Since I can’t think of any reason NOT to hate DT, perhaps this article should be retitled, “Did we love Barack Obama for the wrong reasons?”
Because, as the article points out, the actual policies of each are not that different. The style, however, is, which makes me think that, more than anything, this election has been about class: Us, the polished, well-spoken, college-educated elite, versus Them, the rough, uneducated, uncouth Other. They hate us because, frankly, we look down on them and they know it; calling them “deplorables” was the final straw.
We loved Obama because he reflected qualities we felt comfortable with and wanted for ourselves, and most of us, including me, went to sleep for the greater part of his administration, secure in the assumption that “Dad” was taking care of things in the best possible way. We were somehow able to overlook the interventionist wars, droning of hospitals, weddings, and funerals (oops!), loss of habeas corpus (the foundation, really, of the Constitution), treatment of whistle-blowers, deportations, militarized police, police violence, surveillance, etc. because, they say, he didn’t have control over those things and besides, look at Obamacare and LGBT rights. And he’s elegant, intelligent, and has a lovely family.
My friends adore Hillary Clinton for the same reasons – they identify with her. The women of my age (and class) fought the same fight against the patriarchy; we know what it feels like to be highly-educated, take shit from white male superiors, and have to claw your way up. So, when I mention, say, Clinton’s close association with Henry Kissinger, who is generally considered a war criminal, my friends say, “Well she’s flawed.” Yet can you imagine the outrage if Trump were to take on Kissinger as a foreign policy advisor? Yikes!
I think the same was true of the Bernie/Hillary divide. My friends who loved Hillary and hated Bernie (although would have ultimately voted for him) were constantly dumping on his style, his voice, his age (although he appeared to have more energy than 10 millennials) and how he reminded them of their old Jewish uncle. They didn’t want someone who travels in coach (in the middle seat, yet) because that’s not what they aspire to. It wasn’t that he was too idealistic (they would have accepted that from a Jack Kennedy) but his style grated on them. Too straightforward. No polish.
And that’s exactly why Bernie was able to cross party lines and appeal to independents and moderate Republicans, because, besides his obvious integrity (“trustworthiness” having been a big issue in this election), he doesn’t act like he’s better than anyone else but is someone with whom, if he were campaigning at your county fair, you could walk up to and shake hands.
So, what’s the answer? Get off the personalities! Stop it with the Trump caricatures, cartoons, jokes about his hair, gold drapes, and impersonations, because by doing so you’re also insulting a wider group, or at least they could take it that way. Put the emphasis of our protests on specific issues where we can come together, because all of us want health care, jobs, a workable infrastructure, a sustainable environmental future, and an end to the continuous fucking wars that are eating all our money.
We could even carry American flags – no reason why the right should entirely co-opt that symbol – to show that we’re working for more than just our own elite selves, but in the national interest. (I couldn’t carry one, but I’d be fine with it if you did.)
Since we’ve got Trump, I'm hoping that his function is to shine a light on policies which, by being promulgated by the Other, are revealed in their full malevolence, causing those who think of themselves as liberal to finally take action against them.
I believe we can all be brought together, but whether the best way is through a reformed Democratic party or a new third people’s party, remains to be seen. Checking our attitudes, however, is one of the first steps.
The Uncomfortable Truth: Are We Hating Donald Trump for the Wrong Reasons?
The hypocrisy of criticizing Trump on the axiomatic assumption that that the war makers who preceded him were peacemakers is simply too much to bear.
Ifear that many of us are hating Donald Trump for the wrong reasons.
Multitudes are being swayed by mainstream media-inspired demonization of the new US president based on selective assumptions and half-truths.
The
US mainstream media, which rarely deviates from supporting the American government’s conduct, however reckless, is now presenting Trump as if an aberration of otherwise egalitarian, sensible, and peace-loving US policies at home and abroad.
Trump may be described with all the demeaning terminology that one’s livid imagination can muster: evil, wicked, tyrannical, misogynist, war-mongering, rich buffoon, ‘insulting our allies’, infatuating with ‘dictators’, etc.
But do not miss the point.
If you chant in the street: ‘I am with her’, with reference to the defeated Democratic presidential nominee,
Hillary Clinton, it means that you are entirely missing the point.
To reminisce about the days of Barack Obama, his oratory skills, clean diplomacy and model, ‘relatable’ family, means that you have bought into the mass deception, the intellectual demagoguery, stifling group-think that pushed us to these extremes, in the first place.
And, within this context, ‘missing the point’, can be quite dangerous, even deadly....
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