© 2022, the Institute for Applied Common Sense
Throughout my life, I have been humbled by people with
whom I studied and worked, and had the opportunity to brush shoulders. I was always the least sophisticated, least
intelligent, individual in the room – not to mention the most naive.
Those around me always seemed to have a “game plan”
for their lives; and to view the world with such clarity and simplicity. I love people who say, “When I was in
college, I decided to….” Others speak
with such confidence, and with such certainty about issues. As for me, I long ago concluded that I’m not
certain about much in life, except those things which I mucked up in the
past. I’ve always been curious - trying
to make sense of things, and as time has moved on, I’ve become less certain about
more things.
I started writing in 2008, under the title, The View from Outside My Tiny Window. ™ When I meet strangers and suggest they read my stuff,
I mention the title. What’s interesting
is the difference between folks who instantly comprehend the meaning (repeating
it back to me with nary a mistake), and those who struggle, generating some
contorted version 4 or 5 times.
I frequently relieve them of the pain, by using a
visual descriptor: Imagine you have a
globe before you, and you are on the outside trying to look in and make sense
of the world, through a very tiny window – my
window. And thus, The View from Outside My Tiny Window. ™
I’ll be the first to admit that I am having extreme difficulty understanding the Trump phenomenon, on multiple levels (not to mention the fact that it is global). He simply does not strike me as one with much in the way of socially redeeming values. Yet who he is and what he tries to accomplish, however contrary to my core values, should NOT be the end of the analysis.
In anticipation of the upcoming presidential election, I started a Facebook group page in August of 2020, Black Baby Boomers Who Remember. I wanted those of us who lived in segregation to share our memories with young folks, and encourage them to register, get to the polls, and assist others in doing so. Not wanting to simply limit participation to just black folks, I decided to change the name to Black Baby Boomers Who Seek a Better Future for All.
I tried to avoid the use of the names of the two
political parties. Although I have always
considered myself an independent, there have been phases in my life when I was
more closely aligned with “Republican” values, and on other occasions, the
balance tilted the other way. As I
observed the discourse between the members of the group, and the opinions
expressed by Trump supporters and adherents, I came up with two other,
admittedly less than satisfactory descriptors:
the authoritarian governance faction, and the anti – authoritarian
governance faction.
Silly me - none of this seems to really work. First, calling Trump supporters “racist” is intellectually dishonest, and insufficiently supported by the facts. Second, they are not just a fringe element, consisting of extremists – there are too many of them constituting 47 – 49 % of the voting public. Third, attaching simplistic labels to them and summarily dismissing them as “something” which we do not like, gets us absolutely nowhere – with no interests advanced except perhaps on a personal level.
However, there is a more significant reason the labels don’t work. They are people who I care about, who care about me, who I’ve had in my home over the years, and who have invited me into their homes to watch their kids grow. There’s a buddy with whom I have been friends since 1979, and another business associate who has been one of my biggest fans since 2002. Followed by the nurse who used to travel miles to attend to my ailing Father, on Saturdays, when she was technically off work.
As I talk to people and
describe this blog, we seem to agree about one thing – there ought to be a
better way for common, ordinary, everyday citizens to find the commonality of
interests which binds us, rather than focus on the forces that divide us. I say, get rid of ALL the politicians, and
the money out of politics. But then
again, I am just one, not particularly smart, unsophisticated, naïve guy. Silly
me.
A response from my friend, June K. Williams who risked her membership on LinkedIn to share her thoughts:
ReplyDeleteI suppose we could reasonably assume that there are a core of Trump’s followers that have been sucked into a cult. Reason and/or logic will be un-availing with them. There are too many to be able to de-program. I could say they are simply scared racists but there are members of this cult from all sorts of races. No, it is more than racism. There are a large number of disillusioned people who do not trust any aspect of society be it on the State, local, national or international level. There is rampant paranoia teamed with an anti science bent. It is scary. This is worse than the KKK and they know no shame.
June K. Williams: Thanks for your insightful comment. You've been a participant in the discussions on this blog since 2008, and I appreciate, in case there is a question.
ReplyDeleteI, too, have sometimes entertained the analogy to a cult following. I too am just overwhelmed by the numbers. We simply cannot call it a fringe element. I think that disenchantment probably encapsulates it best. I sometimes use the glass half empty, glass half full analysis. I also use the hope and optimism camp, versus those who have little hope and lots of pessimism. Whatever it is, it has reached massive proportions/