Long Live the Troll
We were driving home from a volleyball tournament on Sunday and came upon a vehicle that looked like it had the stereotypical Trump flag. You know the one. It’s the flag that is somehow bigger than any American flag nearby. Often these flags are flown above the American flag if there even is one. Below is what we actually saw.
So, obviously we chuckled for a few seconds as we considered the expert troll job that had been done on us and everyone else. Then, it hit me as it has before on numerous occasions. The last five years have been the lowest point in our nation’s collective history. I know that’s saying a lot but it is unfortunately true.
Good leaders lift us up. They make us reach for the stars and if we can’t take hold of the stars we at least can grab the moon. As Lincoln said, they appeal to the better angels of our nature. They manage to somehow inspire us to be more than what we are because they have moments where they are more than what they are. They do this at the worst of possible times. They are at their best when everything seems dark and gloomy.
To say one thing is the tragedy of the last five years is to insult all of the victims of numerous tragedies. You have hurricane victims on Puerto Rico that never got the aid they needed. You have families at the border who were forever separated. You had victims of forest fires that saw aid delayed. We have had over 600,000 victims of the Coronavirus and probably 500,000 of those could have been avoided with simple competent governance.
His trade wars impacted workers in numerous industries and the tax giveaway to the rich also impacted lower wage earners negatively. Meanwhile, people of color, those of various sexual orientations and gender identities suffered as well. So, for me to come on here and say the tragedy of the last five years was anything other than those things could be the height of insensitivity. Yet, that is exactly what I’m going to do.
That is because all of those things could be wrapped into a simple bow. The style of leadership that inspired some to offer more fealty to him than to the country is a dangerous style of leadership. It has made us collectively worse than we have ever been. The flag above is a perfect example. It takes an awful amount of hate to get someone to fork over the dough to buy such a flag and then mount it on their truck. It shows that they want to give out a collective FU to their neighbors that may have supported the ex-president.
Think of the arguments in favor of the “rigged election.” Biden’s crowd sizes were so small. No one flies a Biden flag. How could he have possibly won when there are so many Trump flags out there? How could he have won when so many attended the Trump rallies? It just doesn’t makes sense to them.
I never saw a flag for any other president before this. Republican or Democrat they just didn’t exist. Sure, there were political rallies and sure sometimes candidates got riffing and started spouting stuff that wasn’t true, but with only a few notable exceptions (George Wallace or Spiro Agnew) no one was inciting violence. That is until now.
The tragedy of the last five years is that everyone of us has become the worst version of ourselves. More that death, destruction, economic ruin, and horrible discrimination, that statement is a powerful one that has to be soaked in. We have been made worse. While each of us must contend with our own consciences to grapple with the cold, hard reality it is also a reflection of really bad leadership.
In the most difficult moments of our nation’s history there was always a unity that was established at least at the end. The civil war was dreadful and yet the country found a way to reunite. Natural disasters have inspired moments where we saw the worst of humanity and yet the best of humanity prevailed. Beyond COVID, I’m not even sure what the singular moment of the last five years will bring other than the man himself.
It isn’t even so much deciding whether we are for him or against him. Those decisions were made a long time ago for almost everyone. If people are still on the fence about Trump I can’t even begin to wrap my head around that. The decision we have to make is how we will choose to move forward. Will we hold those grudges against those in the other camp or try to find the piece of humanity that exists in everyone? It’s a hard road to travel down, but we’ve travelled it before and up until now we have always come out on the other side.
Occasionally on message boards and other places in RL you find people whose views are liberal-leaning but they want to adopt the tactics of the right wing. Stalking, intimidation, provoking, partisan laws, and even violence. Often I get the feeling that they are not really liberals or progressives and that they would be more at home on the MAGA side.
Anyone else have that experience? How do you deal with it, if at all?
1Alan: it’s possible they really have some progressive values, but are lashing out/back at the tsunami of online viciousness. What to do? If they really are liberal/progressive, call them out gently on it. Sort of a “would your grandmother approve of these actions?” or “how would Lincoln or FDR handle this?” attitude. It’s like the Socratic method, but more to illuminate for them their own character.
If some gentle chiding does not bring them back to their kinder senses, then they never had them to start with.
Personally, I love good snark and sarcasm. But stalking or calling for violence is beyond the pale.
