Red and Blue Divide

There hasn’t been as consequential OR polarizing political figure in my lifetime. One of the questions I get often is why, oh why do you like President Trump so much. He’s a con man, a fraud, and only in it for himself. He’s made negative comments about women, is uncouth, a bully, too politically incorrect and basically unfit to hold the highest office in the land.

So why is it that I and millions of others are such fans of his?

Well, here it is. Most of my adult life I was inundated with media messages that were one sided. I grew up enjoying hunting and fishing and the outdoors. I grew up with guns and enjoyed them for target shooting, hunting and when I was older self defense. Yet, from the age of 12 practically all the messages I saw on TV or in newspapers or magazines were negative. Abortion was covered much the same way. I’m where most Americans are on that topic. Not a huge fan, but it shouldn’t be illegal in the first trimester. It’s just not something I think should be glorified. And yet, the media rarely if ever presents an accurate view of the majority view of Americans. Climate change is another issue that rarely gets a fair presentation. It’s become a religious debate between heretics who don’t fully believe and those who think the world as we know it will end. And on and on it goes.

With all these different issues there were very few people with a national voice to stand up for the side of those who were and are generally voiceless. I often use Clint Eastwood’s epic western “The Outlaw Jose Wales” when discussing the President. It’s a story of a farmer whose family is killed by outlaws from the North after the Civil war. He joins a resistance group who is fighting the mercenaries from the North only to have them machine gunned after being putting their weapons down and surrendering. He then becomes a wanted fugitive running from them across the country and defeating his pursuers time and time again. He has a young sidekick whose constant refrain is “You whooped them again Jose”.

The President is our Jose Wales. Time and time again the media has thought they had him boxed in, he was done, completely over and on his last political breath. And time and time again he comes back to beat them. To overcome overwhelming odds. To whoop them again.

For me there is also another pop culture reference. I grew up in the punk rock era. The music was rebellious, at odds with mainstream narratives and despised group think. While I wasn’t looking for Anarchy in the UK like the Sex Pistols the message stuck. Question authority, question conventional norms and most importantly be an individual. Be bold and brave and unafraid of having your views challenged. Never be bullied into a particular view, always ask questions and never trust those in authority completely.

Today, to support President Trump is a punk rock position. The easy stance is to despise, dislike, and attack him and those like me who support him. You’ll be applauded and cheered on for such a bold position. But is it bold to toe the line that those in authority want? Is it bold to limit speech? Is it bold to want war with Russia? Is it bold to declare allegiance to huge tech companies? My position and those of all the deplorables is that it’s a supplicating, suffocating and a mistake of the highest order. We don’t want to be told what to do, think, how to speak or act. We believe in freedom. We believe in the individual. We believe that no one should restrict our freedom especially our tech overlords. I don’t want a narrative crammed down my throat and I’m guessing you don’t either.

Issue by issue our leaders have been wrong. Whether endless wars in the Gulf and around the world, the housing crisis that was in large part created by government programs that although had good intent had horrible consequences, outsourcing jobs from the US in the quest for ever lower labor costs they have proven time and again that they have NO idea what they are doing. They have long lost any connection to most Americans and are beholden to large corporate interests. The little man is just that. Little, with almost no ability to do anything other than go along for the ride.

This changed the day Donald Trump began campaigning. He was a former democrat, a NYC billionaire, a man with dozens of girlfriends and known as a playboy. Yet, he was able to connect with the average voter like me in the parts of America that are laughed at by those in Los Angeles or NYC. We were mocked and not even behind our backs. It was directly to our faces. Our views were denigrated, we were personally attacked. Homophobe, xenophobe, transphobe, nazi, hater, etc. Day in and day out we had leaders who wouldn’t defend our views even though they were elected for that reason. Day in and day out the media laughed and joked at our expense. No one stood up to the hoards. No one, that is, until Trump came down the escalator.

I love Trump because he stands unafraid of the mobs that come for him. He is unafraid of the Wall Street lobbyists who told us that America’s best days were behind us. He is unafraid of the media morons who are simply highly paid democrat shills. He is unafraid of the warmongers who have wrecked the Middle East. He is unafraid of the deep state bureaucrats who hold all the power and enough data to destroy almost anyone. He is unafraid to put the interests of America first.

For those simple reasons he is a hero of mine. He is the man who comes to town defeating powerful interests in favor of the unheard and unappreciated man and woman. He suffers the slings and arrows for the benefit of you and me. He is an iconic figure that has forever changed the nature of politics. He will be talked for years to come as the one man who took on everything when he had no reason to do so other than his love for America. So, yeah, I love our God Emperor Trump along with millions of other Americans.