Beginning in 2015, as the 2016 presidential campaigns were underway, the overwhelming majority of those in my Facebook friends list who bothered to write about politics were opposed to Donald Trump. The opposition ranged from mild dislike to aggressive animus, with some even going as far as to differentiate him from the "normal" Republicans.
As the campaign progressed, the attacks coincided with the news of the times - Trump was a pervert, a woman hater, a womanizer, a misogynist, and a racist. Communities of color ran the risk of seeing campaigns of lynchings if he won. America would turn essentially into a hellhole for anybody who wasn't white.
With each occasion of these debates, with people using skewed if not outright dishonest accusations against either Trump or the people on the right who supported him, came dishonest and flawed defenses of the people on the left who opposed him. The March 2016 Chicago rally for Trump which was cancelled was celebrated as a victory against hatred, and when I tried to tell some of these people that Black Lives Matter and other leftist groups verbally and physically assaulted Trump supporters (with women being threatened with rape) and with emergency vehicles being stopped from going to assist victims and with police officers beaten, all I got was accusations I was racist and/or that I was unaware of how unjust American society is and/or I was being insensitive to these communities, which believed harm was coming.
Fast forward. Trump is the president. Fake news abound about Russia. The Russians hacked the election. Trump is not my president, they say, and they harp on each and every thing, whether it's his tax returns, his choice for his cabinet. His executive orders, especially regarding the suspension of entry of foreigners from certain countries, as well as the newly aggressive efforts by ICE to arrest and to deport illegal aliens, bring howls of revolt.
Any and every so-called fact against Trump is used to portray him as a harbinger of evil. He is, they say, a Russian puppet, and a destroyer of democracy. None of the things that were done in the past by presidents these leftists liked matters, such as when Barack Obama signed the NDAA which grants the sitting president the power to deploy the army on U.S. soil to arrest people without warrant on mere suspicions of terrorism (and to hold them indefinitely without trial).
These leftists only focus on what Trump is doing; whatever Obama did that was questionable is irrelevant. Trump, after all, is an illegitimate president, a racist, a Russian puppet, and he grabbed women by the genitals.
Only a few times did my efforts to bring facts and reason into these debates yield the smallest fruit. I once wrote something about President Trump being on the right side of the law and of history when he terminated James Comey from the position of FBI director because Comey's public pardoning of Hillary Clinton violated his office, and only the quoting of former Attorney Generals and Deputy Attorney Generals (even some who served under Obama) got the attention of those who otherwise insisted Trump fired the man who was supposed to investigate him. To leftists, these facts don't matter.
The last deceptive and dishonest comment I saw was from a leftist who resolutely opposed/opposes Trump, views him as utterly evil, and who thinks nonwhites can't be racist. He claimed "Trumpism" was the reason behind the Unite the Right event yesterday, while he ignored the fact that the event was bringing together disparate groups (some of whom have had inimical relations with each other) and the fact that members of the alt-right have viewed Trump as an "accidental" ally, not as a full-fledged member of their camp. No, none of these nuances matter. It's all Trump's fault. He's a rapist, a misogynist, a racist, an idiot, and a supreme commander of sorts of all racist groups in America.
I wanted to address that - but realized, "why bother?"
Leftists like him didn't understand that the reason Trump won wasn't a "whitelash," it wasn't racism, and it wasn't bigotry by whites. It was many common Americans, salt-of-the-earth folks who were sick and tired of Washington millionaires promising heaven and delivering dearth.
Being a conservative in a liberal area is not easy, and it's mind-boggling and maddening that so very many believe these lies, this propaganda, these deceitful claims. They refuse to look at facts which might at least challenge their worldviews and at worst force them to profoundly reconsider all they've believed to be true.
I understand that it is human nature that we will often brutally resist facing facts that will perhaps conclude we were wrong about something the veracity of which we considered inviolable and even sacred. But why not have a bit of an open mind?
It's difficult being a conservative surrounded by ignorant and blinkered liberals who want Trump and/or the right to be A, B, C when they aren't. It's likewise disgusting for them to think nothing of fellow Americans losing the right to assemble publicly and to exercise free speech (despite having a permit, as the Unite the Right participants did) and to ignore the violence, provocations, and assaults committed by Black Lives Matter and Antifa. No, it doesn't matter. Whites can't be the victims of racism. Those groups were fighting Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan, so it's fair.
The more I see things like this, the more I realize that truly, the worst blind man is the blind man who does not want to see - and, that the more leftists persist in living in a bubble of lies and in propagating those lies, the more they will contribute to the enlargement of the ranks of the people and groups on the right whom they find to be most abhorrent and obnoxious and toxic.
An open mind could at least lead one to realize that perhaps "opponents," while not friends, have rights and they must be respected; for, if one group today loses their rights, who is to say that "allied" groups won't be the ones being denied their rights tomorrow?
If the fecal matter ever hits the rotating cooling device as far as these leftists who see no problem in being hypocritical are concerned, I will not celebrate any pain or disaster or suffering they may face, but it'll be difficult for me not to tell myself, "well, I did try telling them, but they just wouldn't listen."
I'm not sure it's worth it...
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire