118: Trumpism is Cruel Immaturity (1)

【Human Weakness】
Below are the words from 8 years ago on this blog, when the first Trump administration took office:

“When you’re in the worst of all situations, you may feel it’s going to persist like an eternal tunnel of darkness.  However, one day not too long from now, that tunnel will end, and you'll emerge into the daylight. That is, time will pass.” [See #2]
 
Trumpism is like a collection of the ugliest parts of America, such as violence, discrimination, lies, hate, egoism, nationalism, and traditional privilege.
 
It tears apart families of immigrants/refugees, and locks up in cages the crying children frightened to death. It's a dark tunnel that seems never-ending, tormenting people who are significantly disadvantaged in our society, or born into less-fortunate circumstances.
 
The culmination of these cruel policies/actions came in 2020.
 
In that year’s US presidential election, Biden defeated Trump by over 7 million votes. Not only Americans, but also many liberal people around the world breathed a sigh of relief, rejoicing, “Finally, we’re free from the worst situation!” [See #67]
 
Having lost the election, Trump next incited his supporters to storm the US Capitol. What’s more, even after that, with no credible evidence to present and being rejected in all courts, he continued to spew lies, saying “there was fraud, I didn’t lose,” like a small kid not yet learned how to stomach a defeat.
 
In the face of this toxic immaturity for such an old man, many who had originally voted for Trump were heard making excuses, saying “I didn’t know he was this pathetic; I never thought he would go so low.”
 
But only four years later, here we are again, back to the “worst situation.” It’s truly a shame.
 
One may argue that voters of the first Trump administration have a reasonable claim to “I didn’t know, I never thought.” But let’s be very clear; this time, that excuse will no longer hold. You can't escape your own hand in it this time by pretending, "I didn't think this was gonna get so bad."
 
Because it’s now been a well-known fact that a rapist and convicted felon Donald Trump, who was found liable in a sexual assault lawsuit, is a pathologically cruel human being. If you still insist, “I didn’t know, I never thought,” then your own ignorance is to blame.
 
Despite knowing fully of Trump’s cruelty, many voters of the second Trump administration ended up choosing “Self-interest above all else.”
 
That is, no matter how much suffering/persecution is forced upon the minorities, LGBTQ people, immigrants, refugees, and others who live outside of the majority identity, the Trump voters chose to look the other way in exchange for their own extra layer of comfort and the sense of privilege.
 
In this way, “Self-centered populism” like Trumpism feeds on human weakness, creeping into the weak minds, where it eventually morphs itself into fascism. And cynicism thrives on this weakness, eroding our sense of justice away, and spreading the ideas that prey on our fear, like “After all, humans are all selfish, so if we don’t prioritize our own interests, we'll only lose out.”
 
All the while, new persecutions and threats have already begun. To make things worse, countless cruel policies are likely to unfold soon.
 
Do the Trump voters need to experience these harms firsthand to truly understand the cruelty of it all? 

Read Next: Trumpism is Cruel Immaturity (2)【Firsthand Experience】

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