I have nothing. I don’t know what else I have left to say.
Every time I think I find the right words to explain what I mean, it feels like I missed the last bit of it. I can’t ever get it back; it’s incomplete and not worthy of inclusion in anything else.
Where some people see an unending battle against Trump’s administration in an effort to correct his every misstep or lie, I see a slaughter. Trump is a master of manipulation and side-stepping blame, that’s why his advisors let him do solo press conferences and shoot from the hip. He’ll hit something enough to distract from whatever the real story is. The media will chase it because they’ll have to in their crusade to prove The Donald wrong, only proving to the public its own pettiness.
They won’t be fighting the same battle and truth will lose outright.
I know what we need to do. I think, on some level, we all do. Admit that Trump and his team are right; there is a silent majority of people that Trump managed to tap into that the Left was unwilling to even try and see.
Dumb people and racists and bigots.
Trump seized on the uneducated vote by talking about feelings instead of substance. Not exactly an unheard-of tactic, but Trump did it with staggering effectiveness because he proved that he is also just as dumb. He didn’t swirl information they couldn’t understand around their heads, he just spoke like common, everyday Americans do. He said “really” and “great” a lot. He talked about winning and about the system being rigged against ordinary people, which he claimed to be while still managing to claim a massive fortune and worldwide business.
Trump doesn’t have a Yale vocabulary and that worked in his favor. The uneducated vote spent years being talked down to because they didn’t understand the difference between deficit and debt, and then here comes a billionaire who religiously watches Fox News and tells them that he has the answers. Of course they’re going to jump on the train.
That would work for anybody.
Bernie and Hillary were permanently marred by labels that were always going to keep them from being trustworthy to the uneducated vote. Hillary was (and still is) a crook, and Bernie is a self-described democratic socialist. Hillary was always going to be put on public trial and Bernie cut off his own foot before the starting gun was even fired.
But, beyond discussions of who trusts who more and why, people are just naturally trustworthy. Trump wasn’t, and isn’t, anything like any politician. Except Boss Tweed, probably. But, whatever. Why wouldn’t they trust him? In their heads, he’s not a member of the political establishment and, again, he’s a billionaire, he must be doing something right.
But the vote Trump really managed to tap directly into like a fresh sea of natural gas underneath Oklahoma was the racist and the bigot vote.
If anyone honestly believes that his derogatory comments on Mexicans, Muslims and women didn’t actually help him, then I don’t know what planet they live on. I don’t even know what conversation they want to have. The reality is that racism and bigotry exist in America. Ignoring that is like believing the Earth is flat while trying to have a conversation about the solar system. Trump, being a carrier of this affliction, just secured his own clique’s vote.
How have we forgotten this? Or are we just so ashamed that the Civil Rights Act was only signed 53 years ago? Or are we ashamed that Jim Crow laws allowed black people to be murdered in cold blood and have their vote and basic human rights suppressed? Or maybe we’re ashamed that women didn’t have the right to vote less than 100 years ago.
It could be anyone of those things, or anyone of the other stains all over the pages of our history. I didn’t even mention the discrimination of the Irish, Japanese or the continued voter suppression of citizens of U.S. territories.
Spurred by NAFTA, the Black Lives Matter movement and the “lib cuck” phenomenon along with the refugee crisis, the hateful people of America found a treasure trove to add to their collection of reasons to hate anyone they’ve othered. Trump, rather masterfully, realized their untapped voting potential and fanned the flames.
Until we all sit down and choose to admit that, while the whole of the American people may not be uneducated or bigoted or racist, many people still are. They have the right to be those things. As long as you’re not making a death threat, free speech is still free speech. I would never argue against that. But to ignore this reality is exactly the reason why Trump and his team are able to so easily bend popular media outlets into whatever clownish knot he chooses.
You can’t win a war if you’re unwilling to admit the true size of your enemies’ army.
