What about the clear-eyed, full-hearted Texans of Friday Night Lights? @Floozyesq has a spreadsheet to help break things down, and correctly identify that, yeah, Coach Taylor absolutely voted for Gary Johnson. We would argue, however, that Buddy Garrity’s hatred of taxes would not be able to override Buddy Garrity’s love of someone that reminds him of Buddy Garrity. Furthermore, a plurality of white women voted for Trump in 2016, so do we really believe Tyra Collette was not one of them?
Where the debate got really heated, however, was when Vox journalist Matthew Yglesias brought up Homer Simpson, whom he described as a “classic secular, northern, non-college white Obama-Trump voter.”
Many online took umbrage with this characterization, arguing that Homer would not vote, and furthermore was a committed union leader.
“Homer is shown voting for Sideshow Bob, anyone who votes in local election also turned out in 2016,” said Yglesias in rebuttal. “Now obviously as a union member you’d expect Homer to be a Democrat, but that’s precisely what makes him such a prototypical Obama-Trump swing voter. He’d have been alienated by Dems’ post-2014 cultural messaging and reassured by the GOP establishment’s skepticism of Trump.”
Or, to put it more succinctly, Homer Simpson is a loudmouth idiot who almost constantly acts against his own best interests. There is a good chance he voted Donald Trump for president.
Eventually, responses moved on from film, TV, and literature characters to other types of invented persons entirely.
So who do you have? Is Fraiser Crane another never-Trump Republican who keeps getting New York Times op-ed column space to complain how leftist Democrats are giving people like him no choice but to support Trump? Joey Tribbiani definitely voted for Trump, but what about Chandler? Please ruin some fictional characters for us in the comments below.
Send Great Job, Internet tips to [email protected]