HOW I FEEL

HOW I FEEL

            I’m not mad at Donald Trump. I’m not mad at the people who voted him into office. This should not, however, comfort them. What I feel toward them is not anger, it is something else. I feel sorry for them. That is because I understand what motivated them to vote this stupid, racist, sexist, jerk into office. For the most part it was class hatred. They felt that the idiot Trump spoke for them, the common people, and that Hillary Clinton spoke for the elite, the educated people. For most of the Trump voters, it was his opening remarks that got them on his side. He declared that the undocumented Hispanic immigrants were rapists and criminals. That appealed to his supporters’ xenophobia, bigotry, and ignorance. The trouble is, he does not speak for them and they will probably feel down the road that he is their worst enemy.

            Most white people are prejudiced against Black people to one degree or another. They will deny it because they do not believe that they are bigoted. They will point-out that they have friends who are black and that they get along well with African Americans. But the simple fact is that no matter what they say, they are prejudiced against Blacks, and often, despite having Black friends, they have strong feelings against Blacks. They are not a small group like the KKK, but they include probably 99% of the people who voted for Donald Trump. I know many such people. They would be offended if you said that they were bigoted. But if you listen to their conversation you will hear them express anti-Black feelings. Most of them are also bigoted against Hispanic people.

            I understand how those people felt when Barack Obama was elected President. They had always assumed that because Blacks were so inferior to White people a Black person would never be elected President. When he was elected, they were shocked. They felt that they had not been paying attention and that as a result a member of the hated and despised Black race got into the White House. In a sense, that is how we liberals felt about the election of Donald Trump to the presidency. We never imagined that he could win. He comes across as a dumb bigot. But that is exactly what his supporters like about him. He will go on making outrageous statements, doing outrageous things, and instead of his followers being offended by him they will love it all. They hated political correctness of every kind and when they heard about some of the rules and restrictions on campuses, they were furious. Trump made them feel that they would be able to say whatever they wanted and to behave toward minority people the way they wanted.

            In his first few weeks in office Trump has done nothing to ease the aversion better educated people feel toward him. One thing that is beginning to stand out is hat he is emotionally lacking in confidence. His show of machismo reveals not self confidence, but rather, insecurity. It is hard to imagine any of his predecessors arguing about the size of the crowd at his inauguration. The problem is, how will this failure of confidence affect his administration? As a reader of history I have noted that many leaders who felt insecure in their position used attacks on perceived enemies as a means of distracting the public from their fears. Could this apprehensiveness of Donald Trump lead us into a nuclear war?

            Apparently, Trump supporters do not notice his obvious failings. They like what he has done so far. A reader of history will note that common people often love the leaders who lead them into disaster. The people who supported Trump are like the ordinary people of Germany who hailed Hitler all the way to the total destruction of the Third Reich. It was not the educated, sophisticated elite who supported Hitler. It was the ignorant common people, the mindless type who always admire the tyrants who lead them into Hell.