Like many people, I’ve been grappling with making sense of our current political landscape. What to say about the hate speech being spewed by the leading GOP candidate, the anti-immigrant/anti-refugee/anti-Muslim fervor he seems intent on whipping into an ugly frenzy—and the lack of strong rebuke from his fellow candidates? What to say about candidates for the office of President seriously entertaining the idea of barring people from entering our country because of their religion? Of turning their backs on refugees—many of them children—fleeing persecution?
It is deeply troubling that this is where we are. But it is also, sadly, where we have been so often. This is an old American refrain.
For the past several years, I’ve been deep in the research for the DIVINERS series. Often, I talk about the parallels between America of the 1920s and America today, things I have uncovered while digging into our past. Here’s the thing about research: It’s Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. One minute, you’re looking into the Patriot Act and it brings you to the Sedition Act of 1918 and finally to the Palmer Raids of 1919-1920, which were a federal response to fears about anarchism, (a response rooted somewhat in fears about immigration), in which many innocent people, again, mostly immigrants, were targeted and deported.
If you look into the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which sharply restricted Chinese immigration—an exclusion based on race and class—before banning Chinese immigration outright over the next twenty years, you then see how this one piece of terrible legislation snakes all the way up through the American Eugenics movement (a particularly nasty tide of American nativism disguised as pseudo-science that was a huge hit with a guy named Adolf Hitler decades later) and on to Virginia’s Racial “Integrity” Act of 1924 (quotes mine; I just can’t type that straight on), which prevented interracial marriage, a law not overturned until 1967 with Loving V. Virginia.
I write fiction, but I didn’t have to make any of this up. It’s all there in the history books, or not there, which is part of the problem—the SOMA-like amnesia of the American populace. Recently, Mayor David Bowers of Roanoke, Virginia, in refusing to admit Syrian refugees to his state defended it as being similar to when “President Franklin D. Roosevelt felt compelled to sequester Japanese foreign nationals after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.” To be clear: the mayor of an American city talked about one of the ugliest episodes of American history, when Japanese-American citizens were placed in internment camps because of racism and political hysteria, as a good thing.
So when I hear people say, “Well, Trump’s just a buffoon. He’ll spin out eventually,” I feel a deep wave of fear wash over me. Because we have been here before, and the consequences were grave, the damage deep and lasting. Pay attention to what Trump is exposing about our nation: After his recent anti-Muslim statements, his poll numbers jumped eight points. With each outrageous comment, he is pulling up the soft, padded carpet of America and revealing its warped, rotting, termite-infested foundation. It was racism and fear-mongering in 1882 and 1892 and 1921 and 1942, etc.; it is racism and fear-mongering now.
The base of the Statue of Liberty is emblazoned with Emma Lazarus’ famous paean to America’s golden lamp lighting the way for the oppressed: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddles masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore…” But the fine print of that message seems to read, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore…except for you and you and you.”
So often lately, I wish that my father were still alive so that we could discuss all of this. I know he would be writing blistering op-eds and trying to figure out how to help this new wave of refugees. He died twenty years ago today. AIDS was listed as the cause of death, but make no mistake—it was discrimination that killed him, the hateful idea that AIDS was a gay disease well deserved by a marginalized group of citizens still being denied basic civil rights, and so the government could be slow to act. When the GOP deifies Ronald Reagan, I mostly remember that he did nothing about the AIDS crisis.
Just yesterday, Justice Antonin Scalia mused about ending Affirmative Action in a case before the court now, Fisher V. The University of Texas (my alma mater). To understand Affirmative Action is to understand that people of color have been disproportionately discriminated against in every aspect of American life since always. Affirmative Action, which has been around as long as I have, was an attempt to redress these centuries of discrimination. And, in fact, a report in the New York Times shows that in states where Affirmative Action has been banned, there has been a sharp decrease in the numbers of students of color enrolled in universities. But according to Scalia, “There are those who contend that it does not benefit African-Americans to get them into the University of Texas, where they do not do well — as opposed to having them go to a less advanced school, a slower-track school where they do well…One of the briefs pointed out that most of the black scientists in this country don’t come from schools like the University of Texas. They come from lesser schools where they do not feel that they’re being pushed ahead in classes that are too fast for them…”
Perhaps, like me, you need a moment to put your head back on your neck after it has exploded.
