Over the past few weeks, we have seen President-elect Donald Trump embark on an unprecedented “Thank You Tour” to those states where the blue walls were broken. I am not sure what these victory laps are meant to achieve except to feed the insatiable narcissism that lives deep in the heart of our next President.
I know of more than a few folks who supported Trump in the campaign and for the most part all have been respectful. Perhaps it is because they acknowledge that the winner of the presidency tallied almost three million votes less than his opponent, or maybe it is their hope, as it is mine, that this nation – as divided as it is – can find a way to mend itself.
Still, there are a few yahoos out there who simply can’t help themselves. You know who they are. They could be the obnoxious passenger on a Delta flight, or those who cower in the cover of darkness with cans of spray paint desecrating temples and mosques with swastikas. We’ve known that these people always existed, but our President-elect has now given them license to run amuck.
It isn’t those people on the fringe that concern me. They will always walk among us. What I find particularly repugnant are those comments that come from seemingly intelligent people who just can’t keep themselves from dancing in the end zone. In the NFL, that brings a penalty. In the real world, the penalty could mean something a lot worse. As Abe Lincoln said, “A house divided among itself cannot stand.” We have much to prove to ourselves to ensure this doesn’t happen here.
Fortunately for me, I am getting these emails from only one source. But given that they come from the keyboard of a friend I have known for forty years or more, they are particularly disturbing. The comments, of course, are not his. It is always easier to quote someone else (see Abe Lincoln, above). Still, they are for the most part, frankly silly.
Consider the following. Daniel Greenfield, a Shilman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, who proclaims to be a “New Yorker focusing on Islam” wrote a piece that had a tinge of a blend of Don Quixote and Horatio Alger when he referred to the election as a “revolution”. Seriously.
He writes: “It’s midnight in America. The day before fifty million Americans got up and stood before the great iron wheel that had been grinding them down.”
“Sons who didn’t see a future for themselves. Daughters being afraid of being murdered by the ‘unaccompanied minors’ flooding their towns.”
Then of course, there were kudos for the white working class who stood up against its oppressors by electing a billionaire. A billionaire, who indeed is draining the swamp in Washington. After all, he needs more room for many more reptiles. And yes, by cutting taxes on everyone, including the wealthy, more jobs for those who have been ground down will be the foregone conclusion. Of course.
Greenfield’s rhetoric, like sadly so many others, serves to widen the divide that exists. The next four years will be challenging if the likes of Daniel Greenfield continue to spew. And it will seem like a lot longer than four years if others glom on to the ever growing rhetoric of the Alt Right. May God Help America.
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