Having watched just a little bit of the news coverage of the events surrounding the Trump campaign rally tonight in Minneapolis, MN, I was struck by how the need to express disagreement with Trump and his policies seems to be fulfilled by anger and violence.
It’s minor violence, it’s true, but it’s worth remembering that analysis of the typical Trump supporter has included conclusions that there’s a fear of societal change, and that the political opposition will indulge in violence. The first, of course, is true, as people try to change society to be more in tune with justice, but the second need not be necessary – and I feel those who threw objects at departing attendees and the police really played into the hands of the right-wing extremist leaders. In their missives to their followers, they emphasize the violent dangers of the left, fallacious as they are, and the left did nothing to falsify those charges.
Yet, I do sympathize with the protesters. Trump is glaringly obviously incompetent, an amateur who is doing tremendous damage to the reputation and tangible quality of the country. He has no concept of how ethics in government employees, such as himself, should work; he has, instead, imported his own bankrupt moral system in which he constantly seeks personal advancement into the Oval Office. He may even be a Russian asset. He’s become the emblem of how bad a President should not be. That our fellow Americans can embrace a liar, cheat, bungling fool, who is so bad that he doesn’t even recognize it, is infuriating.
But I fear tonight’s violence will only reinforce the Trumpist base’s decision to support the man.
Here’s what I would have savored seeing: a good-natured, old-fashioned shaming through laughter. When Trump came in, and when he left, all the protesters should have pointed a finger and laughed. When the attendees came out, seeking only to get in their vehicles and drive away, rather than yelling and screaming and throwing rocks at their cars, a good old-fashioned laughing might have been more effective. Perhaps call them suckers, just to get their attention, but nothing worse. Assail them with gales of laughter. Violence hardens attitudes, it persuades only the timid, and frightened, and that’s not a big piece of the Trumpist base.
A psychologist could address this more effectively, but the driving emotional need for Trump is respect, or admiration, for himself. As I understand it, he’s always yearned for it, and never quite gotten it from the creamy elite of New York City.
But if a bunch of Minnesota yahoos had just pointed and laughed at him and his followers, not only would his followers feel less physically threatened, while wondering what they’ve missed, but perhaps Trump himself would have taken a real hit.
They’re not yelling and screaming, they’re just laughing at me. Just laughing and pointing, practically crying they’re laughing so hard. They have no respect.
And would he continue to go on? Hard to say. But it would have been more respectful of our shared bond as Americans, legal or not, than this night of hatred and, well, stupidity.
A missed opportunity.
