Protests not whining, but a warning
Trump’s radical policy proposals could spark a conflagration not easily doused
The Journal has published a string of op-ed columns and letters from Trump supporters condemning the ongoing antiTrump demonstrations, including Diane Diamond’s “Note to Dems: Stop whining.”
The tone of Diamond’s opinion piece is nearly identical to all the rest: “stop whining.” They completely miss the real points of the protests.
There are two points, one moral and one strategic. What does “Trump is not my president” mean? Not that he didn’t win the election — everybody knows he did. It means that, for moral reasons, the person repudiates Trump’s bigotry and racism.
Diamond and the other Trump supporters seem to think that Trump’s many, many bigoted statements and bigoted policy proposals have somehow magically been erased now that he has become president. They haven’t; you can still watch them on Youtube. Why does Dimond call labeling him a bigot “scurrilous”? If saying bigoted things and proposing bigoted laws doesn’t make one a bigot, what does?
The strategic reason is to give notice. The protests are not whining, they are another “W” word: “warning.”
They give warning that, if Trump intends to follow through on these campaign promises, it will not be an easy ride. Perhaps Dimond and Trump think that if he proposes to establish a “registry” of people whose religion is Islam and subject them to “special scrutiny,” or to send out the Army to round up millions of immigrants, or strip millions of poor people of health care, or reverse marriage equality, the majority of people in this country who did not vote for Trump will simply roll over. They’re wrong.
If just his election puts tens of thousands into the streets, what will be the reaction to these attempts to institutionalize bigotry and inequality?
Diamond shouldn’t mock and denigrate these protesters. The political situation in the United States is now dry as tinder and radical policy proposals will set off a conflagration that Trump will not easily put out. They tell him: “He who sows the wind … reaps the whirlwind.”