Thursday, January 12, 2017

Answering a German on Trump


A good friend of mine posted the following from a friend of his on Facebook after the November presidential election. He and his friend are both German. His comment is first and my response is below hers. 
....

My friend ___ writes to the Americans she likes so much. She's been living there for years. I cannot express what's within my heart as good as she does:
....

Dear friends, 

I can totally understand that we all have and should have different, sometimes opposing views on all kinds of issues, but what lies beyond my grasp this time is this:
All Americans that I have ever met were people who held up certain values such as decency, dignity and tolerance. You would, so it has always seemed to me, judge the leaders you chose with incredible scrutiny to ensure that they embodied these ideals. This would sometimes seem exaggerated to the European mindset, I thought. I felt that we sometimes had a much more laissez-faire attitude with politicians philandering or leaving the path of integrity than you did. After all, they are all just human....
But I just don't see how this fits with the person you have now chosen as your leader? How did you, the people, become convinced so suddenly that it was ok to throw overboard the values you cherish so dearly? Where has all this hatred come from all of a sudden, how was it possible for one rambunctious seemingly clueless rogue to unleash it?
There is a chance that the man will be humbled by the immensity of the office and that the rambunctiousness will wear off. I doubt that but what I'm saddened about even more, is to know that there are people out there (and yes, we have them over here, too) who have elected him because they have fallen in love with the power of hate unleashed. This nasty beast of hatred is somehow trying to get a hold of trust, tolerance and respect. What ever happens - let's let this not happen. Not in America or anywhere else on this incredible planet!
And if someone has an idea of how to answer the question that baffles me, please share your thoughts.
….

Dear ___,

Over a month ago I noticed your above posting on ____'s Facebook page and wrote my response. Due to other duties and distractions I have only now finished editing it. Since Mr. Trump will be sworn in as our new president within the next several days I’m glad that this reply is still very relevant. Here it is…

Because you asked, I hope to help you understand why some Americans tolerate…and propagate…so much hate. It’s about power, control, and ideology. I think that you are correct in saying that (many) Americans hold up certain values such as decency, dignity, and tolerance. For these and other reasons this presidential election was very difficult for millions of Americans like me. Those who voted for Trump would disagree with you that they threw their cherished values overboard, but some might agree at least in part that he is “one rambunctious seemingly clueless rogue”. Trump said many outrageous things on the campaign trail and some of his behavior and comments as a private citizen during his 70 years has certainly left something to be desired in his character. It is clear from your message that you believe Trump embodies the worst America has to offer and have three times associated the word “hate” with him and his supporters. I suppose you would, then, agree with candidate Clinton when she said that half his supporters were “deplorables”. How tolerant and inclusive is it for a presidential candidate to insult many millions of Americans in this way? Do Germans and other Western Europeans think America would be better off with a president who has been at the center of at least five major political scandals (and involved in 15 or more) over a 25-30 year time period? In one of these scandals a fellow lawyer and former business partner (Vince Foster) was found dead and in another four Americans associated with an embassy in Libya (including the ambassador) were killed. Do you not think Americans aren’t cynical when Hillary talks about being a champion for women’s rights while her Clinton Foundation accepts millions of dollars from some of the world’s worst abusers of women like Saudi Arabia? How about when her husband makes a plea to help earthquake-ravaged Haiti by donating to the Clinton Foundation only for most of that money to never reach the Haitians (and the little that did to go to cronies)? We have judged Hillary and Co. “with incredible scrutiny to ensure that they embodied these ideals (decency, dignity and tolerance)” and found them seriously wanting.

You mentioned that “we all have and should have different, sometimes opposing views on all kinds of issues”. I don’t think it is necessarily good that we should have opposing points of view on some important issues, but people certainly do have them. A free society tolerates such things. Totalitarian societies do not. Until eight years or so ago, the average American never heard the words “United States”, “religious freedom” and “threat to” in the same sentence before. Since then we have heard it a lot. A “clueless”, inexperienced, one-term senator from the state of Illinois who was elected president had everything to do with it. He was expert at preaching unity and peace only to deliberately pit American against American. As a matter of fact, race relations under this supposed ‘unifier’ have deteriorated significantly during his presidency. He repeatedly lied regarding his health care agenda (no, as a matter of fact we weren’t able to keep our doctor or health plan) and the Affordable Health Care Plan is anything but affordable. For Obama, ideology is over and above everything, and it is very telling that his administration has done everything in their power to force the self-less and self-sacrificing nuns of The Little Sisters of the Poor and other groups to violate their consciences and religious beliefs for political purposes. Hillary Clinton had promised to continue the worst policies of Barack Obama in attacking the vision the founders of this country laid down for us. Some of them paid for this vision with their lives. The Democrat Party and their supporters (including the vast majority of media outlets) are the ones responsible for calling all of those who disagree with them, “racists, bigots, homophobes, Islamaphobes, mysoginists,” etc. Do you really believe that the half of America who are responsible for electing Trump are these kind of people? I should hope not. Liberals and conservatives have a radically different vision of what is best for America. The difference is that one of them has been using methods of intimidation like name-calling to silence the other with the aid of the media and the highest reaches of government.

