The way forward
Please don’t hate, disown, or ostracize rabid Trump supporters. Yes, it may be necessary to maintain some distance for comfort’s sake. But if you turn your back on them you are no better than the Scientologists and Mormons who shun their friends and relatives for waking up. The most committed Trump supporters are lost and afraid, as we all are to some degree. That’s where their anger and prejudice come from. They aren’t aliens. They aren’t evil. And it’s not helpful to dismiss them as hopelessly crazy and stupid. Yes, they hitched their wagon to an incompetent lunatic of a leader, but they are still part of “us”. We are a bunch of inventive, neurotic apes, stumbling around on a warm rock in cold, dark space. We are in this together. Turning your back and giving up on them is not the way forward.
What bullshit. We’re not obliged to be cozy with Trump supporters, especially not rabid ones – as a matter of fact I don’t much want to be cozy with rabid people no matter what they’re rabid about. Combine rabies and Trump support and you’ve got yourself one unpleasant person, and we all get to turn our backs on unpleasant people.
The claim about Scientologists and Mormons is ludicrous. Yes as a matter of fact we are better than they are, in the sense that our reasons are better. On the most stripped-down level sure, walking away from people is walking away from people, no matter what the reasons are – but then walking away from people isn’t automatically or necessarily a bad thing (unless they’re your dependent children). It depends. It depends on circumstances, degree and kind of relationship, and reasons. Total incompatibility of thought and conscience is a perfectly good reason for walking away from most people.
And then the claim that the “most committed Trump supporters are lost and afraid” is wholly unsupported, and I don’t believe it for a second. No doubt that describes some of them, but the entirety of the set? Please. He must be swallowing the absurd myth that Trump’s supporters are all abandoned rust belt workers desperate for jobs in coal mines. Nope: lots of them are The Very Rich, looking forward to tax cuts funded by dumping people off health insurance. There’s no reason whatever to assume that all Trump supporters are lost and afraid. Some are found and emboldened and full of venom.
Nor do we know that being lost and afraid is where their anger and prejudice come from. That’s just another made-up fact pulled out of the air. It may apply to some, but why should we agree it applies to all? Maybe the anger and prejudice of many or most of them just comes from anger and prejudice. Maybe there’s no need to look for sentimental “there there sweetiepie” sources, maybe there just are a lot of furious malevolent bullies cheering for Trump.
Yes they are “aliens” in some senses. They’re not from other planets, but they are from an alien moral universe.
The rest of it is just tedious platitudes and more unsupported assertions. Why is turning our backs on rabid Trump supporters not the way forward? How do we know it isn’t? Maybe it is; maybe it’s a necessary division of labor; maybe their friends and relations can work to redeem them morally while everyone else concentrates on getting Trump the fuck out of there.
No one has to walk away from them. It is simply a matter of integrity that they reap the rewards of the choices they made of which trump is only one.
Funny how much of this we hear, but few people point out that the women, people of color, and foreign-born citizens that Trump and his supporters hate (with a passion that exceeds anything I’ve ever seen from the other side) might be lost and afraid. That we might need some support. That we might need some sympathy. And that all of these pundits (I read tons of this) saying WE are the problem because of our “identity politics” and determination that we want to be part of the voice in this large, diverse, noisy country is the reason Trump won. I see tons of this on the so-called left, beating their chest and berating themselves (and mostly, us, the “identities”) for allowing Trump to win by not “reaching out” to the white male (and too many female) voters who hate the rest of the country. None of them ever point out that our worldview includes a place for all of those people, and their worldview includes no place for us. The problem is that, in our worldview, that particular group of people does not automatically get to be at the top, make all the decisions, and keep the rest of us as servants and lowly sandwich makers. This is the world Trump supporters want – they tell everyone else what to do, and everyone else does it. If they say “leave the country, faggot”*, all the LGBTQ pack up and leave. If they say, “leave the country, Commie”, all the liberals pack up and leave. If they say “leave the country, bitch”, all the feminists pack up and leave. If they say “leave the country, n***”, all the people of color pack up and leave. If they say “make me a sandwich”, all the remaining women bow down, kiss their feet, and hop out to the kitchen to return with a beautiful three course meal. At which time, they scream because what they really wanted was a sandwich, and is that really too much to ask, and said woman returns to the kitchen, pitches the three course meal down the garbage disposal, and returns with a PBJ sandwich and never, ever asks them to take out the garbage, wash the dishes, or even put their plate in the sink. Meanwhile, the few people of color they have allowed to remain are mowing their lawn (free of charge), and playing football on the TV to entertain them. This is the world view of the Trump supporters I know (and believe me, I know a lot!). They believe they are superior to the rest of us. They believe the rest of us are usurping resources, such as air and water, that are intended for them.
