Message from Trump supporting friend after many email exchanges. He ignored the facts I provided. It was evident he did not want to read what I shared with him. This guy is, in fact, a rocket scientist! I expected more of my friend, more thinking and analysis of the facts, but see the cult of Trumpism is strong.
"Frank
There are two sides to every issue... right and wrong. I just don’t choose to be on the wrong side.
Cheers"
Is there no hope for a rational discussion of issues? Are all too ready to see what we want to see? Example:
“The Abyss of Hate Versus Hate”
By Andrew Sullivan Jan. 25, 2019
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/01/andrew-sullivan-the-abyss-of-hate-versus-hate.html
“What I saw was extraordinary bigotry, threats of violence, hideous misogyny, disgusting racism, foul homophobia, and anti-Catholicism — not by the demonized schoolboys, but by grown men with a bullhorn, a small group of self-styled Black Hebrew Israelites.”
Andrew is right. But even with Andrew's focus on the Black Hebrew Israelites ugliness, I cannot give the Catholic boys a pass. Fox News jump all over the "haters' that criticized the smirking boy in the red MAGA hat, and the loud MAGA hat kids in the background like they were nice kids.
Fox used a sarcastic, holier-than-thou tone in criticizing those who saw the boy In a bad light.
But Fox was wrong too! The boy was disrespecting his elders and many people saw it in plan sight.
There were judgements that might be too limited in scope because they did not include the Black Hebrew Israelites, but no one was wrong to call our the no-chaperoned kids from school!
“The MAGA Teens Aren’t Innocent Victims”
The incident at the Lincoln Memorial was more complicated than it initially seemed, but new footage doesn’t exonerate the kids in the red caps.
By Ruth Graham 21 Jan 2019
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/01/nick-sandmann-nathan-phillips-maga-video.html
"“If the Covington Catholic incident was a test, it’s one I failed,” Ohio writer Julie Irwin Zimmerman wrote in the Atlantic, vowing to “sit out” the next outrage cycle. “As I watched the longer videos, I began to see the smirking kid in a different light.”
You cowed to pressure, Julie. You were right about the kid, he was being nasty.
"I still don’t—or at least not completely. Most accounts, including mine, made no claim that Sandmann first approached Phillips. And it’s worth noting that Sandmann’s actions were seen as aggressive by almost everyone who saw that initial video, including those most inclined to be sympathetic to him. The boy’s school and its Catholic diocese quickly issued an apology. The March for Life posted a statement (now deleted) from its president saying that the “reprehensible behavior” in the video does not represent the march. Many other March for Life attendees and supporters reacted in horror and shame. This is because of what everyone saw so clearly in the initial clip, and what hasn’t changed with the additional information: Sandmann’s smirk, and his failure to get out of Phillips’ face."
People's first reactions, in my experience, are usually right. In this case, we simply had to add reactions to the others there, the nasty group of Black Hebrew Israelites. So we ADD to he story and do NOT need to apologize to the boy for anything. It's sad his parents did not have the courage to tell the truth, but rather got a professional public relations company to lie, "doctor" the situation, and "explain" (Give him a lie to tell to help him cover up his bad behavior.) the boys bad behavior.
There a lot to the narrative here, but the boy had to get a written statement from a public relations firm his parents hired to get through an interview where he said he did nothing and wanted to talk to the Native American he was confronting with his smirk / sneer / smirk.
If the sneering / smirking boy really wanted to talk, he had a chance when he stood inches away from his face!
"The new facts about this small encounter this weekend in Washington are important, and worth clarifying. But they don’t change the larger story, the one that caused so many people to react so viscerally to the narrative’s first, and simpler, draft. We shouldn’t make the same mistake the president does when he confuses climate and weather. The weather is the encounter between Sandmann and Phillips, and it’s the media’s responsibility to describe it accurately (once we’ve decided to describe it at all). The climate includes a president whose name is used as a taunt by school bullies and racist harassers, who wields the rhetoric of domestic violence to cause pain and then blame those who are suffering, who delights in teasing and threatening his enemies, and who just last week made a joke about a government massacre of Native Americans. It would be a mistake to let our pre-existing views persuade us to see something in this particular video that isn’t there. But it would also be misguided to let the complexities of the scene at the Lincoln Memorial dissuade us from telling the truth about who Trump is and exactly what he stands for"
While it is apparently true the media has given the Black Hebrew Israelites a pass, of a sort, there nonetheless a problem with the young MAGA-hat wearing boys.