This is a racist statement from a justice on the highest court in our land. A man who earlier showed his contempt for marriage equality with a sneering dissent that likened the landmark decision to grant civil rights to American citizens as being as substantial as “the mystical aphorisms of the fortune cookie.” I am reminded of another piece of recent research, another sneering Supreme Court Justice—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., who, in deciding Buck V. Bell (1927), made the infamous statement, “Three generations of imbeciles are enough.” Buck v. Bell granted states the right to surgically sterilize—against their consent—those American citizens they deemed “unfit.” Carrie Buck’s “crime”, by the way, was that she was considered “feeble-minded” and “promiscuous” for having a child out of wedlock, like her mother. Carrie’s baby—baby!—was judged to be unfit as well, which gave rise to Justice Holmes’ statement. This was another piece of horrible legislation influenced by American eugenicists fanning anti-immigration fears of an “impure” gene pool.
Sometimes, Supreme Court justices aren’t so supreme is what I’m saying here.
We seem to be surprised by the right wing’s blatant bigotry, xenophobia, ignorance, and hatred, and, in some corners, even entertained by Trump’s extreme fascism drag performance. The ugly truth is that America loves a bully. Whether it’s Donald Trump or Dick Cheney or Andrew Jackson, we love a swaggering cowboy spouting bad movie lines about mounting Biblical-styled crusades to crush our enemies real, imagined, and created. We make enemies of the poor, the asylum seekers, the immigrants trying to build a better life here, women, LGBT-rights advocates, and young African-American men buying Skittles or playing their car radios at a volume white America deems “too loud.” We allow politicians and radio pundits to turn real people—complicated and deserving of their humanity, people with bright futures and smiling high school graduation photos and families who love them—into easily demonized and dismissed cardboard cut-outs because it’s easier than fighting the amorphous enemy that is an amoral economic system run amok: Corporations who pollute the air and water, “downsize” at will, and skip out on taxes despite posting staggering profits. Actual villains created through deregulation and delusional greed, through the idea that we, too, can be millionaires or even billionaires like Trump, who, it must be said, came from money. We cling to our Horatio Alger self-made man stories like religious texts long out-of-date and out-of-touch when the truth is that it is the middle and working class who are the unsung heroes of American life. The teachers and firemen, the nurses and aides and managers, the bricklayers and steelworkers putting up the infrastructure of our lives, the parents getting their kids off to school before showing up to work long hours maybe even with a touch of a cold.
This commitment to fairness along with our diversity is our strength, has always been our strength. Not bombs. Not billionaire figureheads. Not closing our borders, our hearts, and our minds. America is not supposed to be a zero-sum game. A loss for one of us really is a loss for all of us. And the gains we make for others—in civil rights, in eradicating poverty, in educating ALL of our children, in building a safety net for those who need it most—really are gains for all.
There have been strides made in the past few years, of course. Marriage equality (Tough shit, Scalia) and We Need Diverse Books and Black Lives Matter and a new, more inclusive and intersectional wave of feminism all come to mind. These victories came courtesy of the people, by the people, for the people. It happened via Twitter and Facebook, through videos uploaded to the Internet for all to see so that it was harder for certain uncomfortable truths to be quite so easily dismissed. Turns out these are exactly the Droids we’re looking for. It happened through the linking of arms and marches in the streets, voices raised in a roar that could not be drowned out by Fox News anchors and pandering politicians eager to keep the lobby money rolling in.
It’s important that we do not stay silent and we do not ignore the lessons of history. For every history teacher out there trying to educate young people, thank you. For students at high schools like those in Jefferson County, Colorado, who held signs reading, “Teach us the truth” as they staged a walk-out rather than be condescended to with censored textbooks designed to promote “”patriotism and … the benefits of the free-enterprise system,” you are awesome. We, the people, must continue to educate ourselves so that we are not drawn in by Lonesome Rhodes-esque hate-rhetoric designed to stimulate the worst in us, instead of appeals to the strength that can be found in our collective compassion.
If you are a young person reading this: This is your future we’re talking about, from the real horrors of climate change to the consequences of war and intolerance and not understanding how interconnected all of this is. Read. Travel. Talk to people whose lives and beliefs are different from your own. Respect those differences. Develop diplomacy and accept compromise, which is not weakness but the way most things actually get done. Work toward fairness. Understand that you are a part of the world; the world is not only you. The greatest tribute you can pay to America and the ideals of fairness, equality, democracy is to make sure that system works for EVERYONE.
