They Don't Deserve Our Respect

A friend of mine posted an article on Facebook which asked a wildly loaded question, "Why is it so hard for educated liberals to empathize with Trump supporters?"  This comes on the back of other questions I've heard from the right, such as 'Why do Democrats not understand the nuance of voting for Trump,' and 'Why are liberals such sore losers, constantly insulting Trump voters?'   Like I said, loaded questions.  "Since we insist all Democrats are bad, let's ask questions based on our false narrative, phrasing it in a pseudo-authoritative way, making our insult seem like scientific fact!"

Trump's going to be a national disaster.  He just is.  As I type this, he's holding a press conference where he's regurgitating his campaign's talking points, wrapped in a bitterness he so willingly displays.  Much of the left hates him because he's a con man, but that too isn't what's gotten the left riled up.

Democrats, Progressives and Liberals are extremely angry, but not because they're sore losers.  It's because Trump and his supporters are sore winners.

To understand this, let's go on a history lesson.

1970's - This all started with Watergate, the Republican scandal trying to fix the 1972 election by breaking into the Watergate building.  Republican insiders, upset about getting caught, learned from their mistakes, and decided to take a different tact.  If they could convince enough Americans the Democrats were EVIL, control the news, and dramatically outspend the Democrats in elections, they could control the election process itself, and take control.  They started to court religious extremists, especially in the Southern US, who hated Roe v. Wade, giving Christian churches a higher priority seat within the Republican party realm.  Thus began the 'Godless Democrats' talking point, a political takedown at the pulpit, where Democrats were accused of being Satan incarnate.  When Christians blindly voted for Trump in 2016, people don't realize the seeds of those votes were planted 45 years ago.  The GOP successfully argued money equals speech, and hence, limiting money in campaigns was the equivalent of limiting speech.  They realized style was more important than substance and tried hard to get Reagan to replace Ford on the 76 ticket.  They failed, but in turn they got Jimmy Carter in the White House, a candidate they immediately labeled as weak and ineffective.

1980's - Reagan was the clear GOP front runner coming into 1980, and Republican strategists started trying new campaign tactics.  Reagan began using phrases like 'Strapping Young Buck' on southern tour stops, undeniable racist tinged language to alert white southerners which candidate was on their side.  This was the beginning of the blatant racism of today, a pool of filth Trump and his supporters gleefully wallow in.  Reagan won (with help from the extremely mysterious ending to the Iranian Hostage Crisis), and he, with help from the GOP insiders, created what are Republican standards today; anti-union, anti-minority, anti-women's rights, anti-government and the tax burden being the responsibility of people making 100K or less a year.  He got rid of the Fairness Doctrine in media, instantly changing the primary goal of our media from quality to ideology.  Thus began conservative media driving the right's 'Republicans are good, Democrats are bad' zealotry.

Then came Iran Contra, the Reagan administration's selling of arms illegally to Iran, and in turn using the proceeds to fund the Contras in Nicaragua, something Congress had specifically made illegal. This was undeniably orchestrated by Reagan and his Administration, but could they convince the American people they were innocent after getting caught red handed breaking the law?  They found a patsy in Lieutenant Colonel (LT) Oliver North.  For the record, as a person who served in the Army, there is NO WAY a single LT could do all the things North took credit for.  He might've been able to get weapons, but the armory folks have nothing to do with flight clearance, especially over foreign countries.  Sadly, the lie worked.  With a media failing to do basic follow up reporting, the Administration was able to walk away from the charges, and even got their most ardent supporters convinced the Democrats were just sore losers.  Thus began the warping of reality to fit the narrative the GOP wanted to feed their followers.

1990's - This decade is where the modern Republican machine went from crawling to sprinting.  After H.W. Bush lost a second term, the party started moving away from being 80's moderates, and started giving more clout to the extremist members of the party.  With the rise of the 24 hour news outlets, and the passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, a law which opened up ownership rules in media, leading to conservatives owning 90% of all media in this country, they learned that crazy people, while journalistically abhorrent and questionable, got viewers.  The more Newt Gingrich and the far right Republicans screamed, the more airtime they got, a harbinger of the craziness we'd see under Obama.  They started endless investigations of President Clinton, misogynist attacks on Hillary Clinton, and created a new GOP standard; fight the opposition party tooth and nail on everything.

In the 90's, the Republicans also started a war on facts and science.  The right had been a big endorser of the tobacco industry, and when the inevitable truth about cigarettes came out, they lost some of their bigger bankrollers.  They didn't want the gas/oil/coal industry to suffer the same fate, so they began an active campaign to 1) create their own science when it came to undeniable scientific evidence of climate change, and 2) convince their followers of some weird conspiracy, where every scientist on the planet was trying to ruin our lives with cleaner water and air.  In the end, the 90's were an unabashed success for the Republicans. They managed to get Clinton impeached, completely derailed climate change policy for decades, and planted the seeds for Hillary's eventual loss in 2016.

