You Created Trump, Liberals
There’s a video making the rounds of Ann Coulter appearing on Bill Maher during the Republican primaries, in which she is asked who she thought had the best chance of winning the general election. “Of the declared ones? Right now? Donald Trump.” Then the audience howls with laughter. In fact, “howls with laughter” has never been a more appropriate description than it is in relation to this video.
But think about that for a moment. Is that a funny statement? Forget what you feel about the election at this moment and consider this: Would you have “howled with laughter” at that statement a year ago? I mean, a chuckle, maybe; perhaps even a guffaw. But the sustained, freak-the-fuck-out cackle on this video? Nah, man. That’s not a normal laugh. That’s the laugh of people trying to prove something. That’s the laugh of condescending intelligence. “Thou doth protest too much,” said The Bard. And I say: that laugh, and all the opinions and things that go with it, are precisely the reason why Trump is president-elect.
Some would say, “That’s just a feeling,” “you don’t know that for a fact,” and “those laughs don’t feel that way to me.” But it doesn’t have to feel that way to everyone. I’m just saying that laugh feels that way to a lot of people. In an election that was all about feelings, this matters. If you voted for Hillary, then I’m guessing it was based on a feeling. A lot of people will say that Trump is a misogynist or a racist and present that as fact. But those are just feelings. One person’s racist is another person’s “guy who speaks his mind.” It’s an opinion that’s a completely valid one upon which to base your vote because you’re an American adult. So give that freedom of feeling to the other side.
I had another comic ask me a few nights ago if I “had spoken with” a family member who was voting for Trump. Had I had “the talk” with them yet? Like they were a child with a predilection for getting into cars with strangers. The question was insulting. Not because they disagreed with my family member, but because the person just assumed they didn’t have the intellect to come to a decision. That since I was in this liberal comic’s presence and was capable of having a conversation with full sentences, that I must be my family’s special ed teacher who walks them to class and re-explains the homework.
I can understand why someone would be shocked by a Trump win or even a Trump vote. I can understand if you think he’s a racist who preys on women. I can’t tell you how to feel. But if you think 60 million people voted for Trump because they hate black people and women, you’re simplifying it to a point of absurdity. 60 million people voted for Trump because they wanted to drain the swamp, and they didn’t care who they hired to do it. Honestly, if Bernie Sanders had been the democratic nominee, I think a fair amount of the people you’re calling racist vote for him. You can either accept that we live in a complex world where everyone acts on their own feelings that you can’t control, or you can keep telling people that their vote was “a disaster.”
But please try to understand the very act of proclaiming this a disaster is condescending to the people who voted for him; it’s a subtle “you’re stupid,” and that lack of empathy is the very thing that created Trump’s presidency. Call someone stupid once, they buy a Make America Great Again Hat. Call someone stupid for a year and they make sure to vote.
We stopped listening to people. We labeled them “racist,” “misogynist,” and “redneck” when they didn’t agree with us and we felt self-satisfied in our superior intelligence. We didn’t converse with them; we didn’t care about what they cared about. So now this is the revolution of the trodden that the liberals have always sought — it just didn’t happen on their terms; as if it ever would..
Image via lev radin / Shutterstock.com
“The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” -Dr. Seuss
8 years ago at 10:30 amDr. Seuss is pretty frat.
8 years ago at 11:27 amI’M BEING SERIOUS.
8 years ago at 11:32 amHe was a SipEp. VDBL.
8 years ago at 3:06 pm*SigEp
8 years ago at 9:51 amThe last paragraph here is the problem with this election and politics in general. People on both sides of the aisle can’t sit down and talk about shit without calling each other names. The left isn’t the only group doing it either; a lot of the reactions we’re seeing now from people on the left are pretty much identical to what people on the right were saying in Obama won in ’08. To a lesser degree back then, sure, but that’s understandable I think from the rhetoric of the campaigns this time around.
8 years ago at 10:36 amPeople are worried about reelection on the first day of their first term. So instead of working together they make sure everyone back home knows “Yeah I hate the other side too!”
Term limits in congress and abolition of the electoral college are long overdue.
