The Lack of Respect Towards Trump & His Supporters is Well-Deserved

Yesterday, I mentioned something that has been a relative rarity: an encounter with a respectful, even an intelligent, Trump supporter.

Okay, so he's not exactly a typically mindless and passionate Trump supporter. In fact, he seems quite critical of Trump. Yet, he was defending the president during the whole injecting disinfectant controversy, saying that he did not even know where people got the idea that he was promoting injecting Lysol as some kind of cure for the coronavirus. I responded, and that response was published yesterday.

Later, he posted something that I found interesting, and wound up responding to. It basically stated that while many people blasted Trump and were disrespectful towards him, they would not reject the stimulus checks that each of us are supposed to get (though I did not get mine yet). 

Many people responded, and pointed out that, in fact these stimulus checks are not just Trump's doing, and that other presidents would surely have done the same. He did concede that point. But I responded a little differently, asking him, basically, whether or not he had the same level of respect towards previous presidents - particularly recent presidents like Obama and Clinton - and whether or not it outraged him that so many people were disrespectful towards those two presidents. I made the point that the original idea of presidents was that they would not be kings, much less something higher, and that nobody - absolutely no one - was beyond criticism, something that this notoriously thin-skinned president seemed especially sensitive of and resistant to (even the mildest criticism). A president, like other high-ranking officials in this country, are public servants. No more, no less. They are public servants, which means that we, the American people are their bosses. That is how it is supposed to work, at least, but I also expressed my concern that we seem to be losing that in this country.

When he responded, he basically agreed, and said that we probably would have a decent conversation offline, if the opportunity presented itself.

He began to receive a lot of critical posts, and so he apparently took it down.

Unfortunately, I was at work on my weekend job when I posted that on his link, and was so tired after getting home, that uncharacteristically, I did not copy and paste, and thus record, that response as part of my daily writings. Almost everything that I write is kept in daily writings notes or journals. But those comments were lost, although the substance of them was more or less captured in the above paragraph.

My fatigue was so extreme last night, that my planned response also to his response was basically put off. When I woke up early - very early - this morning, the link was gone.

But what I wanted to tell him, without berating him verbally or seeming like I was trying to pick a fight (again, he is a very decent guy, whom I never had a problem with in high school) was more or less about this respect that he was talking about. By now, almost everyone has heard Trump supporters (and others) bemoan the seeming lack of respect that people have these days, particularly towards recent presidents. And so, my response, which would be directed not strictly towards him but to many Trump supporters in particularly who feel outraged at the admittedly serious lack of respect that people have for Trump and his supporters, would probably have looked something like this below. I am not including the personal note of friendliness originally to be included as the opening, but diving right into the meat of the argument:

Do you truly believe that Trump is a victim of a complete lack of respect that people have towards presidents these days? After all, before he himself became president, he proudly started the "birther" movement, questioning whether the very presidency of Barack Obama was legitimate, under the popular (and some feel racist) suspicion that Obama was not born in the United States, but in Kenya, and thus was not actually American at all. How respectful of the Office of the Presidency is that? This is just one example of how Donald Trump has, in fact, been disrespectful to the office of the presidency, and why so many (myself included, admittedly) that Trump in particular, and mindless loyal Trump supporters and enablers more generally, are fair game to harsh criticism, even to the point of a complete lack of respect. After all, this merely mirrors this particular president's own behavior, which has consistently lacked any class or dignity, much less respect. How respectful was he when he started the "birther movement," after all? And he took pride in the fact that he started that nonsense, to boot? How respectful was he - a draft dodger - when he took particularly low shots at Gold Star families, or when he claimed that John McCain was no war hero because he, the draft dodger, prefers people who were not captured to become prisoners of war? In fact, he kept on attacking McCain even after his death, which is a level of blatant disrespect that even most young children know better than to engage in. Apparently, the man now serving as president, who is well into his 70's, does not know better, because respect is one concept that this self-proclaimed "very stable genius" apparently learned nothing about. How respectful was he when he labeled dozens of countries in Africa and Latin America as "shithole nations"? Indeed, the list goes on and on of examples in which Trump conducted himself in a particularly classless and disrespectful manner. When he was first elected to be president, many expressed a hope that Trump would put all of that aside and rise to the office of the presidency, that he might somehow become more dignified just in sheer reverence to the traditions and values that the presidency is supposed to represent. But he clearly has not done so, and thus, in my opinion, he deserves every bit of criticism, and every ounce of the complete lack of respect that he gets. Because his actual presidency is, in a very real sense, the most severe attack imaginable on the office of the presidency in particular, as well as to democracy more generally. His mindless hordes of supporters and enablers also deserve it, too. By now, they should know that in this world, you give what you get. And Trump gets what he gives out relsentlessly, which is a complete lack of respect, classlessness, and dignity. That will be his legacy, as well as his current attempts to undermine every aspect of American democracy as we know it, flawed though it may have been. What they have done to this country, and to it's now obviously fragile democracy, is frankly unforgivable, and the damage may be irreparable. But to the point that it might still be saved, I would suggest that the criticism, even the less respectful criticism, is still, on some level, the voice of the democracy that Trump has worked so hard to trash, again with a complete lack of respect. That is why personally, I am not too troubled that attacks on Trump lack respect. After all, they are a mirror of the man's own lack of respect. If he showed even a sliver of respect towards others, maybe it would feel excessive or in bad taste. But as it is, given the state of things, it almost feels like these attacks are, in fact, the last gasp of a dying democracy, fighting and clawing not to go gently into the night. And the darkness that it is rebelling against is Trump, and those legions of mindless morons who instinctively, unthinkingly support, and thus enable, him. Trump is no victim, he is the instigator. He made the bed, now let him sleep in it.