So it’s official. The
Republican Party has nominated Donald Trump for president. A man who thinks women exist only for a man’s
pleasure. A man who regularly mocks and
insults women and the disabled. A man who
uses offensive stereotypes and inflammatory language to describe
minorities. A man whose xenophobia is
second only to his extreme narcissism. A
man who changes his position on issues faster than an Olympic sprinter. A man who is nothing more than a glorified
con artist. A man who made his entire
fortune by stealing it from others. A
man who has no idea how to actually run a country, as he has made clear by
offering almost no actual policies.
I could go on and on, but I do believe my point is made (and
besides, most of his supporters won’t listen to the facts anyway). There is no longer a point to arguing about
him because he is running whether we like it or not. But I think a look at just how the hell we
got here is warranted so that perhaps we can prevent someone like him from
getting nominated again.
So how did we get here?
Who is to blame? Well, it’s not
who you think. I put the blame squarely
on Liberals (my own people!) and Democrats.
I’ll pause here for a moment for the inevitable screaming
from the Bernie Bros and trolls who just love making noise . . .
*hums and twiddles thumbs*
Okay, now that that’s out of the way, let me explain why I
blame Liberals and Democrats for the rise of Trump. The problem is that we live in an age defined
by polarization, especially when it comes to politics. Our political landscape is so divisively
charged that the only thing that seems to matter is making sure you don’t agree
with the guy on the other side of the aisle.
More to the point, this has created a world where we bask in the
afterglow of taking pot shots at our opponents.
But this has had an unintended side effect, one that people don’t seem
to have realized.
There is an ancient proverb that states, “The enemy of my
enemy is my friend.” The phrase was
coined as a way of seeking allies to help fight against a common enemy. But while this seems like a sound idea, it
can also be very dangerous. Yes, it can
help bring people together, but it can also serve as a wedge, depending on how
you interpret it. Most people interpret
the phrase correctly, inferring that defeating an opponent can be easier if you
ally yourself with someone who shares your opposition. This logic has been used to win numerous wars
for millennia. Unfortunately, we too
often subvert this logic, inferring the wrong meaning from it by following a
purely literal interpretation of it; instead of finding someone who shares your
opposition, you find someone that your opponent hates.
Some would say that this doesn’t really sound any different,
that it just comes to the same conclusion.
But the difference is actually very simple, and that’s why it is so
easily missed. Instead of uniting with
someone to defeat a common opponent, you intentionally find someone you know
that your opponent hates in order to defeat him. I’ll give an example to properly illustrate
this. Say that you and several other
people are trying to win a contest, and that you decide to team up with
somebody to increase your chances of winning.
The logical choice would be to find somebody that wants to play the way
you do. But what if you really hated one
of the competitors, to the point that all you wanted to do was beat him, even
if you didn’t win? You would likely team
up with someone who feels the same way, even if they don’t play the way you’d
like them to. In short, your desire to
make the other competitor look bad blinds you.
That is what has happened in this election. That is why Trump has been allowed to seize
what little remained of the once great Republican Party. We have allowed ourselves to become so
politically polarized that we are willing to align ourselves with someone
simply because our opponents dislike them.
I believe that to be the reason that Republicans nominated Trump for the
presidency; they saw the vitriolic fervor erupting from Liberals and Democrats,
and subconsciously decided that if we hated him that much, he must be on to
something. For the last eight years,
we’ve seen the inverse of this as well, with Republicans slamming Obama for
every syllable he utters simply because they dislike him. This is the most literal interpretation of
“the enemy of my enemy is my friend” that is possible, and it is by far the
most dangerous.
Now, to be fair, Democrats and Liberals are every bit as
guilty of this as Republicans and Conservatives. We have all decided that those who disagree
with us must be an enemy. Democrats used
this logic to nominate Hillary Clinton, a chronic liar and lackey to Wall
Street (to say nothing of major scandals such as her email). She stood up and said things that Republicans
oppose and gained political points because of it. But that is exactly the problem. Both sides have nominated an absolutely
terrible candidate (I consider Trump to be worse, but that is neither here nor
there) because all that matters anymore is beating the other side.
Sadly, this isn’t even the most damning part. In trying to beat each other, both sides have
nominated someone who doesn’t even stand for what they do. The Republicans nominated Trump, who isn’t a
Conservative, and whose party affiliation seems to change every few years. He is on the record opposing nearly
everything they support (although seeing as he changes his mind every five
minutes, it’s hard to tell anymore), and supporting things for which they have
slammed Obama, Hillary, and other Democrats.
Moreover, he has been friends with the Clintons for many years, inviting
them to his last wedding and supporting Hillary financially in her last
presidential run, making it all the more confounding that Conservatives and
Republicans can support him at all.
Liberals and Democrats have made precisely the same mistake
in nominating Hillary, and she is every bit as dangerous as Trump. She thinks everyone but her is trash, as is
evidenced by the countless statements that both her and her husband’s staff
members have made over the years. She
flouts the law and gets away with it because she is powerful (her email scandal
is a particularly pertinent example).
