Stop Pretending Trump Is Not Who We Are

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

I remember when Donald Trump was not normal.

I remember when Trump was a fever that would break

-snip-

There have been so many attempts to explain away Trump’s hold on the nation’s politics and cultural imagination, to reinterpret him as aberrant and temporary. “Normalizing” Trump became an affront to good taste, to norms, to the American experiment.

We can now let go of such illusions. Trump is very much part of who we are. Nearly 63 million Americans voted for him in 2016. Seventy-four million did in 2020. And now, once again, enough voters in enough places have cast their lot with him to return him to the White House. Trump is no fluke, and Trumpism is no fad.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/06/opinion/trump-wins-harris-loses.html?unlocked_article_code=1.X04.iAV8.RHQA-UGAWHt6&smid=url-share

[Wingus Dingus]

1. He said America is a garbage can, and he's right.

I see that now.

[TwilightZone]

2. Some of us stopped in 2016.

It was clear in the primary process in the 2016 cycle that he was tapping into deep-seated resentment and bigotry in the populace. The 2016 campaign destroyed any thoughts we might have had about how far we had come as a country.

As for who "we" are. He is who about half of us are. The other half is still quite opposed, thank you very much.

[Climate Crusader]

3. Racism, bigotry and even misogyny are as old as the species.

But that doesn't mean we give in to it.

DON'T DESPAIR!!!! In 2020 he got 74,223,975 votes. In 2024 he got 72,647,695. The fascist won in the Electoral college but he did not convince more of our neighbors that racism and fascism are American values! Two days ago we were the Revolution. Today we are the Resistance.

[love_katz]

4. Hey, effing NY Times.

You're a day late and a dollar short.

I think that anyone in any of the oppressed groups, and that includes women, are way ahead of you in your diagnosis.

It would have really been nice if you had published something like this back when it would have done some good. Like before A golf Shitler came down the golden escalator.

[Colgate 64]

5. Trump is nothing but a mirror

reflecting back to 49% of the electorate. He shows them not only as they are, minus whatever veneer of morality or manners that have previously constrained them. He shows them naked for all the world to see, clothed in their prejudices, misogyny, xenophobia, anti-LSQBT, ant-Semitic, anti-Latino anti-Colored, anti-everyone who isn't just like me beliefs and stereotypes. And he shows them that it's OK now to let it all hang out - "Speak your mind, don't let what others may think of you bother you, just say whatever's on your mind and let the rest of the world deal with it."

The mirror reflects an ugly, nasty and superbly un-American picture,

[carljacobhall]

6. Trump is not who we are

Trump is who his followers/voters are and always have been.

[Scrivener7]

7. I remember when the NYT would never "both sides" that vile thing. I remember when the NYT would

never dream of running articles that normalized someone like him.

I remember when the NYT would have talked about a Democratic President's historic and frequent accomplishments.

I remember when the NYT was a real newspaper.

[lees1975]

8. The media has spent the last nine years normalizing Trump.

When he first started running, he was just one kook among several. Then, somehow, he managed to get a little bit of a following in an election year when the Republicans were reeling, and they've picked up and run with it in their desperation.

I wish I had a dime, just a thin dime, for every time the name "Trump" gets mentioned in reference to the dirt sucking scum bucket in the media, starting in 2016 until now. He has been given far more time than the sitting President has been given, if he burps or farts, they're on it for a story. One of the worst offenders is Chuck Todd, who I think set some kind of record for attention given to Trump on a Sunday news program, outdoing even Fux news in that regard. And as far as network coverage goes, ABC and NBC are probably even odds with Fox News. Even Lawrence O'Donnell and Rachel Maddow, who I respect deeply, can't seem to resist bringing his scummy ass to the forefront, to knock him around, usually, but still. It's too much.

We lost our free press along time ago. Like a lot of others, I try to get it back, I do what I can, and I'm happy to say that my little blog has a readership that has slowly grown to over 3,000 a month. But that's nothing compared to podcasts and electronic sites that some people completely depend on for their news.

This is who we are. We've been the world's benevolent superpower and champion of democracy since World War 2. That era has now ended. We never thought it would happen, but the fact is that America in the 21st century is just as susceptible to its biases, prejudices, religious cultism and bigotry, and white supremacy, as the Germans were in the 1930's. Here's a quote from Alexisde Tocqueville that should resonate.

Tocqueville warned that modern democracy may be adept at inventing new forms of tyranny because radical equality could lead to the materialism of an expanding bourgeoisie and to the selfishness of individualism. "In such conditions, we might become so enamored with 'a relaxed love of present enjoyments' that we lose interest in the future of our descendants...and meekly allow ourselves to be led in ignorance by a despotic force all the more powerful because it does not resemble one", wrote The New Yorker's James Wood.[36] Tocqueville worried that if despotism were to take root in a modern democracy, it would be a much more dangerous version than the oppression under the Roman emperors or tyrants of the past who could only exert a pernicious influence on a small group of people at a time.[18]