My credentials as a progressive liberal will likely be tarnished as a result of posting this but I believe the truth must be faced; Trump is the candidate America deserves to have as president.
Those of us who dread a Trump presidency like to imagine a government that once again makes its citizens the focus of its policies. We want to believe that our fellow Americans value freedom and the diversity that has for years been the bedrock of our national character. We are full of optimism for a more compassionate and enlightened future for the United States.
But it's time for us to face reality.
The reality is that a majority of Americans appear to believe that the poor are victims of their own bad choices in life and that showing compassion to them is enabling their bad behavior, that acknowledging the advances of science is tantamount to denying their religious beliefs, that the only way to curb gun violence is for even more people to carry guns everywhere, that anyone different from us ethnically, sexually, culturally or philosophically is the enemy.
Racism still exists.
Trump's minions remind us that humans are not as evolved as we would like to think we are. Human behavior is still closer to that exhibited in
Quest for Fire than that of
Star Trek.
We are more like the Flintstones than the Jetsons.
For all of our technology, we still depend on fossil fuels and ignore our impact on the environment. The majority of us still look for comfort and guidance from fantastic super-beings before we seek it from one another. We still engage in and profit from wars waged against other human beings over possessions and beliefs.
My fellow progressive liberals, it's time we admit that for the majority of Americans, Trump is a more appropriate candidate than someone like Bernie Sanders. Trump speaks the words they respond to,
like a fourth-grader.
Sanders would likely try to eliminate terrorism through negotiation and alliances with other nations, methods that may or may not work. Trump would likely bomb the hell out the entire Middle East, which undoubtedly would eliminate a majority of the terrorists there, along with millions of innocent men, women, and children. I'm sure he'd simply shrug at that possibility. Domestic terrorists he'd deport, except for the White male ones.
Of course we have no idea how he'd improve an already slowly improving economy, reduce an already reduced number of unemployed, or resolve any of the other major issues facing us. He fails to offer specifics on any of the promises he's made about his future presidency. Bluster and bombast are sufficient for the Trumpanistas. Just knowing that their hero says he has plans to deal with the Mexicans, the Blacks, the Gays, the educated, and all the rest of those who are to blame for all the problems he says exist is enough for them.
Trump appeals to our lesser nature, our base and uncivilized selves. That he seems to have found such a large number of adoring fans ought to tell us that the future of America is dark and regressive, that racism and xenophobia will exist for at least another generation. Fear and hate will be the hallmarks of American policy, not peace or equality.
I'd love to be wrong. Get out and vote, prove me wrong.
(
See also: http://www.salon.com/2016/01/11/donald_trumps_despotic_fantasies_heres_what_the_world_would_look_like_if_he_were_president/)
