Deplorables?

Clinton has ignited a lot of discussion this week identifying some Trump supporters as "Deplorables."  I disagree with Hillary.  The people, the human beings, that support Trump cannot be deplorable by definition.  However, they can hold deplorable beliefs and deplorable attitudes that inspire deplorable behaviors.  They carry the cancers that are eating away at our culture and I wish I knew the cure.  I have spoken to this issue already and re-post that piece from May of this year.  (At the time I wrote this piece I chose "cancer" as my metaphor for the diseases carried via the beliefs some hold.  Had I written it today I would have used STD's because if Trump is elected and institutes his vitriol we will all get screwed and thereby get sick.)

Tuesday, May 31, 2016

Trump Metastasizes Cultural Cancers

Donald Trump has secured the number of Republican delegates to become the Republican nominee for President of the United States.  Wow.  Trump could be our next President.  If so, I believe our nation will survive.  However, I believe we will do an about face on the march to a healthier nation, a better nation, a world leader, and a nation that stands for what is right.  We would become a sick nation if Trump were elected President.  I am aghast that so many do not see this.  Or perhaps it is not that so many do not see it, it is that so many want to endorse and spread the diseases Trump promotes.  I will use the term cultural cancers to attempt to capture the nature of those diseases.  Diseases that make us weak and make us sick.

But before that, we need to discuss the attributes of a healthy national culture.  As I think about America I want a nation of people who value diversity.  People who do not discriminate based on any variable that is determined at birth including gender, sexual preference, gender identity, race, and ethnicity.  I picture a nation where people do not discriminate based on many attributes that are self-selected such as religious preference, hair color, addictions and weight.  I picture a nation of people who promote and protect the minority, the underdog, knowing that God does not make junk.  I picture a nation of people who stand for justice, who do not shoot from the hip, who do not judge at first glance, and who respect the law and the peacekeepers.  I picture a nation of people who are positive, open, welcoming and free of fear.  I picture a nation of people who are generous to all who are in need whether they are our own or are victims abroad.  I picture a nation where protecting your rights means more to me than implementing my beliefs in law.  I picture a nation of people who value the arts, creativity, knowledge and learning.  I picture a nation of people who understand that by protecting industries such oil and guns that we are hurting everyone and are spreading cancers.  I picture a nation where human beings mean more than wealth accumulation.  I picture a nation where the people know that we should judge our success by the fate and status of the least among us.  And I picture a nation who will stand for democracy and human rights abroad.  Those are attributes of a healthy culture and a culture where I would want to live.

But cultures can be sick, can be cancerous.  The cancers I fear in our culture are those attributes that are the antithesis of those listed above.  Discrimination, prejudice in any form is a cancer.  Insistence that my way is the right way is a cancer.  Demanding that my religious beliefs entitle me to discriminate, to judge, to damn others and demanding that such beliefs whatever they are become the law of the land.  Believing that building walls against other human beings based on geography and damning other human beings based on religious belief is a good thing.  It is not.  It is a cancerous belief.  Promoting strategies that help those who need it the least at the expense of those who need it the most is cancerous.  Promoting industries that are resulting in untold deaths and untold damages to our planet is cancerous.  Promoting fear to attain power is a cancer.  Promoting ignorance rather than knowledge is cancerous.  Promoting my way of thinking by attacking others is a cancer.  Sending the message that self-service and self-defense are superior to serving and defending others is a cancer.

You will likely not agree with everything I have listed both healthy and cancerous.  But those are my beliefs.  In a healthy culture it will be OK for me to have those beliefs and I will not merit assault.  Our culture grows ill if we attack folks with differing beliefs.

Given all that, Donald Trump is not promoting the attributes that I believe would make our nation healthier, happier and better.  He is promoting the spread of cancerous beliefs.  From his views of women, Mexicans, Muslims, the families of terrorists, foreign policy, gun accessibility and wealth accumulation he is metastasizing cancer in our national body.  It is my fervent hope that enough Americans see what Trump represents, rejects those notions, and when those Americans go to the polls in November they opt to stop the spread of cancers.

How do we stop promoting the spread of such cancers?  I do not believe chemotherapy will work.  Drinking more scotch will not make him go away.  It is going to take surgical amputation.  Such amputation is only accomplished by thoughtful educated voters.  This fall, please amputate the cancer.