Friday, November 18, 2016

Drawing the Battle Lines

Photo by Vision Planet Media
In the continuing protests, there has been a shift in emphasis from directing ire at the President-elect to protesting the principles that he brings to the office. The Green Party-supported rally to celebrate the death of the TPP sounded this chord - calling for a stop to Trumpism, not just Trump. This widens the field to include not only the cronies Trump is surrounding himself with, but also the emerging flock of haters that helped propel him to office.

The most popular rendering of "Trumpism" is the one that the University of Maryland students have raised their outcry against, i.e. the xenophobic aspects of the Trump agenda. Implicit in the slogan "Make America Great Again" is "We are Better than You." So by getting rid of non-citizens, we can instantly prove how much better we are without those encumbrances. The Green Party platform shows a much more diplomatic understanding of relationships with foreign citizens and includes the inspiring goal that we will someday live in
a world in which persons can freely choose to live in and work in any country he or she desires.
Beyond isolationism and xenophobia, Trumpism can be seen as the attitude and ideas that many Americans will take on in imitation of their newly elected leader. That attitude includes such qualities as pride, belligerence, insensitive criticism, competitiveness, lack of self-examination, and remorselessness. This is the order of battle that Trumpists bring to the fight. The campaign to fight Trumpism will have to be against the man, himself, and the attitude he imbues in all of his replicates throughout society. Similar to the "War on Terror," neither Trumpism or Terror can be completely vanquished in this life. Conquering Trumpism will take as many counterattacks of love as there are depths of narcissism in the Trump arsenal.

The millennials have a monumental task wresting power from the Trumpists, and the longer it takes to unseat Trump, the harder the larger task will be. One aspect of Trumpism is the need to win every time. For them, winning justifies the measures taken to achieve it. Expect Trumpists to fight ruthlessly for every piece of privilege they have attained under their pompous ruler. It will be bloody.

I don't hate Donald Trump. The two of us could be arms-length casual friends. I just don't consent to him being my ruler.  His illegitimate "success" as a businessman (tax evasion, discrimination, fraud) makes him unfit to be the President of the United States.  Trump may not equal Hitler (we shall see) but we, the people, can choose better and needn't be bound to this abomination of a head of state for four years.

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