Try to put a little nuance in your life, people
I don’t think I’m announcing something akin to a biblical revelation when I say that Donald Trump has angered a lot of people.
There are those who will always make excuses for his mistakes, fully confirming his onetime declaration that he could kill someone of Fifth Avenue and none of his supporters would care. Part of that has to do with true allegiance to his brand, and part of that has to do with not wanting to give any satisfaction to those afflicted with Trump Derangement Syndrome.
The problem is that the people who refuse to criticize our president are themselves victims of that same syndrome, just a different strain of it. Like the flu, this illness manifests itself in a variety of ways, with one version making its sufferers despise the man and fantasize about his painful death, and another version making its sufferers venerate the fellow and fantasize about his opponents’ painful deaths.
I don’t belong to either crowd, and I’ve been fairly vocal about the things I love (Supreme Court picks, surprising pro-life stance, unwillingness to play the PC game with the aggrieved lobbies, his wife — the third one) and the things that I loathe (his stand on immigration, his dissing of our allies, his embrace of putrid Putin).
That puts me in the uncomfortable and unfortunate position of being loathed by both sides, depending on what has just come out of my mouth or my pen.
I’m used to it, and I actually no longer care if the twits in the Twitterverse and the unpleasant faces on Facebook send me hate mail, or whatever they can fit in a manila envelope. It makes me smile to know how much I mess with their minds (especially suburban women who are clutching their birth control pills, and their pearls, at the impending criminalization of abortion … if only).
But there is one thing that still frosts me, as my mom used to say. It’s when someone responds to a column I’ve written criticizing Trump, usually about immigration issues or like last week, about NATO, and says “You’re a hypocrite, and you don’t have the right to complain because you’re a rightwing whack job.”
My conservative friends never criticize me for being a left-wing hack, because the ones who used the repellent words like “libtard” are now forever blocked from my view and my life. The ones who remain do get a bit peeved when I say that the zero-tolerance policy is cruel and inhumane, and I can hear a few “Harrumphs!” every time I suggest that Trump is too much of an isolationist. But for the most part, conservatives are a bit more open minded.
Those on the left, who I refuse to call “liberals” because this #Metoo#BLM#O piodCrisis#ImpeachTrump #FreeMelania#KillKavanau gh’snomination#AbolishIC E#I’ve runoutoforiginalideas has made a mockery of true, real, open-minded, “catholic and universal” liberalism. They want nothing to do with those who do not blindly follow in lockstep behind their grievance.
Believe me, hate has a home there, and just signed a 30-year mortgage.
It is narrow-minded to think that people cannot have nuance, and that they can agree with Trump on some things and disagree on others. To demand apologies from the people who voted for Trump, or for those who simply did not vote for Hillary Clinton every time there is a catastrophic event like the first lady wearing a certain jacket displays a regrettable lack of creativity and sophisticated thinking.
Barack Obama said stupid things, too. The difference is that he used Thesaurus-style words instead of the “see Jack run” lexicon of President Trump. Nonetheless, they were stupid, as when he started apologizing for our flaws in Cairo around the time our soldiers were getting killed in the Middle East, or when he stated that if his daughters made a “mistake,” he didn’t want them “punished” with a baby. (On second thought, he wasn’t always so eloquent, either.)
And every time he said something stupid, did I wag my finger at his adoring supporters and say “It’s your fault that babies are being killed because this guy thinks abortion is a sacrament?”
No, I did not, even though I wanted to. That’s because supporters are not rubberstamp creatures who are directly responsible for every cockamamie thing that comes out of their candidates/leaders’ mouths.
Nuance is not a dirty word, people. So the next time someone decides to demand an apology from me because Trump says something that makes their ears bleed and they know I didn’t vote for Hillary, I’m going to channel my 10th-grade English teacher, Sister Mary Emmanuel, and just say a special prayer thanking the Lord for making people like that. This means that I get purgatory out of the way right here on earth, and death will send me on the express chariot to heaven.