I’ve tried to get into the mindset of a Trump supporter, to understand. It’s scary. But I think I get it.
Every day, there are little annoyances. The person who cuts you off on the street. The jerk who stole your car radio (probably, you assume, a desperate addict). The homeless person in the Wal-Mart parking lot begging for money when you’re in a hurry. The person who gets offended when you use a word they say is ableist, or ageist, or racist. Being unemployed, walking in to get a job application, and seeing a Hispanic (you assume illegal) having a job and while you do not have a job. Etc., etc., etc.
And everyone is telling you that you can’t do anything about it. If you do, you’re a bad, terrible, horrible person. You’re a “neckbeard.” You’re a “racist.” You’re a “dudebro.” You’re…well, you get the idea. And it piles up. So you feel that you have to play nice with people, at the sacrifice of yourself, in order to be a good person.
What Trump does very effectively is tell that part of you that thinks you’d be a bad, terrible, horrible person if you spoke your mind that it’s OK. He’s with you. Not in a nasty way, necessarily. In a friendly way. Rich, powerful billionaire, coming through the noise of you’re supposed inferiority, saying you’re a good person. The words you’ve wanted to hear for a long time.
Shaking your hand, smiling, laughing, joking.
Saying, don’t worry about those other people. It’s about you. I give you permission to fight back. It’s on me if you’re mean to other people, if you put labels on them. You’re not a bad person for doing this. They’re the bad people. They’re the evil ones. Get them — we’ll get them, together. It’s not you. For too long they’ve been pointing the finger at you; they don’t know what they’re talking about. They’re incompetent. You’re competent. You’re wonderful. They’re horrible.
He flips the script.
It feels like redemption. And that’s what so frightening about it. Trump is the pied piper to the worst parts of ourselves, complimenting them as our best and encouraging them to stretch their legs and clench their fists. He’s the close friend who says that you’re alright and is “with you” even when you do something everyone else thinks is cruel and nasty, and eggs you on to do the cruel, nasty thing again because he is so firmly for you and the protection of who you are.
And when you do it, he cheers or winks. He widens the boundaries of acceptable discourse for you so that you can do more of the cruel, nasty thing — which he says is good and ordered. And any backlash from what you do, he tends to take on himself. Where he doesn’t, he makes it obvious that the reason he doesn’t is because of them — they are preventing him from doing a more effective job of protecting and enabling you. Those mentally inept people who don’t know what they’re talking about are holding him back — prompting you to urge harder, to become more extreme, to propel him forward.
I don’t know how far he can go. It frightens me. If you fight him, you only empower him more. If you go with him, you’re along for the ride. Where is too far? What is too extreme for his supporters or for him?
Considering what he’s said and done so far, I’m really not sure. That’s why I am genuinely afraid of what he will turn this country into during the race, even if he eventually loses the election. I’m afraid of how extreme his rhetoric and the actions he actively encourages will become. As a black atheist who was liberal enough to vote for Sanders, I am afraid of what will happen to me, personally, when he has gone as far as he can in encouraging all of those who are offended by the idea of respecting minorities and nonreligious people. And it’s somehow even more unnerving that he’ll do it through bullying, jokes, winks, entertainment, and thunderous applause.
So…even if he eventually loses the general, what will this country look like when he’s done? As a black, liberal atheist I am afraid. What will become of us when Trump goes as far as he can in destroying any respect we have left for minorities and nonreligious people? somehow even more unnerving that he’ll do it through bullying, jokes, winks, entertainment, and thunderous applause.
It makes the bullying, jokes, winks, entertainment, and thunderous applause unnerving.
I hope he doesn’t turn America into a nightmare for us in the next few months, but stranger things have already happened. When I look at what he’s accomplished so far, the road from here to November looks enshrouded in a foreboding dark.
Buckle up, folks. We’re in for a ride.
Thanks for reading.