Donald Trump.
For many years, Donald Trump has been a bit of a joke. His hair, his orange skin, his many wives,
his reality show and “You’re Fired” tag line, his incessant need to name things
after himself. He was one of those
celebrity personalities who everybody had heard of but few people took
seriously. When he announced his plans
to run for president last year, everyone laughed and said “OK, whatever,
Donald.” When he made outrageous
comments about Mexicans last summer, people laughed and chalked it up to Donald
being Donald. When he rose to the top of
Republican presidential polls last year, people scratched their heads said “Huh…I
wonder how long this will last” and then waited for him to do something stupid
that would wake everyone up and torpedo his campaign. Then, he did and said stupid things – from mocking
a disabled reporter to discussing the menstrual cycle of a journalist to
advocating the banning of Muslims. But
instead of those things torpedoing his campaign, they seemed to just strengthen
it. It seems as though whatever
outlandish, childish thing he does or says only serves to garner more support
from the electorate. We are now past
Super Tuesday and Trump is still in the driver’s seat for the Republican
nomination. What was considered a joke 10
months ago has become something much different.
Do millions of Americans really support this guy or is this just some
long, elaborate con?
When you think about it, though, it makes perfect
sense. In a way, we’re getting exactly
what we deserve. The rise of Donald
Trump or someone like him was inevitable.
Think about it: in recent years, we’ve become a sharply divided nation
where everything is black and white and there’s no gray. A nation where all blacks are criminals, all
cops are racist, all Christians are hypocrites, all rich people are smug,
entitled bastards and all poor people are lazy.
People throw around labels and apply them to others without getting to
know them or their story. Everything is
a 10 second sound bite that gets dissected to the nth degree by the
never-ending 24-hour news cycle. People
are famous for being famous rather than anything they have accomplished. America is all about style and not much at
all about substance.
It’s not just that Republicans and Democrats, conservatives
and liberals don’t see eye to eye on the issues. They never have. It’s that they no longer even try. It’s that they don’t even attempt to find
common ground because compromise is a dirty word and attempting to work with
the other side to find a middle of the road solution is akin to selling
out. Doing so will cause your own party
to turn against you because you are not ideologically pure enough. It’s also that they can’t just agree to
disagree – they have to hurl insults at the other side and call them names. The individuals who are supposed to be our
utmost statesmen and stateswomen instead behave like grade school children
picking on one another at recess. Civility
is out the door because it’s seen as weakness; instead, we have to attack the
other side. Politicians are more
concerned pleasing the base and getting re-elected than they are with actually
working together to try to solve our nation’s problems.
With such vitriol a daily occurrence in Washington and the
various state capitals, is it any wonder that someone like Donald Trump is
doing so well in his quest to become president?
He’s a microcosm of what our society has become – spoiled, petulant, opinionated,
argumentative and self-centered. He is a
reflection of the ugly things that a lot of Americans think but don’t say with
regard to immigrants, minorities and others who aren’t like ourselves. Some of his supporters say that he is a
backlash against the political correctness that has been preached for the past
few decades. I see it differently – he represents
the worst of what Americans think and say behind closed doors. For years, we have rewarded the bad behavior
of our leaders by re-electing those who fling the most mud and voting out the
moderates who may actually be attempting to do their jobs. We spend hundreds of millions of dollars on
attack ads and other propaganda that vilify the opposition and demonize people
who do not march in lockstep with us.
With anger and intolerance running rampant, it was only a matter of time
before a candidate took all of that negativity, wrapped it up in one package
and threw it out there to the teeming masses who are eager to latch onto it. In that sense, the question shouldn’t be how
are all these people supporting someone like Donald Trump; the question should
be what took it so long for something like this to happen?
The title of this post does not at all imply that I think it’s
inevitable that Trump will be elected president. I hope that never happens because the thought
of him representing our nation on the world stage is appalling. In the end, I think saner minds will
prevail. The title is just a reflection
that, with the decline in educated discourse in this country, it was inevitable
that someone like him would come along and that a large portion of our
population would coalesce around him. My
hope is that the fact that this has, in fact, occurred will cause all of us to
do some self-reflection and see how our own actions and the actions of our
neighbors have gotten us to this point. My hope is that we will all take steps
to begin building bridges rather than torching every bridge we come across.
Thanks for reading!
No comments:
Post a Comment