One of my strongest memories as an American is of July 20, 1969. I was five years old. The day had come up hot and clear in my south Texas neighborhood, a place that was home to citizens who had once been immigrants from Mexico, Poland, Germany, Ireland. My block was Tejano music and Grand Ole Opry. Republicans and Democrats. We were at war then, too, half a world away. Boys on my street served. And others protested the war. But for a few hours that evening, none of those differences mattered. Neighbors crowded around TV sets together. Food was served. It was a Sunday. My father had preached that morning at Woodlawn Presbyterian Church just as he always did. Tired, I crawled into his lap. He wrapped his arms around me. My mother and brother scooted in close. And we watched in awe as Neil Armstrong float-stepped onto the surface of the moon, an impossible journey made real. “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” he said, and we all cheered as one.
And that is a lesson Mr. Trump and his supporters might do well to heed: Why should we crawl around in the mud and the muck when we are capable of reaching for the stars?
A beautiful statement of truth. Thank you. I have never heard the Oliver Wendell Holmes quote before. That will stick with me. Scary, but liberating too. We just have to go out and make the change ourselves.
~ Gingerbread
Nice
We cannot stand by and wAtch as injustice and bigotry runs rampant in our nation. Each in our way can stand up for light and love in order to shut out the dark. That is what you are doing Libba Bray. I say “Be Not Afraid!”
I think you followed in your dad’s op-ed footsteps tremendously well. I bet he would be proud. I know exactly how you feel about Reagan and AIDS; one of my family members died of it. His death is still listed as pneumonia. I am still not supposed to talk about it.
When I was volunteering on a political campaign in New Hampshire in the early 1990s, I’ll never forget the supporters of another candidate screaming with bullhorns out of their campaign truck as it drove up and down Elm Street in Manchester. They were hollering, “We are the gay bashers. We bash gays.” Later, at a rally, they figured out the ratio of men to women present and how many minutes each man would have to violate her. Then they told the women. Then they tried to convince the women that this was a good idea. The candidate thought it was hysterical. I lost a lot of faith in everything then. It is hard to get it back sometimes, but intelligent discourse helps. People like you help.
Thank you for putting fact and precedent into the discussion.
Nice and well put together that discussion means a lot.
Reblogged this on Amber Skye Forbes.
It is disheartening, but there are so many reaching for the stars, too. Like you, my friend. Keep up the good work!
Thanks for posting this. I knew some of it but not all. Sharing.
Thank you for your incredible words of wisdom. I will be sharing your post .
Thanks, Libba. What a great piece.
This was beautiful. I came here via Tamora Pierce’s facebook page, and I just wanted to say how well you’ve summed up everything I’ve wanted to say to friends and family alike.
I really needed to read this today. Not only did your piece speak to me directly, as if you had taken all my own thoughts and put them to page, but I have felt so disheartened lately by the hate, prejudice, bigotry and overall vitriol that has encased our nation that I have been losing faith in humanity and this country. Hearing your voice, and the voices of others like you, helps me to remember that we are not all like Trump and his supporters and some others in the GOP. And we need those in the GOP who do not support such ignorance and prejudice to stand up and take their party back. Because otherwise their silence stands with the negativity. I have shared this on Twitter and Facebook, though I expect a great deal of conservative backlash when I do, but I would also like to share on my blog if you don’t mind. The more people who read this and learn from it, the better our nation will be. Thank you for your thoughts and your words, and for being brave enough to put yourself out there. The negativity from the Right can be daunting when applied through the screen of social media and the abandonment of the idea that a person should speak respectfully to another. Just know that you have supporters like myself and others behind you if the language becomes too hateful
Reblogged this on Jennifer Austin – Author and commented:
A beautifully written piece about our America, today, yesterday, and what we should strive for in the future. If you read one thing today, it must be this. Yes, it’s that important.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Lair of Dreams is a rare book that gets its message across without being preachy or alientating. Those who disagree with the book’s POV will come away REALLY thinking about the positions they’ve taken and why.
Reblogged this on RadicaLibrarian.
Thank you for that excellent post. I hope the kids are listening.
Needed to read this today- reading the news has felt toxic and disheartening. This, what you’ve said here, helps.
Yes. Absolutely yes.
I nominate you for president. This is amazing. THANK YOU.
After reading this, I am more convinced than ever that you are the perfect author to visit our incredibly multicultural high school. As the REM song says, “Everybody here/Comes from somewhere.”
Thank you sooooo much for mentioning teachers in this post. It means a great deal to me as an English teacher. I came to one of your book signings several years ago in Naperville, IL. You were so much fun to listen to and you were so kind to me for just 5 min and I have never forgotten that experience. I tell all my students to read your books not just because I love them but because they might just find something inspiring in them as well. Thank you for this post. It means a great deal as I stagger under the weight of how to reach out to my students, take them by the hand, and say, come let’s build a better future. Together.
