Perhaps the reasoning behind Trump’s authoritarian actions is not so much that he is authoritarian as much as he is merely incapable of being a politician. Politicians such as George W Bush, Barack Obama, or Hillary Clinton moved to more moderate, centrist positions during their campaigns (there wasn’t far to go with Hillary), and the reason for this was to appeal to a broad swath of the electorate. That is the purely expedient reason for moderate positions, but from the standpoint of a professional politician, it is their job to represent all of their constituents. Certainly this gives rise to the caricature of the two-faced lying politician, but the profession of politics requires politicians to be all things for all people, at least in appearance. Donald Trump apparently doesn’t recognize this imperative, and appears to represent nobody except for his fanciful imaginary self. He is the product of a hyper-partisan political environment where being a standard politician is not just passe, it’s a death sentence. Now not only the Republicans, but also some Democrats are beginning to see that they will quickly find themselves out of a job if they make deals with ‘the other side’, regardless of how reasonable these deals may be.
In the broader sense, it’s frightening to someone like myself who leans liberal (along with about half of the country) to see the liberal voices in our government so completely out of power. It wasn’t always this way. Even back in the ancient past of the Obama administration, there was still an attempt by the majority party to achieve bipartisan support for legislation, even if the opposition stonewalled them at every turn.
On a state level, I would often research all of the candidates for North Carolina office, regardless of whether they had a D or an R next to their names. I even voted for a few Republicans based on their individual merits. However, since the power grab by the Republicans after the election of a democratic governor, I cannot in good conscience vote for anyone with an ‘R’ next to their name in a state election, if this is the Game of Thrones style politics that they employ. It saddens me to do this, and this has been happening throughout the country of late.
There is cause for optimism, perhaps. I hope that this hyperpartisanship, driven by extremely biased voters being fed by information echo chambers of their own creation, is merely the effect of the breakdown of the monolithic US media that began in the 50’s. People now know that they can choose their news outlets, their view of the world. There will always be bastions of ignorance and false narratives in this nation, there always have been. Conspiracy theories are sometimes right, such as the massive surveillance by the NSA which vindicated the tin-foil hat folks some years ago. The prevailing narrative is sometimes wrong, such as predictions of Hillary’s victory last year. But perhaps more people will become united in their understanding that ALL news is worthy of skepticism, and work together for a nuanced and mature understanding of issues.
Or we could just squabble over every slight and be filled with righteous indignation at everything ‘the other’ is doing to this great nation, thus justifying our own position. That’s cool too.
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