How did this happen? Brendan O’Neill explains:
It happened because you banned super-size sodas. And smoking in parks. And offensive ideas on campus. Because you branded people who oppose gay marriage ‘homophobic’, and people unsure about immigration ‘racist’.
Because you treated owning a gun and never having eaten quinoa as signifiers of fascism. Because you thought correcting people’s attitudes was more important than finding them jobs. Because you turned ‘white man’ from a description into an insult. Because you used slurs like ‘denier’ and ‘dangerous’ against anyone who doesn’t share your eco-pieties.
Because you treated dissent as hate speech and criticism of Obama as extremism. Because you talked more about gender-neutral toilets than about home repossessions. Because you beatified Caitlyn Jenner. Because you policed people’s language, rubbished their parenting skills, took the piss out of their beliefs.
Because you cried when someone mocked the Koran but laughed when they mocked the Bible. Because you said criticising Islam is Islamophobia. Because you kept telling people, ‘You can’t think that, you can’t say that, you can’t do that.’
Because you turned politics from something done by and for people to something done to them, for their own good. Because you treated people like trash. And people don’t like being treated like trash. Trump happened because of you.
That’s right, we did all of that and we will continue to do the same. We have the media, the schools and even the support of corporate American and you have one boorish orange billionaire. You should have stuck with the conservative strategy of going along to get along because you are going to pay dearly for trying to fight back. We will silence you. We will drive you out of your jobs and bloody you in the streets and diversify your safe suburbs. You will wish you had never pulled this Trump stunt.
….
That’s what I imagine they might say.
Very true but half the story.
Trump happened because when people voted for Republicans they wanted Republicans who actually fought rather than immediately stabbed them in the back and attempted to legalize tens of millions of new Democratic voters. The GOPe figured it could brazen it out if no one deviated from the party line or mentioned it.
People got sick of voting for the Washington Generals.
Barnabas, well put. That’s what I expect they are saying.
I sweated bullets the first few weeks after the election for just those reasons.
Then I decided it might be fun to watch the world burn.
Either way, these could be four decisive years and I’m not sure whether for the better.