MESSAGE
| DATE | 2021-01-12 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
|
| SUBJECT | Subject: [Hangout - NYLXS] trump supporters doxed by left
|
Opinion | All Donald Trump’s Deplorables
William McGurn
5-7 minutes
Whatever political future Donald Trump might have envisioned for himself
is now dead. He squandered a good chunk of it in the Georgia runoffs,
when he made them all about himself instead of about keeping Republican
control over the Senate. But it was finished off by the mob of his own
supporters who stormed the Capitol this past Wednesday and inflicted
more lasting damage on their man than anything his enemies ever managed.
At the moment, Washington is consumed with just how humiliating Mr.
Trump’s exit will be—with a second impeachment, with the 25th Amendment
invoked, with his resignation. There’s even talk of holding a Senate
trial when he’s no longer president.
But for anyone who cares about unity and healing, the president’s fate
is no longer the primary concern. More important is the future for the
half of America that supported him. Because there is an effort to lump
the 74 million Americans who voted for Mr. Trump with those who rampaged
through the Capitol—thus rendering them unfit for polite society going
forward.
There’s no denying the reality of the thugs. But let me tell you about
the people I know who attended that rally. To a person, they are decent,
ordinary Americans who didn’t enter the Capitol and wouldn’t dream of
disobeying a police officer.
Some (but not all) believe the election was stolen. They’re mistaken,
but that doesn’t make them white supremacists, domestic terrorists,
religious extremists or any of the many noxious names they’ve been
called. Those I know personally are now terrified that they will be
doxed—meaning vengeful leftists will make their personal information
public—and perhaps fired from their jobs if it gets out they were in
Washington for the rally.
These are also people who have no problem with arresting and prosecuting
those who did break the law that Wednesday. A Reuters/Ipsos poll reports
that only 9% of Americans consider the rioters “concerned citizens” and
5% call them “patriots.” The remaining 90% includes millions of Trump
voters.
True, those millions include some, perhaps many, who believe in
conspiracy theories and don’t trust their government.
But where could that have come from? Might it have something to do with
watching leading media outlets proudly declare they wouldn’t even try to
be fair in reporting about Mr. Trump, and then go on to promote the
conspiracy theory that the president was a Russian agent? Is it any
surprise that people might then look to other sources of information,
some of which are dubious? Or that distrust in government grew as people
learned how leaders at the FBI and Justice Department abused their
police powers to interfere in an election and then undermine an elected
president?
Everywhere a Trump voter turns, he sees ostensibly apolitical
organizations enlisting in the “resistance.” Here’s an email just sent
to every kid in America applying to college through the Common App:
“We witnessed a deeply disturbing attack on democracy on Wednesday, when
violent white supremacist insurrectionists stormed the U.S. Capitol in
an attempt to undo a fair and legal election. The stark differences
between how peaceful Black and brown protesters have been treated for
years relative to Wednesday’s coup again call attention to the open
wound of systemic racism.”
Mr. Trump’s power to cool passions, now running at a fever pitch, is
almost nil, and in any event his time is running out. But if Joe Biden
means what he says about being president for all Americans, including
those who didn’t vote for him, he has work to do. A healthy start would
be to ask his fellow Democrats to call off the impeachment that will
only rub raw an open wound, or make clear to the anti-Trump Republicans
in the Lincoln Project that their effort to blacklist anyone who served
in the Trump administration is a prescription for more rancor and division.
Some ask: Why is it on Mr. Biden to soothe disenchanted Trump followers?
The answer is because in a week he will be the nation’s leader—and he’s
already promised as much. In his victory speech he said it was time to
“stop treating our opponents as enemies.” He’s right, but it will take
leadership to make these words real for millions of Trump voters who
feel, with reason, that the hatred and contempt directed at Mr. Trump is
also meant for them.
Hillary Clinton admitted this when she infamously labeled these voters
“deplorables.” But funny thing about that: In her original remarks, she
made clear she was consigning only half of Mr. Trump’s supporters to her
“basket of deplorables.”
The other half, she said, are “people who feel that the government has
let them down, the economy has let them down, nobody cares about them,
nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures.” She
went on to advise that “those are people we have to understand and
empathize with as well.”
She was willing to consider at least half of Mr. Trump’s supporters
worthy of understanding and empathy. Today, this would make Mrs. Clinton
the moderate.
Write to mcgurn-at-wsj.com.
--
So many immigrant groups have swept through our town
that Brooklyn, like Atlantis, reaches mythological
proportions in the mind of the world - RI Safir 1998
http://www.mrbrklyn.com
DRM is THEFT - We are the STAKEHOLDERS - RI Safir 2002
http://www.nylxs.com - Leadership Development in Free Software
http://www.brooklyn-living.com
Being so tracked is for FARM ANIMALS and extermination camps,
but incompatible with living as a free human being. -RI Safir 2013
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