Cherished Fears

     My latest, from Facebook:

Melanie, this election only goes to show the veracity of the demotivational poster that once read, "Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large numbers." Here's a guy who never had to struggle for one nanosecond of his life to maintain his dignity, his rights, his identity because of the Trump Bubble. As a consequence, he never had to build the character or courage that we see so often in refugees. Privilege is a poor incubator for character. He got to play tin soldier in college while getting, like Cheney, five deferments to stay out of Vietnam. He's filed for bankruptcy four times, has been married three times. Yet he's a champion to working class and evangelical Americans for one reason only- They see him as a super-sized version of themselves, a multibillionaire who shares, or pretends to share, his voters' most cherished fears and prejudices. I, too, have no common ground with these lunatics who voted for him nor will I seek them. Reaching across the aisle is one thing. Reaching across an ideological divide a light year in width is something none of us can do nor should attempt.

     This was in response to a comment by one of the many authors who follow me on Facebook who'd said early this morning,

I hope that those who voted for Trump understood from the get go that they were actually voting for Steve Bannon. Because if they didn't - if they don't actually support a man who has promoted the idea that the Holocaust was a lie and that birth control makes women unattractive and crazy, among other vile, racist statements - then shame on them. Because this is who's shaping our national policy right now, and it's all because of their vote. Not mine.

If they did understand this, well, then -

I have no words. And zero desire to try to find a common ground with them. We're beyond that as a country now.

     After all, what's there to say to people who cherish and cling to their fears and rally around those who reinforce them? How can one find common ground with people who characterize themselves with irrational, ill-seated anger and swatting at fictional bogeymen like fraudulent voters, Mexican rapists and welfare recipients and armies of Muslim terrorists? Indeed, where's the commonality between the sane, reality-based community and those who not only wrap their arms around these fears but are so bereft of awareness and irony that they refuse to see they and their ilk are the ones most often guilty of committing the things they insist on fearing the most?
     How pathetic is such a life that it needs to be distinguished by a bunker mentality in which there are enemies around every corner? A lot of these Trumpers wouldn't have lasted a minute in the 60's, a decade that had tried both our souls and characters in the forge of social change and upheaval.
     Yet as long as there is fear, paranoia and discontent in abundance, there will be ultra right wing strongmen like Donald Trump to step in to tell them, "I and I alone can take care of these problems. You just need to give me your unswerving, unconditional obedience. And your rights."
     Like a certain Chancellor I can think of...