On Civility and Presidential Politics

Donald_TrumpI have to say that this presidential election cycle has been a mess, to say it delicately.  I have never seen so much incivility among the candidates and their supporters before, namely from the Trump campaign.  I think it speaks more to the current state of American culture.

I will say upfront that I am a supporter of Hillary Clinton.  I also support many of the principles that Bernie Sanders has presented, which, I think, will help Clinton be a better president.  With that said, if either Clinton or Sanders were engaging in the type of toxic rhetoric Donald Trump was doing, I would be calling them out too.

With him saying that Mexicans are rapists, all Muslims should be banned from this country, and numerous verbal assaults on women, I really don’t think Trump is actually a racist, a xenophobe or a misogynist.  He is even worse.  Trump has always been an opportunist first, and will say and do what he needs to say and do to get attention.  In this election, his behavior is no different, except that his potential presidential victory could be very dangerous for the country, from both a domestic and international policy perspective.

There are many factors to why Trump is doing so well at the primaries so far.  Some of them include traditional Republicans who are disillusioned by the GOP “establishment” and other people who are simply unhappy about the direction the Obama administration has taken this country.  

But let’s be real here: a good number of Trump supporters are only voting for him because of his celebrity, not necessarily for his political acumen or success in business.  A couple of weeks ago during the first Super Tuesday, I was watching the news and a reporter interviewed a voter as he was leaving the voting area.  The reporter asked him who he voted for and why.  

“I voted for Donald Trump because I like how he ran the Apprentice show, and that is how he should run America,” he said.

Are you kidding me?

Welcome to the new America, where low-information voters are now mainstream and acceptable.  What amazes me more is that this guy doesn’t seem to realize that The Apprentice might be a reality show, but, like almost all reality shows today, is scripted.  But this comes as no surprise when 10 percent of American college graduates think Judge Judy is on the Supreme Court, and it is totally acceptable to believe everything you see in Google search results, especially among his supporters and Trump himself.    

Because he knows that many Americans today don’t invest in basic civics education and are not getting most of their news from anywhere beyond what they see on TMZ or People magazine, it seems like Trump is using this to his advantage to rally support.  This is most likely why when he is in debates or speaking at his rallies, his policy positions lack any substance.  I have even taken the time to read up on his policy “positions” on his website, which all look like smoke and mirrors.  Immigration: build a wall?  Terrorism: ban all Muslims?  Immigration, terrorism and a plethora of other pressing issues can’t be solved with simplistic solutions.

Thank goodness for great people like John Oliver who keep it real on Trump’s sham Great Wall of Mexico.

What makes this worse is that a good deal of Trump supporters are openly bigoted.  There are known KKK members and white power supporters who are actively campaigning for Trump.  This is 2016 and we are still talking about Hitler, Nazis and fascists?

Lets not forget Trump was the instigator of the birther movement against President Obama and more recently Ted Cruz.

As a result, we are starting to see all this violence at his rallies, and Trump seems to be okay with violence against anti-Trump supporters and reporters.

For the last few days I have been talking to friends and colleagues around the world and they can’t believe this is going on in America.  One of my good friends Kofi from Ivory Coast told me in an email that the United States no longer has a right to criticize “backwards elections in third world countries since it now seems hypocritical.”

He’s right.  The United States used to be a standard bearer of political civility, and now that is going to the wayside.

This is a very scary time to be living in, and I am very fearful for our country’s future.