Good Faith

 

Some readers will recall I have offered our Trump supporting fellow Americans a format for good faith discussion a number of times.

One example is my request for any information they had to set me straight. What are the facts I am missing? Just fill in the blanks.

Dave, I have to say you are stating falsehoods, or misunderstanding, by claiming (_____) and (_______). These verifiable facts and evidence (_____) and (____) suggest you are quite mistaken.

Another was a simple request to enlighten me as to their understanding of just WHEN America was great before 2016. How far was it they wanted Trump to take us back? When were those golden years of greatness? Were they the years when Clinton balanced the budget with a surplus?

Again, all they had to do was fill in the blanks.

Trump WILL make America great again, like it used to be before 2016, from the years_____ to  ____.

Not one Trumpist was up for the challenge. Apparently, it's easier to just call me a commie. I'll refer to a couple examples of how they respond.

Exhibit A: Trumpist blogger Darrell wondered if there could be common ground between the left and right. My suggestion for common ground was agreement that Trump lost a fair election in 2020, and he lied about non-existent massive voter fraud that cheated him, and he illegally attempted to overturn the certified legal results.   So, he "informed" me I'm a communist.

"Oh, and by the way, when I called you a communist, it wasn’t necessarily meant as a pejorative but rather more as a descriptive term. You support many of the very tenets of the communist creed according to what you have written in the past that are antithetical to America, its values, and its Constitution. So while you see that is retaliatory name-calling, I meant it only as classifier of your stated beliefs in big-government, anti-capitalism, anti-faith, and anti-family rhetoric."

After numerous requests for any citation of my words promoting communism, he failed or ignored me every time. What he's saying is I disagree with him and that makes me a commie. This hysteria has been with us since the post-Bolshevik revolution Red Scare to McCarthyism but has been amplified to the extreme by Trumpism. The more fear and anxiety white conservatives feel in their racial resentments and culture wars the more “communists” they see. This is at the root of white nationalism.

Instead of discussing a topic, this is the type of anger and hostility we see in the Trumpist reaction to an invitation to good faith discussion.

Exhibit B: Just the Facts aka Vern resorted to dismissal and denigration. 

"debate with him in good faith" Bull Shit

And there it is. The Trumpist idea of good faith discussion. This proves again they really don't want to LISTEN to ANYTHING that Trump doesn't want them to hear. He is their Master and commander. They will obey him and BELIEVE his words as gospel. So, to them there's no need to consider what anyone else has to say. He is their new religious leader, one they are utterly incapable of imagining to be a conman, a charlatan, a deceiver, a malevolent mendacious messiah filling them with hate and lies.

Their closed-minded belief system must regard anyone who opposes him as evil villains, out to persecute their innocent and maligned savior. Trump’s paranoia and projection becomes THEIR paranoia and projection.

As the social media memes say, “We won’t change the minds of Trump supporters with facts, logic, or appeals of decency. If they could be influenced by these, they wouldn’t be Trump supporters.” And “They will never admit he’s guilty because that would mean admitting he made fools of them all”.

And thus, they are locked into being true believers to the bitter end. They will eagerly buy into their leader's paranoid persecution complex. "Never forget our enemies want to take away my freedom, because I will never let them take away your freedom." 

Invoking evil "enemies" is at the heart of the political indoctrination by every fascist and dictator. The darkness this portends is truly chilling.

All they can do is demean and insult the person who questions their Dear Leader's lies. Like any cult of true believers, they can be violent thugs in service to their leader, as they showed us on January 6. This fanaticism has already resulted in death and injuries. Tragically this means more death and destruction will come from this white nationalist movement. They want their power and white nationalist minority rule and will do ANYTHING to seize it.

Trump is America's savior to them. And his true believers hate us for opposing him. They must demonize us as "communists who hate America", the worst thing their enraged, deluded, and deranged minds can concoct.

Obviously, they need ZERO words or evidence to back their absurd paranoid accusations, because they ARE paranoid. All Trumpist white nationalists are terrified of being "replaced". The idea of a multiracial democracy scares the wits out of them.

Xenophobia and racism are their default reaction to immigration.

The Washington Post noted this recent manufactured outrage.

Now, both Trump and MAGA Inc., a super PAC that backs him, claim that Biden is funding a Michigan program that they say provides rent to undocumented immigrants. A MAGA radio ad claims: “Did you see Biden’s paying rent for illegals now? They get handouts and we pay for all of it.” In a video posted on social media, Trump said Biden was “selecting and stealing your money to give free housing to illegal alien migrants and then asking you to quarter these foreign armies.”

At issue is a Michigan program, launched last year, under which individuals who qualify may receive as much as $500 a month in rental subsidies for up to 12 months. The key word is “qualify” — the subsidies in question are not available to people in the country illegally.

Their final solution is a dictator and Trump promised to be one. He WILL refuse to accept the will of the voters if he loses, and likely stoke more violence. He is their great white hope to keep their white minority in power. And make no mistake, this is EXACTLY their idea of what makes America great.

They will regurgitate Russian propaganda and corrupt and undermine our House, Senate, the courts, and our elections to permanently establish white Christian Nationalist minority rule. Their Furious Fuhrer is already calling for brown shirt style intimidation by an army of “poll watchers”. MAGA threats have already resulted in massive resignations of election workers. He’s filling their paranoid fantasies with neo-Nazi rhetoric of an ominous "definite anti-white feeling" in America.

Yes, we've seen it all before. In the last century they howled about "anti-Aryan communist Jews, anti-German socialists, journalists, and educators” ALL standing in the way of making Germany great again.

Today they howl about "Anti-white, America-hating Marxists, Communists, socialists, radical leftists, Black racists, Brown invaders, child molesting LGBTQ Americans, in ADDITION to enemies of the people like journalists and educators" aka Democrats and their voters, ALL standing in the way of making America great again. 

The true believer fanatics embrace a vengeful indicted criminal and authoritarian sociopath who divides our country with hate and lies. Neo-Nazis, Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, the Klan, and other election denying, anti-democracy American white nationalist Trumpists are showing us their true heritage.

And that heritage is the direct opposite of a democratic republic with bipartisan legislative cooperation and compromise by good faith discussion and debate.