I guess I should start with a warning that I’m kind of cranky and tired right now. And I suppose I’ll try to wrap up this line of thinking soon enough. I know it’s not really doing any good. Perhaps I’m just trying to get my mind around the culmination of the Trump presidency.
I’ve known and loved people from both sides of the matter. Still do. Would never let what anyone thinks about a politician stand in the way of my relationships with them. If anyone were to dump me as a friend because of the way I think or what I believe, well that’s on them. I would like to think I have thick enough skin to accept people’s beliefs and merely try to show them the logic of my own so they can accept them or reject them with respect without using them to reject me as a person.
But of course, my patience can run thin on some things. I have a tendency to get frustrated when I see something quite clearly and someone else seems to be willfully ignorant or resistant to attempts at reason.
So if I were to try to talk to someone who backs our soon-to-be ex-president, I can only give it one last shot to explain why I think the way I do.
I have at times supported the man (infrequently, and perhaps accidentally) when he actually did something beneficial. I would do that with anyone to tell you the truth, and so I’m a bit perturbed by people who would curse the man and see the bad in every single thing he did. I think people who are unwilling to accept the good someone does are simply unreasonable. But you would also think I’d be able to come up with several examples of the good he did while in office. The economy? Pfft. The economy is its own monster. It goes up and down in cycles, and Trump just caught a good cycle. Immigration? I don’t think he’s done anything on that but try to build a wall. Whoop-de-doo. There’s so much more to immigration than building a wall. Maybe I can agree when he got a few people out of prison (although I can’t remember the exact cases) – people who were unfairly or harshly sentenced for minor things. But then again, that’s on Kim Kardashian I suppose.
I’ve got to tell you, though – there has to be a line somewhere. There’s got to be a place where the adults have to step in and say, “Hey! Your behavior is unacceptable. Knock it off.”
I absolutely can’t fathom this. I can’t understand people who hold to any kind of values system – even if it’s misguided and, in some cases, outright racist (think “Confederate flag wavers”) – accepting a person of such obviously low character.
They say “He fights for us.” Are their standards so abysmally low that they are willing to accept a complete and utter moral failure just because he fights for them? History is filled with men and women who fought for the people without being brazen liars, cowards, and poor sports who act like petulant children when they lose. We just celebrated MLK day. If they wanted to find the kind of person who can fight for them without completely compromising any sense of honor they might have, there’s the kind of person they could start with (although I don’t think a lot of Trump voters would be the kind of people to start with a person in the mold of MLK).
Or are they just so poorly-versed in civil society that they don’t have the capacity to identify a person of real honor, integrity, and courage? And yet, they dare rise up and literally fight against their fellow Americans at the orders of someone like this? That’s as un-American as storming the Capital.
If they had any shame, they’d put themselves in timeout for the next few years and let the adults run the country. Maybe they could use the time to think long and hard about how civilized people live and act so that when they get another chance to vote, they’ll pick someone who isn’t an embarrassment to the country.
And that’s about all I have to say about that…