2I just have to disagree with one sentence in Nick’s article: “The tragedy of the last five years is that everyone of us has become the worst version of ourselves.”
That’s just not true. Many Americans have responded to the nation’s challenges with enormous courage, unselfishness, and truthfulness.
Let’s not tar all our fellow citizens with one broad brush.
3Surly, I agree about the stalking and calls for violence, with one big caveat….
If we think that our calls for unity and sibling love will heal the country, we are mistaken. The Other Side has used and still uses our ability and willingness to compromise to make sure this country never gets what every single person who lives here deserves – a fair shake and an equal chance. We go in willing to compromise at the half-way point, using those nice manners our mamas taught us, and they move every decision, every piece of legislation, from the 50% place we deem reasonable, to the 75 or 80% position of what they want.
It is one thing to be civil, which I am and remain (and I work very hard not to wish specific ill on any one person), but one must approach every interaction with the Other Side with a spine of steel. So yes, while my specific candidate bumper stickers were peeled from my car once the polls closed last November, my “We Persist” sticker remains. I will not go silently into the Night.
4Nick, lots of things come to mind from your writing today. Might take more than one comment to cover all my thoughts but the first thing that jumped out to me about the tragedies of the lost 5 years is how it has literally torn the country apart. You commented that even at the end of the civil war, the country was able to come back together. The last 5 years managed to do the opposite. While feelings from the civil war never really died out, the last occupant(s) of the WH managed to bring them back to the front burner. They turned friends/coworkers against each other and tore families apart- including mine. My brother and sister will not talk to me anymore.
5Also, when I retired in 2015, my office was in San Antonio where my coworkers were a mix of political leanings. Several of us were NW transplants and liberal thinkers and voters. We had other coworkers/friends that were true red Texans, but we could work, socialize and talk about many things (like sports and business experiences, etc.). For a while after I left, I continued to correspond even with my true red Texas friends. Since 2016, that has totally changed and I hate that. Political differences became personal, and not in a good way. We survived political differences from the past several presidents without driving us apart. This is different and I blame the person named on the flag above along with his cohorts.
Ivanova: “He’s too strong. They’re always too strong. Damn it, John. There’s always too many of them and not enough of us. What am I supposed to do?”
Sheridan: “Fight them without becoming them.”
— Ivanova and Sheridan in Babylon 5:”Dust to Dust”
I’d also suggest reminding people whose frustration and fear are leading them to start doing unto Trumpistas as Trumpistas do unto others – is that Trumpistas view themselves as martyrs. If a Trumpista punches someone in the mouth, they whine that the resulting damage to their knuckles makes them the real victim. It’s also why antifa’s street battles with the Proud Boys is counterproductive: all that violent confrontation does is give the conservatives more ammunition to justify their own violence.
6Nick, you’ve hit the nail on the head!
Five years ago, I didn’t yell. Now, I yell at *everyone* who drives like an idiot from the safety of my solo-occupant car. I yell at the TV. I yell at the news. I’ve become quite a grouch.
I’ve thought for a while now that 45 gave us all permission to be miserable and unpleasant. Encouraged it, even.
I’m hoping that the calm coming from the White House will nudge me back in the other direction.
7While I agree with much of what your wrote I must disagree with the notion that we came together after the civil war. We didn’t and we still haven’t, in fact I think this is a continuation of that war becasue Trump and the trumpets want black people to go back to being what they were, slaves, and they want women to go back to being pregnant and in the kitchen. So much of this last 5 years is straight up racism. The white supremacist are loosing their minds becasue the black people are gaining ground.
8Thanks for offering that Texas Expat. You are correct in that literally everyone is not worse. Some have thrived and their progress in the face of such hatred is noted. Collectively we are worse though and there is no doubting that.
Thank you for the other comments as well. I do agree that being civil and caving in are two different things. We have to find a way to hold true to the values we hold dear without being a jackass about it. It’s a tough line to tow.
9CNN did a report last night on how the GOP got to this point. Fareed Zakaria believed it started with Barry Goldwater running off the more liberal GOPers like Nelson Rockefeller. It was well done and made me remember certain events and think!
