The days of Democrats debating on how to reach out to Trump supporters are now behind us. There is no rationale left for sympathizing with those who continue to militantly march behind Donald Trump despite his backing of Nazis as “fine people”, supporting pedophile candidates, destroying affordable and effective health care, banning Muslim immigrants, attacking the 1st Amendment rights for the press and black NFL players, supporting police brutality, undermining federal law enforcement and the rule of law and now, tearing children and even infants away from parents seeking asylum from life-threatening situations.
Donald Trump, AG Jeff Sessions, Chief of Staff John Kelly and Trump Advisor Stephen Miller are all on record, happily touting how the destruction of families and the imprisonment of innocent children and babies is a great way of furthering their racist and nationalist political goals.
They believe it will help deter non-white people from coming into the U.S. and enhance white power in America. They think that holding thousands of children as hostages and bargaining chips, as soulless terrorists would, will force Democrats to pay for Trump’s wall (that Mexico was “going to pay for”) and slash legal immigration of non-white people (breaking up families again by ending family migration). Lastly, they believe that they can benefit politically from their emotional torture of children, energizing and providing gratification to their supporters who have been induced to crave the denigration and destruction of people who aren’t part of their bigoted, self-pitying klan.
While many in the media have noted Trump’s destruction of political precedents, human decency and institutions of democracy, they may be missing one other thing, his campaign to separate Republicans from their humanity.
Trump successfully leveraged the racial resentment of President Obama and the social progress under him to build a rabid Coalition of The Spiteful that have come to revere Trump like he was Jesus. Actually, more than Jesus. They follow his commandments over the teachings of Jesus. They are cultists who attribute God-like omnipotence and omniscience to Trump, he’s a stable genius and deal maker who always wins. And as their false god demands greater sacrifices of their humanity at his altar, they happily comply and thank him for allowing them to hollow themselves out in his honor.
This Trump cancer that eats away the humanity of all who embrace him, began with his birtherism against Obama. His campaign for office was built upon this shameless racism that was the envy of racist whites around the country. They had found their bigoted Messiah who wasn’t afraid of being PC…in otherwords, was so immoral he would openly speak as a racist. This was the America they wanted and the bigot they wanted to follow and emulate (the incidents of open racial hatred spewed in public places by white people has skyrocketed as have memberships in hate groups). Trump later announced his candidacy by accusing Mexicans of being rapists and criminals.
Trump’s journey through immorality during the campaign and being in office, his verbal and physical attacks on women, constant lying and namecalling, the corruption, incompetency and self-serving greed exhibited by him and those who work for him and the aggressive bigotry used like a hammer against blacks, latinos, Muslims, women, etc., has been an Immoral GPS that his supporters have followed.
This is not just about having a sociopath in the White House. It’s about Trump as Patient Zero, infecting at least a third of Americans into becoming pro-sociopath and pro-tyrant.
According to an Ipsos poll, 17% of Republicans have a favorable view of Dem Majority Leader, Nancy Pelosi…but 19% have a favorable view of murderous North Korea dictator Kim Jong Un.
And in a new Quinnipac poll, while 2/3 of Americans oppose what’s going on right now with children being cruelly ripped away from their mothers and fathers at the border…55% of Republicans approve of it.
Yep, a majority and huge plurality of these phony Pro-Lifers and “Family Values” Republicans, support Trump’s vicious actions to imprison and emotionally damage children. The majority of Republicans, including those in office, have followed Trump at the accepted cost of shedding all their morality and principles.
Godwin’s Law asserts that comparing anything to Nazi Germany can simply cause people to dismiss whatever is being compared as unconvincing exaggeration. Instead, many people have asked the question for decades, what could possibly convince so many people to support an aggressive, ego-driven bigot as the leader of a nation who would plunge his country and the world into horrible conflicts. I’m talking about Hitler of course but the question and description seems just as apt today.
What gives the racist tyrant power is the fear and anger within the majority being re-directed by that tyrant towards minorities as the cause of all their troubles (when the truth is that the corruption of the tyrant is what’s truly harming the majority). It includes dehumanizing “the others”, portraying them as animals which eventually leads to treating them as animals (and putting them in cages…and worse). Trump has repeatedly referred to immigrants as animals, criminals and gang members, using that broad brush to dehumanize them and paint them as threats.
And those sadly blind and self-destructive Trump followers, who are now being pounded by rising gas prices, rising rents and mortagages, rising food prices, rising health insurance premiums, loss of high paying jobs and stagnant wages, whose lives are getting worse due to Trump’s trade wars (including all those pro-Trump farmers who can’t sell their crops now), just repeat ridiculous redirections from Fox News about how nothing is Trump’s fault and everything that afflicts white people now is due to minorities and those in the non-Trump and out-of-power party.
Trump and Fox News can only be blamed up to a point. Only those who want to be convinced to be immoral and support inhumanity, can be convinced to do so. Could anyone convince you that policies that take innocent toddlers away from their mom or dad only because they tried to escape persecution and death in their own country, is moral?
