[My friend Ivan Waldo wrote this confession]
Hi. My name is Ivan and I have a problem.https://img.huffingtonpost.com/asset/scaleFit_590_noupscale/58212ee516000014002c9020.jpg
“Hi Ivan!”
This is my first time admitting this out loud, but it is something that needs to be said. It is something that I need to get out of me.
Everyone…I just want to say that…I am responsible for the rise of Trump. And I want to say thank you for welcoming me in and giving me a space to admit some things https://img.huffingtonpost.com/asset/scaleFit_590_noupscale/58212ee516000014002c9020.jpgand also for offering me your support.
Crowd claps.
“Welcome brother!”
“Go on, brother.”
“Don’t be afraid. Don’t hold back.”
There’s this great group in America where people can go to when they are battling inner demons that they are trying desperately to excise. You can find them just about anywhere that you look. Members of the group are everywhere. Some people that you would never think of or would have never associated them with inner self-destructive, self-consuming appetites that threaten their well-being. Somehow, despite their inner turmoil, they found a way to confront and deal with it. They have all found their way to the group that helps them, supports them, and one by one, they excise their demons by standing up in front of the group and taking the first step: admitting that a problem exists.
This is my admission. I am responsible for the rise of Trump. I am. And no, right wing conservatives, I am not President Obama writing under a pseudonym. And no, I am not white hood wearing Klansman David Duke either. I am just an average, blue collar, law abiding citizen, just like you. I am not very different than any of you. But I have a problem. And I am struggling with an inner demon. It keeps me up at night, usually around 11 pm when the news comes on. I hear voices in my head that sound eerily like the news anchor lineup at Fox News. I always have a feeling that my work gloves are too big for my hands.
I realize that I have a problem. And my problem is Trump. I gave rise to him. I empowered him. I laid the foundation that his whole campaign rests on.
I am Trump.
And so are you.
We all are.
As Trump’s campaign has gone through its surges and dives and highlights (I “guess” accepting the Republican nomination was a highlight) and its many, many, many (add another 15) low-lights, I’ve heard pundits and talking heads and politicians and commentators and water cooler orators and bus stop soap box speakers preach on the phenomena that has become the Trump campaign.
No one ever thought that his run was serious, or that it would amount to anything, yet here we are, hours before we all head in droves to the polling stations, with Trump and Clinton separated by just a few polling points. How did this happen? How did a hypocritical, truth denying, self-absorbed, misogynistic racist have a real chance at becoming President? It really isn’t as incredulous as it seems. In fact, if we really just took a step back and looked at the whole scene from a different angle, we could see how he and his campaign and rhetoric and attitude have resonated with so many people. It is because Trump is an All-American guy with an All-American attitude.
Let’s take that step back.
It isn’t so hard for us as Americans to accept, and generally expect, hypocritical attitudes. It is what the history of this country is founded on. It is the history that we’ve all been programmed to accept. Think about it. Columbus didn’t discover the Americas. We know this. Yet he is still included in our national narrative and is honored every year with a date on our calendar. It seems just a small detail, but it isn’t. It reveals something about us. It says that we are willing to deny reality and accept untruths that we know to be false and even revel in them to the point that we celebrate the lies annually.
We tell stories of tea being tossed into Boston Harbors and read Declarations from Independents proclaiming the shackles of colonialism as inhumane and those shackles needed to be shed and eradicated from our borders, yet we have held a colony in the Caribbean for the past 118 years. We pride ourselves as the benevolent bringers of democracy, yet we have separate sets of laws for the people of Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands and other American territories and keep them from participating in the democratic process of the country that oversees them. Trump’s hypocritical ways are an extension of us. We are a nation of hypocrisies. We accept them. Revel in them. Celebrate them. And we shouldn’t be surprised that there are Americans that celebrate Trump.
We boast of being great. “America doesn’t have to be great again because it never stopped being great. We aren’t the best in education. We aren’t the best in life expectancy. We aren’t the greatest in health care. We aren’t even the best at being happy. We’re actually thirteenth in that. But we are the best at incarcerating our citizens and stripping them of rights and the ability to participate in the democratic process. We have police policies like Stop and Frisk that target particular communities with blanket sweeps that net 82% of innocent bodies in its web. It isn’t difficult to see that we’ve criminalized entire communities based on race and class. But we are still in denial about the level of racism existing in our country despite the alarming numbers. So when presidential candidates spew coded and charged words to heighten those levels of racism, we need to acknowledge from where that weed grows. We as a nation have sowed those seeds that sprouted that Orange wigged weed. His actions are our own.
As far as the misogyny goes, I’m not owning that. But we still need to visualize our reflection in his actions. He boasted about sexual assaulting women. About taking from them what is most sacred, their bodies, leaving them vulnerable and insecure and invading the most basic of boundaries. There is no excuse for that. It is repulsive and disgusting. Women have begun to stand together, to support each other, to denounce his actions. And they should. And we should listen and support them and stand in opposition to him and anyone remotely like him.
There is a situation in North Dakota where an invasion of the most basic understanding of boundaries is being broken. Our country is attacking people who have dared to stand up for themselves against predatory acts that will leave them (and have historically left them) vulnerable. They are defending what is most sacred to them. Other indigenous people have come from all over to their defense, to stand with them, to support of them. There is no excuse for the invasion. We should be repulsed by it.
This is our country. We have exhibited Trump-like qualities for centuries. We have accepted these hypocritical, truth denying qualities for centuries. We grew up on them. We’ve based the formulation of how we view ourselves and the rest of the world on them. We’ve surrounded ourselves with Trump like qualities. We’ve allowed them to stand the test of time. And what Trump is now, is what we’ve been for so long. It is who we are as a country. He is our reflection.
We haven’t dared to confront our own inner demons. We haven’t owned our actions. We have been in denial for far too long. And now, this presidential cycle, it is our rock bottom. We need to stand up. Own our actions. And admit that we have a problem.
Exercising our right to vote and voting to excise our inner demons is step one.