2023-06-11 20:14:41
The borders of hate in America seem clear and firm, but sometimes they blur. Sometimes we can perceive the humanity of the people on the other side. And other times, we look at them with affection, because they are our parents, siblings or close friends.
MAGA flags in West Virginia
A few years ago we were traveling in a rental car from Washington DC to Columbus, Ohio. On the way we pass through towns in the state of West Virginia. We saw, in house following house, signs supporting Donald Trump, MAGA, and multiple trucks with Confederate flags along with American flags. It was not election time; either way the political identity overflowed.
It is Trump’s country. One of hundreds of counties in the country where 75% or more of voters voted for him in 2016 and in 2020. And they will once more in 2024.
Who are these Americans? How can it be that, being so many, we hardly recognize them? That we are so, so far apart?
I remember a brief interview that, in that area, they did to a group of men on the eve of the 2008 elections that brought Barack Obama to the presidency.
“And besides, I don’t want him as president because he’s a n…”, said one of them. “Yeah, you heard me right, n…, that’s what it is.”
It would seem that time has stopped in this part of the country, and that we are still at the end of the Civil War.
At least that is what can be deduced from the remnants of slave and racist culture in parts of Virginia, West Virginia and the southern states.
It didn’t start with Trump
They are feelings that were sublimated over the years but never disappeared. The hostility and criminal, murderous racism of slavery seeped in and applied to other historical minorities. There they were always. Relegated, but alive.
Declarations and events that for us are the cause of a shudder of repudiation and rejection for the other side are epiphanies of our own, absolute truth and that was relegated for years.
In announcing his candidacy for the presidency, on June 15, 2015, He said as we remember:
“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. […] They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people”
“When Mexico sends its people, they are not sending their best. […] They are sending people who have a lot of problems, and they bring us those problems. They are bringing drugs. They are bringing the crime. They are rapists. And some, I suppose, are good people.”
This expression defined who Trump, the presidential candidate, was and how far he had moved away from Trump, the likable billionaire and star of the show, and marked the nature of the current partisan divide in our country. On the one hand, those who applaud him with an absolutely unprecedented enthusiasm. On the other side… on the other side, us.
With OA, I have been a close friend for over 30 years. We share country of origin, personal stories, likes and dislikes. We were neighbors. We work together. I don’t remember that we talked regarding politics, and if we did, it was regarding our homeland. Until 2017, it didn’t matter; we took it in a good mood. Since then, we have drifted apart. “I love Trump and you hate him,” he told me. And then “You leftists are all the same”… “I have already researched you on the internet”. That’s why we haven’t seen each other for years. At parties, on our birthdays we write old words that sound empty.
Trump separated us. At 70, he’s a pity.
But I know that he is a good person.
hostility on the way
For years, we have specialized in the analysis of the forces of evil, those that emanate from Donald Trump and spread through an important segment of the population.
Just as we were shocked when we found out the degree of extremism, hostility and organization that neo-Nazis had reached since Trump legitimized them. Recall when on August 11, 2017, hundreds of American neo-Nazis and their supporters paraded through the streets of Charlottesville, Virginia, with their flags, attire, signature salutes, and slogans like “Jews will not replace us.” At the end, one of them purposely ran over a group of counter-protesters and killed Heather Heyer. a 32-year-old woman, and injured 35 others.
Multiple protests erupted across the country and one by one, leaders, both Democrats and Republicans, condemned the extremist groups.
Except Donald Trump.
The former president today, whose function was to restore normality, whose mission was to console the bereaved, effectively began his address to the country by saying that he was ready to begin national healing. But soon following condemning an “appalling display of hatred, fanaticism and violence,” he added “on many sides.” He looked up from the speech and repeated “in many places.”
He clarified shortly following: “I think there is fault on both sides. You look, you look both ways. I think there is fault on both sides, and I have no doubt regarding it… there were also people who were very good people on both sides.”
The phrase has been used ever since by the Nazis to claim that their hero, Trump, is in fact on their side.
They think they are victims
For us, that comparison shocked us to the core. We ran to compare the background in the history books, background, with, of course, the rise of Adolf Hitler to power.
But for many of Donald Trump’s supporters the comparison was normal.
The reality that “they” see is very different from what we perceive. There, we are the abnormal ones.
Despite being the harbingers of hate in the United States, they consider themselves victims of a group of evil beings such as George Soros, the Hungarian Jewish billionaire Holocaust survivor, who supports liberal causes and it is the hated symbol of antisemitism, and others.
Although they are half the country, and even when they had total power, they think they are victims of the media, of the government – including the legislatures and the judiciary – when it speaks out once morest them; of the intellectuals and especially the teachers and students of “elite” schools. Against the real and imaginary left, such as the hosts of “Antifa” who according to them were the real invaders of Congress in Washington on January 6, 2021.
vocabulary questions
They wield their own, aggressive and strict vocabulary, which was adopted by figures such as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Like the word “woke” used to refer to the “enemy” and which originally designated someone who is alert to racial prejudice and discrimination, but which was appropriated by the extreme right to add the element of contempt and hostility.
In the same way that the term “fake news” was originally coined by the New York Times to qualify Trump’s multiple lies, and that he himself appropriated to mean the opposite.
They wallow, because they feel that the hatred once morest them is not fair. Hostility once morest Trump is not fair.
So much so that they popularized a term to define it: “Trump derangement syndrome”. Anyone who opposes Trump is crazy. Or, put another way, to oppose Donald Trump, you have to be crazy. Or wicked.
Until an analyst like Fareed Zakaria He defined it like this: “Hate of President Trump is so intense that it affects people’s judgment.”
They can exercise that dehumanization, that hostility. They can do it, and their leaders can encourage it. And they do. Although they do not have the support of the majority of the country. Because for many they have not sought to convince the majority of voters to win electoral positions. Instead, they rely on their supporters turning out to vote in extraordinary numbers, while they think that rivals… rivals should not be allowed to vote, or at least try to limit their right to do so.
And if one goes through the Trumpist sources, one discovers that this vision they have of themselves as victims and not as originators of hate is characteristic of their conduct, and one more reason why dialogue and conviction do not exist at this time.
And a disturbed vision of the future is imposed where only the clash will lead to a change.
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#Trumpism #reality #side
