Almost a month after Donald Trump was declared President Elect, coherent thoughts are still difficult to come by. So many different things are happening. Here I share a few thoughts with you:
- If you’re not very mad, very afraid, and actively analyzing Trumpism, please open your eyes and mind and heart. What have you done today to promote fairness and to stop Trumpism?
- People of all political persuasions and ideologies are too afraid of facts. Yes, there are facts. (Although, we know from historical and scientific facts that people who identify as conservatives have greater difficulty seeing and then internalizing facts.)
- White Supremacy is so extreme in the United States that a Black president has to and unavoidably perpetuates it.
- Trumpism didn’t emerge from nothing or fully unexpectedly. The nation specifically and the West generally have been headed down a path of dangerous totalitarianism. Trump is in ways only making what was invisible visible.
- The Conservative Consensus must end. Similarly, its neoliberalism must end. Today’s Democratic Party members are mostly conservative.
- If you hold that the United States is always “progressing” and always “improving,” your concepts of History are built on being anti-Black, anti-Mexican, anti-Woman, anti-minority.
- Capitalism, Patriarchy, Theology/religion, and Whiteness are dangerous ideologies.
- Given the urgency of our current political system, we must do away with conventional “embargoes” on political discussions. Trump is not “neutral.” Trump is not “normal.” Trump and Trumpism cannot be further normalized. We must, I argue, analyze and discuss Trump and Trumpism as if it happened 100 years ago. Full analysis, critique, and discussion is needed.
- Unfortunately, the urgency of current history has prompted many people who consider themselves members of the Democratic Party to actively criticize and “punish” any criticism of Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama for fear of it helping Trumpism. This is a mistake. We must analyze the full failures of the Conservative Consensus, neoliberalism, and everything else that led to 81 percent of Christians to vote for Trump, for example. That resulted in people, millions of people, actively supporting Trump. That resulted in millions of people not trusting Clintonism.
- People really struggle to understand that almost all of their “thinking” and actions are determined by the unconscious.
- A Hillary Clinton presidency would have required just as much if not more activism from the Left if liberalism would have had any chance at all.
- The adage “your rights end where mine begin” forgets (or ignores) that people vote selfishly and to promote their socially constructed morality.
- So far, I have noticed far more Christmas/Holiday lights up. I am wondering what connection this has with Trumpism.
- President Barack Obama has been treated absolutely horrendously for eight years. People should be appalled at their behavior. What happened to morality and basic respect and love your neighbor? Obama has made the U.S. safe and more inclusive for so many of us. Think how much more of his visions would have seen the day of light if it weren’t for the fear people have of a Black man who promotes community and acceptance??
Dr. Andrew Joseph Pegoda
Dr. Andrew Joseph Pegoda 