Then, in an otherwise well thought article, Andrew defends bad behavior of 16-years old boys who should have been escorted by adults in a Pro-life demonstration. Why were there no adults from the Kentucky Covington Catholic school accompanying the 16 year old boys?
At this point, Andrew reveals his bias against what he calls "liberals."
"Yes, the boys did chant some school riffs; I’m sure some of those joining in the Native American drumming and chanting were doing it partly in mockery, but others may have just been rolling with it. Yes, they should not have been wearing MAGA hats to a pro-life march. They aren’t angels; they’re teenage boys [Oh, I see, being a teenage boy is an excuse?]. But they were also subjected for quite a while to a racist, anti-Catholic, homophobic tirade on a loudspeaker, which would be more than most of us urbanites could bear — and they’re adolescents literally off the bus from Kentucky [Oh, being from Kentucky, and being an adolescent makes them "country boys" and childish?]. I heard no slurs back [Thank goodness!]. They stayed there because they were waiting for a bus, not to intimidate anyone. [Where were the adult chaperones?]
To put it bluntly: They were 16-year-olds subjected to verbal racist assault by grown men; and then the kids were accused of being bigots. It just beggars belief that the same liberals who fret about “micro-aggressions” for 20-somethings were able to see 16-year-olds absorbing the worst racist garbage from religious bigots … and then express the desire to punch the kids in the face."
I recognize the Catholic boys did not start the nastiness, and not "as nasty" as the Black Hebrew Israelites, the boys were not the worst of it. Where were the adults supervising the school boys and why do we assume the elderly Indian was not, in fact, trying to defuse an ugly situation?
The boy facing the elderly Indian drummer was not doing the right thing.
"Othering" is hurting us all, comes too easily for Americans. Maybe not Andrew, right? Oh, wait. Read this bit.
“There’s a reason why, in the crucial battle for the legitimacy of a free press, Trump is still on the offensive. Our mainstream press has been poisoned by tribalism. My own trust in it is eroding. I’m far from the only one.”
The "media" is the "others" and they are not to be trusted since they saw this incident 100% wrong? I think there is more to the story, Andrew, and you are "othering." But Andrew is complex, and sees tribalism as an issue in America. I am glad Andrew is discovering the ugly underbelly of our history.
"From my perspective, the Trump threat to liberal democracy is deepening, largely because its racial animus and rank tribalism are evoking a response that is increasingly imbued with racial animus and rank tribalism, in an ever-tightening spiral of mutual hostility."
Andrew notes how President Trump is dividing the country into hate groups. It was easy, wasn't it. Sadly, way too easy.
Andrew seems to wander thru this complex tribalism in a unique way, saying people do not like white people. Where did that come from?
"I can understand this impulse emotionally as a response to Trump’s hatefulness. But I fear it morally or politically. It’s a vortex that can lead to nothing but the raw imposition of power by one tribe over another. There can be no dialogue here, no debate, not even a State of the Union in which both tribes will participate. And none of us is immune.
What was so depressing to me about the Covington incident was how so many liberals felt comfortable taking a random teenager and, purely because of his race and gender [Andrew, where did this come from?], projected onto him all their resentments and hatred of “white men” in general."
Andrew is right, none of us is immune, so we all must seek the WHOLE STORY. Those red MAGA hats are like the Confederate Flag or a Nazi symbol in 2019.
Sorry Fox News, the red hats represent people who bully people.
Andrew misses one of the most important points, maybe THE most important: 16 year old boys will follow the example their President presents.