She is a chronic liar (yeah, I know, this is a trait shared by all
politicians, but the Clintons took it to a new level), doing so just as much,
if not more than, Trump (although Politifact gives them nearly inverse ratings;
75% of his are rated at least Mostly False, while 75% of hers are rated at
least Half True. Make of that what you
will.). She is also known to get a lot
of funding from Wall Street, big banks, and other corporations, which could
spell trouble for us when they start calling in favors. Yet, despite her many flaws, certain factions
of Democrats and Liberals have clung to her in the same way that certain
factions of Republicans and Conservatives cling to Trump. Hillary is good at telling people what the
want to hear, and many of her supporters are concerned only with beating Trump
in the election. But isn’t that the same
reason so many people support Trump?
That is the true problem here, and it is precisely what is
destroying this country. We have allowed
ourselves to become so divided that we will ally ourselves with anyone with
whom we seem to share a common enemy or opposition. The old proverb I mentioned before might seem
to suggest this, but that is only in a purely literal interpretation. The true meaning of it is far more subjective
than that. Instead of joining forces
with someone purely because of a shared opposition, you find someone with
enough similarities that they outweigh the differences. But this doesn’t work if the differences are
as large as they are with Trump and Hillary.
The way people on both sides are blindly following them is disturbing
because they are becoming exactly the thing that they hate. Conservatives and Republicans decry
corruption in politics and fight for family values and religious freedom (all
very worthwhile pursuits), yet have nominated a man who is the face of
corruption, brags about his marital affairs, and who isn’t even Christian
(Note- I only bring up his religious views because Republicans consider
religion to be important. I personally
believe a candidate’s religious beliefs are irrelevant so long as those beliefs
do not preclude them from doing their job).
On the other side of the spectrum, Democrats and Liberals
fight for transparency in campaign finance, regulation of Wall Street, the
banks, and corporations, and decry anyone who ignores facts. But Clinton and her running mate are both
lackeys for Wall Street, having received massive campaign contributions from
them. As such, we can’t expect that
Clinton will ever fight hard for the carefully written regulations we so
desperately need to prevent another recession.
Finally, it is painfully obvious that Clinton ignores actual facts and
evidence because she is every bit the liar that Trump is. But her supporters also ignore facts and
evidence, yet they slam Trump’s supporters for doing exactly the same thing.
Simply put, by supporting these candidates, both sides have
become exactly what they hate. They have
made fighting against the other side their only priority (in their respective
last elections, both John Boehner and Mitch McConnell said that this was their
top priority, regardless of the consequences; if that doesn’t send chills down
your spine, I don’t know what will). For
eight years, we’ve been led by a Republican Congress that believed voting 60+
times to repeal Obamacare (and even shutting down the government for two weeks,
costing the country tens of billions of dollars in the process, more than was
needed to keep the government open) was more important than working together to
find a way forward. Before this, we had
a Democratic Congress doing largely the same thing, abusing the filibuster to
prevent anything from getting done. Our
leaders now spend more time sniping at each other on social media and in
interviews than actually doing their job.
But this is no longer limited to just the government; because of the
advent of social media, this toxic behavior has managed to worm its way into
everything. You can’t turn on the news
or open Facebook without seeing it. Our
entire society has become polarized as a result; we’ve started adhering to the
logic of “if you’re not with me, you’re against me and the country.” But this isn’t logical at all, or even
remotely rational. The point of a
democracy (yes, I know that we’re not *technically* a Democracy, but in
fact are a Constitutional Republic) is that we are free to disagree with each
other. Because our divisiveness now cripples
us, the simple act of disagreement has become tantamount to pointing a gun, and
BOTH sides are to blame for this.
There is a way to end this, however. The solution is simple, although getting
there might not be. In fact, the
solution has been in front of us for more than 200 years, but we have chosen to
ignore it. The Declaration of
Independence and the Constitution provide ideals that even today seem
remarkable, yet our leaders have consistently chose to ignore them. Our country was designed by men who saw that
our humanity was what made us special, and that that was what we needed to
focus on. The revolution was won because
men from all walks of life, backgrounds, and ethnicities came together and fought
for a common cause. That’s the true meaning
behind the adage I mentioned earlier; you don’t ally yourself with someone
because you share an opposition. You
ally yourself with someone because you focus on what you have in common, not on
the differences between you.
As children, we are all taught to love each other and to
respect our differences. We are taught
that it is our similarities that matter, that we are all equal, and that we
must abide by the Golden Rule of treating others how we wish to be
treated. But somehow, as we grow older, we
stop doing this. We are taught on a
subconscious level to hate. We learn by
example to hold grudges and look only at differences and to ignore
similarities. For the sake of our
children, and for the future of our species and our world, we must stop this. We must stop teaching the wrong lessons. We must let people think for themselves.
Being different, thinking differently, these are not
crimes. But thinking that differences
are all that matter is.