Thank you for having the courage to write this. Often, as writers, we’re told not to write about politics for fear of offending readers. I’m continually scratching my head in wonder, desperately trying to figure out how humanity keeps repeating the same mistakes: “All of this has happened before and will happen again.” I believe it’s even more important than ever that writers stand up and question the bigotry that being espoused in the modern dialectic. You’ve given me hope that if we talk about our past, and where we came from, that we can steer clear of the horrible atrocities we’ve made in the past and are so close to making again.
In the wake of all the hatred and vitriol spewed by GOP candidates and others of their ilk, I vowed to avoid being pulled into their negativity, narrowmindedness, and blind obliviousness to the facts. No politics in my life! No political comments on my social media! But this thoughtful and insightful post has opened my eyes to my responsibility as a citizen of this world. Allowing such blatant racism and discrimination to go unopposed is worse than supporting it in many ways; I can not in good conscience keep my head in the sand. I may not be as articulate as Libba Bray, but I must allow her words to represent my own feelings. Libba, what you said! Every word.
Reblogged this on Read. Watch. Blog.
This is beautiful and much-needed Libba! Congrats!
In our recent federal election we Canadians managed to pull our country from sliding down this same slimy slope. There is hope. (but we are still watchful) May this hope flow to those of you who are needing it.
I am a college student in Baltimore. When I’m asked why I “went there” for my education, I say, “because it’s not dead, because Baltimore is a city of youth,”. We are the captains of our own ship. We are educating ourselves, we are involved in the changing community. It’s hard to hope, but I do. I have hope for my generation.
why education you hard hope come on pepole
Who are you? This is brilliant!
Liked what u said.
nice
Excellent web site you have here.. It’s difficult to find
high quality writing like yours nowadays.
I honestly appreciate individuals like you!
Take care!!
I’m sorry but I cannot fully embrace the total ideal buried in this blog. What I am reading into it is that man can be the master of his on destiny and that never works out well. While I do not particularly like Trump and I feel that there are better candidates on the GOP side I think the populace of America are tired of electing people who promise us security and freedom and give us neither.
I recently attended a lecture, question and answer format, with the author of Hitlerland, Andrew Nagorski and it can be said that there is lot of similarities to what we are seeing in the geopolitical realm of the world and how it is playing out in American politics. We should be very concerned with how we vote this election cycle and not just stick our head in the sand and vote our party line.
Oh, not wanting to be political in the blog-o-sphere, I would be remiss if I did not address the need to apply the same caution to the candidates on the other side of the isle.
Nice one
Sinclair Lewis wrote about this decades ago in his novel “It Can’t Happen Here.”
Amazing post…I don’t normally get political, but this is brilliant!
I am so glad to have stumbled across this incredible post. Technically I’m an immigrant, having arrived here from Europe in the middle of last year. Apart from the fact I’m pretty tired of saying where my accent is from, or even worse people guessing because they are always wrong, our family has been made to feel very welcome. However, there is always that nagging discomfort that I made it here before a Kenyan friend who has more qualifications than some of us would know existed, and is still separated from her husband three years after they married. I don’t understand it and tell her this often.
I am astonished at how much time, energy and money is put into the run for presidency months before voting day, and can only conclude that this encourages farces such as that being played out by Mr Trump. I tried the line of not concerning myself with American politics for at least another 6 months, but now it is hard to avoid. People have asked me if Europeans laugh at America because of Obama, to which I reply he is highly respected. If anyone would care to ask now, they can be assured that people probably are laughing but perhaps it might be that slightly embarrassed giggle when someone is making an idiot of themselves at the dining table.
One final comment and that is about teachers. I applaud my son’s English teacher and the work she has been doing with his class about racial intolerance. It means a lot to us as parents that the principles we have tried to instil are be encouraged by a well-respected teacher. Especially as parents of a teen who might not think we are the sharpest knives in the drawer, but might one day wish that he had us to talk to when politics cause him to despair.
??
‘Develop diplomacy and accept compromise, which is not weakness’ excellent sentence
Beautiful. I loved the line “The greatest tribute you can pay to America and the ideals of fairness, equality and democracy is to make sure that the system works for EVERYONE.”
It truly is mind-boggling to consider the social progress on marriage equality, women’s rights, and Black Lives Matter, while at the same time this kind of xenophobia actually helps a politician in the polls. I still have to believe that support for Trump’s sentiments must be overstated by the polls.