Yes, we all need to work on eliminating harmful bias, prejudice, and tribalism, but it starts with the President. It must start with the President!
President trump failed again to find a way to bring our nation together in a conflict situation, to speak wisely as Solomon would. Rather than help, president trump took a side. President trump continues to miss opportunities to give a speech to bring Americans together. President trump is immature and selfish. President trump continues to fuel the fires of hate and division in our country at every opportunity.
“This is the abyss of hate versus hate, tribe versus tribe. This is a moment when we can look at ourselves in the mirror of social media and see what we have become. Liberal democracy is being dismantled before our eyes — by all of us. This process is greater than one president. It is bottom-up as well as top-down. Tyranny, as Damon Linker reminded us this week, is not just political but psychological, and the tyrannical impulse, ratcheted up by social media, is in all of us. It infects the soul of the entire body politic. It destroys good people. It slowly strangles liberal democracy. This is the ongoing extinction level event.”
Our history is we murdered native Americans and took their lands (the United States), enslaved blacks so white people cold benefit economically, we fear Chinese when they work harder, longer, and for less money than whites will, we interned Japanese in WWII because we feared them, we are afraid Hispanics will make whites a minority in America, we think the poor are taking too many entitlements, and the rich people get tax breaks in a rigged economy so they can hide their money.
Friends, Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, the press, Congress, all mostly see complex issues black vs white, right or wrong, all in ZERO SUM terms! Transactional relations!
There's GRAY in complex issues! Life leads to death, this is the only zero sum "game: in our lives!
Americans, like most people in the world are afflicted with fear. Our history of violence and cruelty and wars reflects our fears.
America has experienced a Culture War for our entire history. Americans, white Americans have been "Othering" (A technical term, a real term - look it up.) from the day our forefathers set foot on the soil in Massachusetts.
“How Everything Became the Culture War”
America’s petty tribal arguments are now driving the bus on serious policy. Here’s why we should worry.
By MICHAEL GRUNWALD November/December 2018
This article is very long and complex so go read it for the details of our culture war and division.
“‘This is your fault’: GOP senators clash over shutdown inside private luncheon”
By Sean Sullivan and Paul Kane January 24 at 10:27 PM
We are a people, white Americans, who need to take a close look at our morals and values.
President Trump is not a leader to bring the country together. Tweety is amoral, and if not racist, "a-racist" meaning he does not care about ANY RACE.
Every source of information shows bias, some a lot, some a little. It is exhausting to find the whole story, the facts, and the truth in one place.
I know two extremist Trump supporters, one is a pharmacist and the other a rocket scientist, they tell me they are on the right side, and I am on the wrong side. The world is zero sum to them.
I tell them I am not on a side!
These two Trump extremists are friends, and until Donald Trump became President, they were just conservatives. Now they show a "Trumpster" POV, where the President supports and espouses threats of violence, rudeness, meanness, nastiness, ugliness, bullying, sexism, racism, and worse.
The "Trumpster" mentality is beyond comprehension for me, but I will not stop trying to see what is behind this massive rejection of true American values.
My friends say I hate President Trump if I point out his lies. I would also be happy to highlight lies and foolishness by Dems. It's a reflex when they say I hate Trump when I ask about his policy to cage kids at the border, and they refer to Obama's policies. My challenges and questions go unanswered, but the reflex "You hate Trump!" comes quick.
Then comes, "Obama." President Obama was a traitor to America, a racist in his own right, caged kids too, did not do good for America, and worse.
The politics of the 2019 government shut down, and the politics of everything in government has my wife on edge daily. I imagine a lot of people are on edge with extreme tribalism.
To repeat, one Trump supporting friend wrote me this yesterday, and I was shocked:
"Frank
There are two sides to every issue... right and wrong. I just don’t choose to be on the wrong side.
Cheers"
When my friend says this, and Trump supporters say this. we are literally playing a zero sum game in our politics in 2019! If I am right, you must be wrong, zero sum!
We needed change in the Governing of our country, a refreshed approach, a different sort of non-tribal Congress. We did not get that with Trump becoming President.
