Making the case for Trump
Many people smarter than me have said it: Donald Trump has a pretty good chance of being the Republican nominee for president. It’s terrifying; it’s maddening; it’s a train wreck you can’t look away from.
It’s hard to believe, but at the same time it makes total sense. We have been on a path to this moment for a long time.
In my last column I promised I would make a “case” for a Donald Trump presidency. Can anything good come of it?
First, I have to say that my ability to even attempt to “make a case” for Donald Trump shows my own privilege. Because I am white and American by birth, I don’t have to worry about being deported or knowing that the leader of my country thinks the country would be better if people like me didn’t live here. I can’t even begin to imagine what that’s like.
Still, there just may be some good things that come out of, if not a Trump presidency, then out of his candidacy in general. Here is what they are:
It shows that voters do have power
For much of my voting life, any fringe candidates were kept firmly on the outside of the gates, either by the voting public or by the invisible hand of The Establishment (depending on how cynical you are).
Elections always had the feeling of inevitability. None of the candidates said or did anything all that shocking or out of the ordinary, so it was imaginable that any of them could win and it wouldn’t mean tremendous shifts in the way America is run.
It’s more difficult to be cynical about the voting process when someone like Trump actually has a snowball’s chance of becoming the nominee. Many Republicans are horrified at the thought. They know that this could be the death of their party. Yet, we haven’t heard of rigged elections or behind-the-scenes shenanigans. Trump is still firmly in the lead, and there doesn’t seem to be any “invisible hand” keeping him there.
This proves people do, ultimately, have a voice and a say in this process. (The success of Bernie Sanders is the flip-side of that same coin).
If Trump is elected, then at least we can say, “The voters have spoken”…and mean it.
He is a mirror for our country’s flaws
Never has a candidate so neatly embodied the very same problems from which America suffers: egotism, self-centeredness, racism, greed, fear of “the other,” tendencies toward violence (just recently, Trump told a campaign rally that he wanted to punch a protesting attendee in the face), hubris, and insanity brought on by too much money.
Think about it. The country’s tendency to call itself “the greatest country in the world” sounds a fair bit like a man who says, “My IQ is one of the highest — and you all know it! Please don’t feel so stupid or insecure; it’s not your fault.”
At some point, we have to take a long, hard look into that particular yellow-haired mirror and figure out if we really want to share Trump’s fatal flaws, which right now are glaring right back at us.
If he is president, those flaws will be even more present, and even more difficult to ignore in American as a whole.
He proves that America has a way to go on racism
One of those fatal flaws is the racist and xenophobic views Trump holds, or seems to hold (whether he actually believes what he says is another discussion).
Americans who are not white know that racist views are prevalent in America, because they experience the affects of them every day. Yet, getting others to believe racism and xenophobia still exists sometimes a difficult endeavor. “Get over it! Slavery ended 150 years ago!” these people say. “Racism is gone! Anything beyond what we’ve already done is just special favors!” “I don’t hate all Muslims, just a certain kind of Muslim!”
Through Trump, we all have a lens for recognizing that racism is alive and well. In fact, a study shows that 20 percent of Trump’s supporters say they disapprove of the Emancipation Proclamation. Which is to say, 1 in 5 of his supporters believes freeing the slaves was a bad idea. He also saw leaps in support when he suggested we ban all Muslims from entering the United States.
Thanks to Trump’s candidacy, no one can, in good conscience, say that racism is not something we need to worry about anymore.
That, in a way, might move us closer to real progress.
Jessica Vozel is originally from Perryopolis and, after attending graduate school and teaching in Ohio, now works as a freelance journalist and copywriter in the Pittsburgh area.