2000's - Since the Republicans had never delivered on the promises they'd made to the blue collar working class under Reagan and H.W., they needed foot soldiers.  The Republicans welcomed in the far right extremists (religious crazies, anti-government wack jobs, racists, and Libertarians) to act as their new foot soldiers in the W. Bush campaign.  These people automatically believe the worst in their political opponents, and bellow it loudly to anyone who'll listen.  They used a bias Supreme Court to award W. the Presidency in 2000 (even though Al Gore was the rightful winner) and started a new Republican 'policy' front; 'if a Democratic voter doesn't vote, of if their vote doesn't get counted, that's one less vote against the Republicans.'  Republicans, buoyed by screams of voter fraud, tried to find any way to prevent Democratic votes from counting.  9/11 gave the Republicans the endless war they always wanted, and the marketing campaign against the Democrats, 'since you're anti-American terrorist lovers, and since we support the troops, YOU hate America!'

It was at this point the Democrats started waking up.  During the W. Bush Presidency, the current feelings Democrats have towards Trump supporters began forming.  What had seemed like unconnected rhetoric was undeniably being revealed as a larger plot, exposed with the most misguided of insults.  When calling Democrats anti-Christian, anti-worker, pro-minority and anti-America didn't work, Republican voters started in with insanely far fetched comparisons, to Hitler, Stalin, Commies, Religious extremists, or bin Laden.  When the Democrats tried in ernest to point out there's a big difference between a Democrat and a Nazi or a Communist, the Right's foot soldiers wanted to hear nothing of it, screaming Nazi and Commie at louder levels, with far right media recording it all.  Add to that the hollow realization that the Republicans had actually lied the American people into a war, and enough was enough.  The Democrats fought back in 2006 with the 50 State Strategy, unexpectedly winning the House and Senate, and setting the stage for President Obama in 2008.

Obama - Republicans, realizing Democrats actually being Democrats would be hard to counterpunch, started convincing Democrats they couldn't win unless they were 'Republican lite.'  Former moderate Republicans who'd become outcasts, rural Democrats, and conservative media pushed this false notion, helping to create the mess the Democrats are in today.  Too many Democrats in 10,12,14 and 16 trying to be 'Republican lite' were soundly beaten by actual Republicans.

The angry, irrational, insane vitriol of the Republicans coalesced into the tea party, with people screaming for Obama's Birth certificate, insisting he was from Kenya, accusing him of being a Muslim and an extremist Christian (at the same time), and, in case you didn't notice, HE'S BLACK!  And when Hillary became the likely nominee in 2013 the GOP started the endless investigations into her; 7 Benghazi investigations, 3 E-Mail investigations, 2 Clinton Foundation Investigations.  Number of charges against her, ZERO!  But the right ALWAYS was eager to investigate more.

In 2016, the Republicans insisted they were against the elites, but whole heartedly backed a billionaire living in a New York City Penthouse who likes to surround himself with golden things (like showers!) and who hates the working class of America.  Republicans insisted their Trump support wasn't born from racism, but everything Trump and his supporters said was dripping with bigotry.  Republican voters insisted the policies of Trump were the real reason they were voting for him, but even today, he has yet to explain ANY of his policies, outside of how much he loves Russia and is willing to use the Presidency as a money making machine for himself.  All of it came together for the Republicans, and (beyond my worst nightmares) Trump won.

The Democrats were in shock, and dumbfounded, wondering what happened.  They were blindsided by the slow moving train which had been heading their direction since 1975.  I think many on the left, as they crawled out of their funk, were ready to resign themselves to President Trump, but that's when Trump and his supporters became sore winners.  Trump did a victory tour, insisted the 2.9 million vote margin in favor of Hillary was actually a massive victory for him, with a mandate.  Trump supporters were thumping their chests, trying to rub the Democrats faces in Trump, culminating in a relentless storm of bizarro news stories and opinion pieces, insisting the idiots who voted in this train wreck were the smart ones, that Democrats were too intelligent and rational to 'get it.' "The stupid Democrats don't see how complex and sophisticated us morons really are!"

I see you guys, and I still only see Racists and Idiots.

All Trump voters are doing right now is creating a future excuse for the inevitable catastrophe.  They know this is going to blow up in their faces, so they're already insisting, "It wasn't us actually voting him into office!  It was those big mean, sore loser Democrats who never gave Trump a chance."

Democrats, the insults, hatred, and condemnation you're wanting to heap on Trump and his supporters is valid, justified, and LONG overdue.  Don't shy away from hammering these clowns with EVERYTHING you've got.  Let's make sure they crawl back into the holes they dared peak out of 16 years ago.  Let's take back America before it's too late!

Here's the response I posted to my friend's Facebook article:

After 35 years of being screamed at, insisting our facts don't matter, our research doesn't matter, our opinions don't matter, our votes don't matter, our background and experience doesn't matter, and that the left itself does not matter, people on the left don't feel the need to respect and recognize an individual with very little self thought or intelligence, who bellows a 1/10th truth in our faces, usually with a gun and/or Bible on their hip, insisting they're the smart ones now because they're flawed opinions are bolstered by agenda driven politicians and a compromised far right media.

Well said, if I do say so myself!  If I might add:  Trump supporters, go F- yourself.