I have to live and work with Trump supporters every day. My whole family is full of Trump supporters. I have lived my whole life with these people, and they are not nice to me. They have no sympathy for me. They think I should sit down, shut up, and quit voting. Why the hell should I waste one minute of my time crying over their “woes”?
*not my phrase, but the phrase of the haters that have seized our country
All this huggy-bear stuff is bullshit.
That said, there’s a point to bear in mind that stands out starkly to me as a former right-wing fundie. My therapist made the cogent observation that the attraction of zombie movies is that zombies represent what jingoists want the enemy to be: relentless, implacable, utterly non-human, incapable of reason, incapable of showing mercy and undeserving of mercy.
When the enemy is literally beyond the reach of reason, literally relentless in their efforts to kill you without mercy or quarter, then there’s only one thing you can do: either you shoot them in the head, or they eat your brains. Separation is useless because they will chase you. Negotiation is useless because they can’t even understand you. Imprisoning them all is a practical impossibility. They have to be killed — there’s no other solution.
Unfortunately if that’s true then we’re fucked. For one thing, they have all the guns. For another, we have all the pacifists. (A zombie pacifist, like a zombie vegetarian, is an oxymoron.) Oh and remember, they regard us more or less the same way — as single-mindedly devoted to their destruction, incapable of compromise and therefore incapable of negotiation. They already more than half believe that a crisis is inevitable in which they will finally be cornered and forced to defend themselves with deadly force. When they talk about AmRev II (American Revolution 2.0), or debate the correct caliber for zombies (a stand-in for liberals, police, or UN shock troops, depending on context), they’re talking about that behind the thinnest of veils.
So while hugging them is absurd, and overlooking the harm they’re doing is suicidal, I sure as hell hope that they’re not in fact zombies. If they are, then we’re heading for an inevitable violent conflict that they will win. I draw some hope from the fact that I switched sides.
Brilliant metaphor.
[…] a comment by iknklast on The way […]
Unfortunately, A Masked Avenger, I’m pretty damn sure they are zombies. We just have to control the federal government when it all goes off…
[…] a comment by A Masked Avenger on The Way […]
Now now don’t be hasty, I’m sure this Guy Harrison is fair and even-handed in this sentiment, and therefore wrote a similar lecture for the virulently bigoted Trumpets out there. After all, they are only hateful out of fear, the poor dears. So, where is it?
…
In my experience, the most committed Trump supporters are angry and possibly prone to violence.
I’m not turning my back. But I am keeping my distance.
“Nor do we know that being lost and afraid is where their anger and prejudice come from.”
Probably not.
“The greater the hatred the less the reason”
http://markhumphrys.com/laws.html#no.2
I despise this sort of vacuous sentimentality. It’s a moral deepity.
I like and respect Guy Harrison. I even wrote a good blurb for the back cover of one of his books. But I disagree with him here. Yes, it’s true that no one human is the embodiment of evil, but that doesn’t mean we can’t judge the behaviors of others. That utterly vile sexism and racism and homo-hating, and nationalism exist in our culture can’t be questioned. And those who hold some or all of those views need to be morally/ethically criticized. And it doesn’t matter if they are Trump supporters or not.
Why should I have sympathy for those whose values completely disagree with mine, especially if they deny important human rights?
Could you imagine if someone made the same argument about racists in the 1950s? “Please don’t hate, disown, or ostracize rabid [Trump] Wallace supporters?”
‘Could you imagine if someone made the same argument about racists in the 1950s? “Please don’t hate, disown, or ostracize rabid [Trump] Wallace supporters?” ‘
That’s exactly what hordes of ‘right thinking’ people DID. It is a reflexive response to evil to rationalize it away. I’ve even seen people of good will suggest that the problem with Trump is his ‘low self-esteem.’
The Confederacy was the victim of ‘Northern Agression.’
The Japanese fascists were forced, forced I tell you, to invade Manchuria and bomb Pearl Harbor.
The WWI reparations ‘forced’ the Germans into Nazism (even though they never paid them)
Churchill and Roosevelt’s warmongering caused the invasion of Poland.
The 9/11 killers were ‘opwessed’ by Zionism.
You can concoct a similar ‘just world’ fallacy for just about anything.