This destruction of America from the inside out has many fingerprints on it but what empowers it is the willingness of prejudiced, pro-authoritarian, white Americans who are quick to abandon their human decency and morality just to see “the others” suffer. They are willing pawns, too-easily conned and manipulated because of their resentment. They were supposed to be entitled to a superiority over “the others” and they feel wronged that their entitlement was taken away.
Of course, the immigrants coming into the US aren’t the Republicans and corporations who are squeezing the country, states, cities and workers tighter and tighter financially. The immigrants who become maids and field workers aren’t the ones denying a coal worker or cashier a raise. Or raising the price of gas, food or rent on them, poor families from Guatamala aren’t the ones behind that.
The conditioning of the Trump Republican has been going on for many years, they are essentially brainwashed into being unthinking soldiers for causes that only serve the wealthy and powerful. Unless their career goals are to clean toilets and pick strawberries, immigrants are not a threat to them. But “otherism” is mindless, tribalism blots out reason…and humanity.
The damage Trump is doing to this country is profound. Democrats have been displaying though that conscience and activism is the moral response to his immorality. On June 30th, there will be nationwide protests against this vicious Trump policy of tearing families apart at the border. For the majority of Americans who retain their morality, it will be a day to help turn the tide against such hatred and inhumanity.
The true majority of Americans will demonstrate to those Trump Republicans on that day, that the real minority in this country are the morally bankrupt, Trump-loving and pro-child abuse authoritarians.
AdLib, on the way home from my daily rounds today, I was listening to NPR. I forget the name of the “pudnut” (tip of the hat to our late Planeteer, bito, for coming up with that term for a “pundit”) they were interviewing, but the topic was the “Kids in Cages” story. The commentator said: “Trump has to get rid of Stephen Miller. This has Stephen Miller’s fingerprints all over it.” NOT that Trump is incapable of thinking up evil schemes all by himself!
But Miller is one of those behind-the-scenes kinds of guys who seem to hold a lot of sway in this administration. For those who don’t remember who he is (and it’s hard to keep the fascists straight without a program — they come and go so fast), he is the guy who’s in his early 30s — looks older — and is doing the best Goebbels impersonation he can possibly pull off. He had one widely publicized moment in the media spotlight, early in the Trump administration, during which he lectured America and especially the media on the “fact” that “Trump has supreme power and it vill NOT be questioned!!” He practically clicked his heels together and flung his straight arm up into the air after that one. This produced a broad reaction from the public ranging from hysterical laughter to “WTF???” and he was pulled from the ranks of People Who Talk To The Media.
But that didn’t mean that our little Josef Goebbels was no longer a busy boy. Oh no. Like Bannon, he’s still got the orange ear of our “Leader.”
This guy is a malicious poser. He really does admire the Third Reich and does his best to strut and rant like one of the drug-addled and/or sociopathic losers that Der Fuhrer used to surround himself with in the 1930s. And I think there are a fair number of Stephen Miller wannabes out there — tiki torches in the hall closet at mom’s house, just waiting for the opportunity to prove their “manhood” in another goose-stepping display of white male pseudo-machismo. Then when they get arrested, they cry on YouTube.
How did we produce the Stephen Millers out there? And what do we do with them now that they’re no longer (physically) children? I realize they’re a relatively small percentage of the population, but they’re so far out there that they seem to provide a significant degree of cover for a lot of more anonymous garden variety racists and misogynists.
I wish we could have a true “At-last-sir-have-you-no-decency?” moment. A re-run of that amazing time in the 1950s when the whole nation seemed to suddenly recognize just how far off the rails they’d gone. In a very short period of time, all the dark-paranoid malice that Joe McCarthy had been throwing out there for years seemed to dissipate like a toxic fog evaporating. We need that sense of awakening again.
Great article, Ad.
It just boils down to there is a difference between the two parties. Dems see the humans involved; repubs see the laws. Hence, “we are only following the law”. Which, of course, we (repubs) didn’t write; we’re just following it.
The day that we as a nation don’t see the humans behind the laws we pass is the day we have lost our right to have human rights. We are quickly becoming mired in that mud, because, as of today, we have withdrawn from the UN Human Rights Council. Think of that…the United States of America has withdrawn from the UN Human Rights Council.
The congress critters enabling this lying piece of scum in the oval office need to be hung from their sycophantic asses.
Thanks glenn!
I think you nailed how Dems see things like this but I don’t think Repubs truly care about the law, look at the hoops they jump through to support Trump breaking laws left and right and attacking the rule of law via the FBI, Mueller, etc.
I think Repubs are just tribal neanderthals, whatever their tribal leader does they cheer no matter how wrong or harmful it is, even to them. Then to try and put on a facade of being decent human beings, they hide behind “the law” or “patriotism” or “rights”.
On this issue of immigration, they blather about “the law” but the truth is that they just want to see brown people treated in demeaning, abusive ways because in their hearts, they are insecure and racist and are desperate to feel dominant over other races because they feel threatened by them.
I can’t see how a majority in this country will vote for more years of an unchecked maniac destroying our country, government, decency and standing in the world.
Trump thought he was so clever holding thousands of children as hostages but he just confirmed he is a sociopath and a terrorist who needs to be stopped.
You feel me, Mueller?