Btw, here is another excellent historical look at egregious discriminatory policies, which echoes the thread you wove together in this piece: http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-12-09/long-anxiety-about-muslims-americans-feared-yellow-peril-chinese-immigration
Reblogged this on oshriradhekrishnabole.
Reblogged this on CHI's blog.
For those with long memories, the Trump fan base reminds me a lot of the George Wallace surge in the Sixties.
this is brilliant post its realy amazing post . thanks for posting. i read all the post. i get somthing nd some one old.
https://howtheworldshouldwork.wordpress.com/2015/12/16/a-presidential-speech/
We need to teach people/children what the public trust is. If people don’t understand their constitutional rights to clean water and air and a livable environment, big business will keep everyone thinking the political system has a right to remain corrupted by private interests. Getting our public trust on the right track will lead all other causes in the survival direction. If we don’t deal with climate change we are literally committing planetary suicide. The following is a practical and optimistic guide to how we (no matter our culture or background) can actually achieve this. We need to know the laws, and what our constitutional rights (inalienable-protected) for all are… to make legislation happen. We have a small window to teach this to the children who have higher moral authority than all the money in the world (if we love them) and then voters can’t be Trumped.
link to book and excerpt:
http://billmoyers.com/2014/09/19/natures-trust-new-approach-environmental-law/
(Mary Christina Wood is the Philip H. Knight Professor of Law and Faculty Director of the Environmental and Natural Resources Law Center at the University of Oregon School of Law. She has taught law for more than twenty years, specializing in property law, environmental law and federal Indian law. She founded the school’s top-ranked Environmental and Natural Resources Law Program. Wood is the co-author of a textbook on natural resources law and another on public trust law.)
The following is an an excerpt from Mary Christina Wood’s book Nature’s Trust: Environmental Law For a New Ecological Age.
“In a three-branch system of government, courts and legislatures should provide meaningful checks and balances to rein in the executive branch and its agencies. But Congress, more susceptible to corporate influence than ever before, deadlocks over environmental policy. Its minimal involvement typically consists of appropriations riders passed to legalize industry behavior that would otherwise violate statutory mandates. Courts, while positioned to force agency compliance with statutory mandates, play a weak role because of a deference doctrine, which accords agency technical decisions a presumption of validity. Absent effective oversight by the other two branches of government, a dangerous amount of power accumulates in the executive branch, both on the federal and state levels. While legal structures vary considerably among different nations, the untrammeled power of agencies, wherever located, can create an administrative tyranny over nature and a menace to environmental democracy…”
“Any trust relies on strong judicial enforcement of fiduciary duties. Without a robust judiciary, there exists no trust – only tyranny. This book devoted a chapter to judicial enforcement, outlining steps that judges could take immediately, within their realm of authority and judicial tradition, to restore integrity to environmental law and enforce the property rights of citizen beneficiaries. It argued for judicial review of legislative action under fiduciary standards of loyalty to the public. It underscored the need for judicial remedies to address the institutional dysfunction of agencies in their management of resources. When faced with long-standing agency incompetence, corruption and dereliction of duty, courts prove effective only by intervening (either temporarily or for protracted periods) directly into the agency’s processes. We also detailed the elements of structural injunctions and described institutional remedies that could promote effective judicial supervision. While these types of remedies have ample precedent and remain well within the realm of equitable authority, courts have not yet used them widely in environmental law.”
https://youtu.be/ktyq3vK6Ppg
above video is aprox. 20 minutue interview: The Children’s Climate Crusade
“The very agencies created to protect our environment have been hijacked by the polluting industries they were meant to regulate. It may just turn out that the judicial system, our children and their children will save us from ourselves, Mary Christina Wood, a legal scholar, tells Bill Moyers.”
Thanks for allowing my long comment and excerpts and for your original post.
This is in an incredible article. I Really enjoyed reading it
The course that American immigration policy has taken throughout its history has left an America that we know today. Although vitriol and chaotic rhetoric may exist, borders are drawn for a reason: they are self-identifying elements. Banning all non-American muslims during times of heightened security is not bigotry or racist. It serves as a precaution. Not all dogs bite, and most are sweethearts, but if rabies runs rampant in a community than a wise decision would be to be weary of all dogs in the community and precautionary measures taken. Radical Islam is the rabies virus and, unfortunately Muslims are the most susceptible to it. Please do not mistake over-inflated rhetoric as bigotry and racism. There are other ways to solve a refugee crisis and that is by stopping and obliterating the radicals as Russia has been doing in Syria. Eliminating the radical Islamists waging Jihad will allow the refugees to return home, the one place they would rather be.
