The Political Debate

President Trump is not merely a bull in a China shop. He's a sparker in an ammo dump. Estimates are that he lies as often as he tweets, an average of seven per day. Foreign governments can't rely on him to keep his own word let alone abide by international treaties. He is a political chameleon acting one way in private and then entirely different in public. He has betrayed his own base and done more to advance the regression of our society back to robber baron status then Ronald Reagan. Yet his base still loves him.

Blacks. Whites. Men. Women. Educated or not. He enjoys significant support along the whole demographic spectrum. Why?

The knee jerk reaction of racism does not satisfy. And if He-Who-Must-Always-Be-Blamed really hacked/influenced/colluded/mass-hypnotized the electorate into voting Trump how can he enjoy such popularity? Russia manipulated the American voters to elect the most popular candidate? Are we the Manchurian Electorate all of the sudden? Me thinks thou doth scapegoat too much.

Last month I had the good fortune and better pleasure to take an extended vacation and train ride across the 9000 km of the neo-Mordor. My traveling companions included some Ausies, New Zealanders, Russians, and Americans like me. Two of them were from Michigan and were postal employees. Blue collar workers. Dennis and Michelle.

I got to know them and of course politics came up. We were on the Tsar's Trans Siberian Railroad creeping from Moscow to Vladivostock in our own car and were going to be together for a while. They were Libertarians but were leaning toward Trump. How so? I asked. Dennis said, If so many people in the public don't like him, what's he doing right?

I let them know that I consider myself an old school liberal who is watching his movement slip into fascism. I still don't intend on leaving it since I feel that it left me. They will have to eject me forcibly.

Dennis was listening to Rush Limbaugh one day. They didn't mention Alex Jones but it wouldn't surprise me if they listened to him, too. Their arguments sounded canned and self justifying, like many of ours, but they were hardly racist, homophobic, or any of the other name calling we all engage in. They are people. They are Americans. They are intelligent. They are all the things we routinely say that 'they' are not. Some of the things they said I felt were untrue, but untrue is not the same as inhuman. And we toss around plenty of our own untruths. Some of them extremely dangerous.

So why are we here in the mess we are in? And what should we do about it? Care for a polite debate?