Is it right for a photographer to be forced to take photos at an event against her beliefs? Or a florist or baker to be financially ruined for declining to take on jobs they are morally opposed to? How about a religion teacher losing his job for actually teaching what is in the bible? Well, they have in my country over the past few years. In America one of our cherished beliefs is the freedom of religion, which is enshrined in our constitution, and we will fight for that right. This is not the same as “the right to worship” as the outgoing president has said, which is a private matter, but the freedom to express religious beliefs in public. During her campaign, Hillary made a comment that churches should be forced to change some of their core beliefs. That dovetails very nicely with what her campaign manager did several years ago in creating fake “Catholic” groups in order to undermine that church’s core teachings in America (“A Catholic Spring”). Those are not the words and actions of tolerance but totalitarianism. As a matter of fact, that’s exactly what The Soviet Union did in creating and controlling fake “peace” groups during the Viet Nam War to undermine the U.S. cause (e.g. The World Council of Churches). 

Here is an important question that needs to be asked: did people vote for Trump or against Hillary? Even though many of us may have been tempted and some did vote for a third-party candidate, all Americans knew that one of the candidates from the two major political parties was going to win. Western Europeans may not have any real understanding just how many Americans distrust and dislike Hillary and Bill Clinton and the corruption that follows them - and it is no small wonder since our main media outlets are themselves corrupt - so I suppose the election results were a shock to you. They were a shock to me to, because Trump’s media coverage was over 90 percent negative. One astute observer said that: “Trump’s supporters take him seriously but not literally. Trump’s opponents take him literally but not seriously.” So when Trump said “hateful” things like deporting millions of illegal immigrants his supporters could shrug some of it off as hyperbole, but his detractors saw a constant stream of buses filled with South and Central Americans crossing the Mexican border. For many of us, Trump is a wild card. We just don’t know where his presidency will lead. Hillary was just the opposite. We knew her too well and did not buy the lie that she was more “in-control”, “even-tempered”, or “fit for office” than Trump. On the contrary, her temper is well known. So were her policies.
 
So where does all the hate come from? Some of it came from protestors at Trump rallies who are on video admitting they were paid by people in the Democrat party to cause trouble. Some of it comes from the aftermath of the election when angry Hillary supporters said vile things on social media and “dis-invited” Trump voters from their Thanksgiving dinners. Some of it certainly came from riots and protests across the country, especially when these ‘tolerant’ people pulled at least one Trump supporter out of his car and sent him to a hospital…not to mention the most recent example of four blacks (two men and two women) who beat and tortured a mentally handicapped white man while using Trump as an excuse. Republican voters picked Trump as their candidate because they were sick and tired of failed promises from “the establishment” and found someone who wasn’t intimidated by the media and the rampant political correctness. Do you now see, ___, how it is that American’s chose their leader? It wasn’t out of hate. It was for disgust of corruption in Washington D.C. and a rejection of a biased media. It was for rejection of political insiders who spent their entire adult lives conniving to get into the White House and after getting there conniving to get there again solely for their own egos, aggrandizement, and personal enrichment. It was for the real fear of the continuation of the socialist agenda of a president who can not take responsibility for his many failures and who has single-handedly decimated the democrat party in state governments and in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives due to his policies.

So, to summarize, Americans did not suddenly throw the values we cherish so dearly overboard by electing Trump. In desperation we elected him in order to attempt to preserve the values we cherish so dearly. Voting for Trump was a very difficult decision exactly because he is so flawed and is not trusted by many of us, but we could never vote for Clinton because to do so would essentially be a suicide vote for the country we know and love.

“There is a chance that the man will be humbled by the immensity of the office and that the rambunctiousness will wear off.” I hope so. Unfortunately Obama never was humbled by the office. His ideological intransigence and arrogance has done much damage to the United States and around the world. What kind of a president - what kind of a man - would hold countries like Nigeria hostage in combating the brutal Islamist group Boko Haram until they succumbed to his radical social agenda? Obama and Hillary don’t care about people, they care about an agenda. Trump? I guess we’ll find out.

Tschuss…



Brendan