10@Grandma Ada: Rick Perlstein’s masterful four book history covers the rise of movement conservatism from the Birchers and Goldwater, to Nixon and Southern Strategy, to Reagan and the Evangelicals. Trump is only the most recent to fleece the rubes, break the law, and organize grievance, fear, and lies to gain power. Definitely worth a read.
11Steve from Beaverton I certainly hope that you do not have a lawn……I do and I have become the grouch that you describe. I am hoping that St. Joseph of Delaware can make me less inflamed.
12I must (mildly) disagree with one of your comments in your excellent essay.
Last summer, there were wildfires in our area which threatened hundreds of homes, farms, and people. There was an active and compassionate community response, with not one T***p hat, T-shirt, or flag to be seen, much less any firearms, concealed or open carry.
It can be done that our citizens will put aside the sad afflictions of the past and reject the authoritarian tendencies of that fool in Florida.
Thank you for your writings.
13John @12. Yes, I have a nice green lawn and I proudly posted my Biden-Harris sign (still have a small one on my truck window lest anyone mistake me for some of the other truckers).
14Also, I’m the one who has reached out to my siblings to try and have a non political conversation like we had pre-2016, but their conversation quickly descends to Fox and Newsmax talking points. I don’t think that I’m the grouchy old man and long for a different conversation with my old red friends some day, but I’m done reaching out for now.
The last five years have caused me to finally lose what hope and optimism I had left for the human race in general and my countrymen in particular. I’ve become a grouchy old man, yelling at my TV or computer, much to my wife’s disdain. I try to mind my own business but on the rare occasion when I’m confronted by a wingnut in public, my filters completely disappear. I hadn’t planned on spending my “Golden Years” surrounded by annoying morons. I liked it better when social stigmas kept these people silent.
15Nick …
As bad as the 4 year Reign of Errors was, trying to compare it to other divisive periods is difficult. While you claim “The civil war was dreadful and yet the country found a way to reunite”, my sense of history flares up.
Taking a look at Electoral College votes from 1868 to 1968 graphically (https://www.270towin.com/historical-presidential-elections/), there is a consistent block of states that stand out from most of the nation. Elections which overcame the division (1932, 1936) were less a cry of unity than one of despair.
Anecdotally, it is easy to find the Civil War creating rifts in families and organizations which did not heal. The mythos of the South continued at least until WWII, as seen in such intellectual traditions as The Southern Agrarians.
I certainly cannot predict the future, but I really see nothing to suggest the Trump divide will survive a decade, let alone a couple of generations.
16I think you (and nearly everybody else) underestimate the misery of the Roaring Twenties. Farmers dropped out of the money economy, were driven from their homes, thousands of banks failed, hundreds of little towns disappeared..
And farmers were 40% of the population then.
Little known fact: on a single day in 1933, one-fourth of the land in Mississippi was sold at sheriff auctions.
17Rather than put up a whole other post, I thought I would throw up a more generic response. I think I am hearing a few themes in responses coming here and in other places that this post has been seen.
1) Feelings are often difficult to articulate. What is described in this post is a feeling and even more complex it is a collective one. So, what I am describing is more of a lament than a concrete suggestion on moving forward. I guess the best way of describing it is a mourning for my own lost sense of civility. The righteousness of that indignation is of course in the eye of the beholder. One can attempt to separate the cause itself from how one attacks the cause. Admittedly, it is a difficult distinction to make and one that is nearly impossible to articulate effectively.
2) There were numerous objections to a historical context outlined in the original post. Unfortunately, one can overlook specific periods in history when one paints with a broad brush. I suppose what I was driving at was a universal experience that I think is fairly unique going back to the civil war. The experience of farmers in the 1920s or the complex relationships between the races in the south are certainly compelling, but not necessarily all encompassing in terms of a collective feeling at the time. Those that worked white collar or factory jobs didn’t feel the same pinch as those that worked farms in the 1920s. People residing in the Northeast didn’t have the same racial tension as those in the south. They had their own tension to deal with, but the experience was hardly collectively experienced.
That’s how I see these situations as being different. While there are pockets in the country that might be more progressive or conservative than others, the conflict has been fairly universal. That’s something fairly unique. Whether this is a blip on the radar or something long lasting remains to be seen. My sense is that it won’t go away immediately. Something horrible has been stirred inside a number of people and they feel emboldened for whatever reason.
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