Yeah, you’re out of your mind other side of the story blog. There’s no where to return for the refugees. They can’t go back, your heartless bigoted racist.
Your right they can’t go back now because their homes have been taken over and their lives in danger because of jihadists. Do you really think anyone would leave their homeland for no reason at all? Nope they would rather stay there, well the majority of them anyway. And the only bigotry that you perceive is an argument not aligned with yours. Make decisions based on much information as possible rather than with tugged heartstrings.
Good morning other side of the story. You’re actually using violent words to dehumanize all muslims and your rhetoric is ugly. The real political story is more complicated than you are making it and your political agenda is showing.
This has nothing to do with the tug of my heart strings.
I don’t live in fear and I don’t “meme” people into hatred. You are granting the jihadists way too much power over your imagination and or you want the war too.
After I read this in your article:
“But according to Scalia, “There are those who contend that it does not benefit African-Americans to get them into the University of Texas, where they do not do well — as opposed to having them go to a less advanced school, a slower-track school where they do well…One of the briefs pointed out that most of the black scientists in this country don’t come from schools like the University of Texas. They come from lesser schools where they do not feel that they’re being pushed ahead in classes that are too fast for them… Perhaps, like me, you need a moment to put your head back on your neck after it has exploded.”
it reminded me of this article: http://tressiemc.com/2015/12/10/the-great-mismatch/
thought you might be interested.
I thought your “young african american men buying skittles” line made you seem a little estranged from them, btw.
Anyhow… thanks.
tabby
Freedom!!
I really enjoyed this post. Thank you for taking the time to express your thoughts and feelings so clearly. While on agree with your points I also find myself trying hard to synch your idealized version with the harsh realities of the real world. As someone who has served this country for almost twenty years it’s the ideals that keep me going and continuing to serve but as a father of four with two grandchildren the harsh realities are a daily battle. How much to push back. How hard to fight for my country against a perceived threat that in reality is so small but is able to generate so much passion in others.
Oh read the news from around the world. The daily attacks, the daily bombings. The hundreds of people killed in far off places like Nigeria and Kenya and Sudan. In india and Pakistan. Mexico and South America. Those stories downtown even register here in the US and you won’t find them unless you take the time to look.
And I wonder how much of my idealism I’m willing to forego to prevent those forces of evil from coming and infecting my country.
No good answers in this battle of the mind and soul. It’s not a battle that will be won by bombs or boots on the ground. While those serve to bring down the fever of this disease, they won’t provide a cure.
My Senior Citizens Center has domestic and foreign affairs political discussion groups, attended regularly by about 20-30 people. This is in the Deep South, but most of the participants are urban Yankee transplants who still believe government has answers, so they want to regulate everything. They are also heavily invested in war contractor stocks, such as Halliburton, utility stocks, such as Southern Company, employee abuser stocks like Wal-Mart and McDonalds, and they can’t understand why anyone with intelligence would vote for Trump.
However, all these transplanted Yankees, who are all too smart to vote for Trump, are not smart enough to avoid spending 90 minutes of group time arguing over the TV-corporate spin on “The Donald,” as the rabbi likes to call him. I finally got my two major points across to at least a couple of the geezers today. (They’re a little hard of hearing, so I have to yell a lot.) My points were these:
1. Why are so many refugees fleeing Syria? It’s not ISIS. It’s the US presence that’s making their homeland living hell. The US is the one doing the bombings, and creating the mayhem everyone is running away from.
2. What is Trump’s foreign policy? Not to reject immigrants but to butt out of the Mid-East and let them plant farms where we’re planting land mines. Maybe then they won’t want or need to leave. They already speak the language.
I contend many of Trump’s supporters are Vietnam era veterans, families, or protesters who remember what a tragedy that was. Perhaps we need to look at Donald Trump with new eyes.
What you fail to see is your own naivete. You’ve believed in things that aren’t real, that only exist as an imitation of a copy of a previous imitation
Thanks for a great post and some articulate writing.
Powerful piece with excellent advice for young people like myself. I like how you examined history; when people seem so shocked by Trump’s current behavior (and don’t get me wrong, it does warrant a strong emotional response), I always think back to the acts you mentioned. Same old song and dance.
“I write fiction, but I didn’t have to make any of this up.” Let me conclude by mentioning how much I like this line and how relatable I think it is.