8 years ago at 12:25 pmEveryone keeps saying the electoral college should be repealed, but it plays an important role in helping keep large sections of the country from being completely disenfranchised. It is better than a straight popular vote because the US is gigantic, and whoever wins has to be president of both Los Angles and rural Kansas. While population differences are represented in the electoral college every state still has a base of 3. There are more people living in Nashville than the state of Wyoming. If we did a strict popular vote every single campaign promise would be aimed at only those who live in large metropolitan areas and the states they are in. It would basically make America into the state of Illinois where it always goes blue even though Chicago is the only blue part of the state. Three points are not a lot, but when there are several more rural states that add up it gives the people who live there a say that is actually worth politicians listening to them.
Also congressional term limits would require a constitutional amendment. States have tried it before and SCOTUS said no go. Not saying it can’t be done, but it would be a huge uphill battle.
8 years ago at 9:48 amThese liberals claiming to be so against hate, yet they continue to spew hatred all across the Internet. The inability to recognize their own hypocrisy astounds me. Thank God Trump won.
8 years ago at 10:41 amI got a black eye because I told a few protestors to “respect the vote”. I’m still the bad guy though, serves me right.
8 years ago at 11:19 amCheck your privilege. Did you know a woman’s vote only counts 70% of a man’s? Or did you know that the Missouri Compromise was never repealed and that black votes are 3/5 of a white vote? This isn’t a democracy because people voted for the guy I didn’t like. Someone hold me.
8 years ago at 11:24 amDid you know that I wrote congress and asked them to make abortion mandatory for every baby with parents who have a below average IQ?
8 years ago at 11:32 amThat’s the kind of change we need. Bold move, and I like it.
8 years ago at 11:53 amI guess you wouldn’t be having kids then
8 years ago at 2:16 amI know this is a joke, but there was a pissed off black guy on CNN last night that literally said black votes counted less than white votes. Not in a metaphorical sense. He actually believed it. It’s absurd. He also said the election had “everything to do with race” and white people didn’t understand.
8 years ago at 4:15 pmOk that’s true. Coming from a white guy I can honestly say I’ve een the huge disconnect between the reality my minority friends face and that of my friends growing up
8 years ago at 2:18 amAnd the lack of understanding between the ‘2’ identities (not venmo bringing in gender etc) is gonna keep us from oving forward
8 years ago at 2:20 amWho are we offending? I don’t see hate, but I do see miscommunication. And their anger/unwillingness to sit down at the moment to talk about where they’re coming from and ‘yall’ (pardon me grouping yall together) doing the same thing has fucked up this country
8 years ago at 2:15 amHey. Shut the fuck up
8 years ago at 4:46 pmThese delicate snowflakes don’t even know what’s coming.
8 years ago at 10:43 amWe do that’s why we cried. Cause climate change policy, lgbt rights, abortion access, reproductive rights, economic policy, urban and regional development policy, Healthcare, immigration, international affairs all gonna go to shit.
8 years ago at 2:33 amIf you took a civics class in high school and it wasn’t dismantled by Democrats to keep you stupid you’d know the government doesn’t work that way
8 years ago at 11:02 amThe last two paragraphs are an incredibly accurate description of all this mess. You can’t over simplify people into one group, and to be able to create change we need people need to be able to sit down and discuss their ideas with the other side without name calling or violence. Wanting change unless it’s not on your terms is like pissing into the wind.
8 years ago at 10:44 amI mean, pissing into the wind gets the job done, it’s just unnecessarily messy.
8 years ago at 11:55 amHas BayBro already been deported?
8 years ago at 10:44 am*Quickly scrolls all the way down to the most down voted comment
8 years ago at 4:08 pmI honestly think peoples frustration with political correctness propelled him to victory
8 years ago at 11:09 amJust one of many things. Draining the swamp as he said is another, a perceived sense of no-nonsense is another. The list goes on. It’s just not simple is one of the messages here.
8 years ago at 12:26 pmYou make a bunch of good points but one quote in your article really bothered me.
“A lot of people will say that Trump is a misogynist or a racist and present that as fact. But those are just feelings.”
Donald Trump said Judge Gonzalo Cruiel was unfit to oversee his trial because of his Mexican heritage. He also said in a prepared statement that he would ban an entire religion (almost 20% of the world population) from entering the U.S.
How is that not objectively racism? That’s not a feeling, that is the literal definition of racism.
I understand your main point about not all Trump supporters being truly racist. And I think you’re correct on that point. But to say viewing Trump as a racist is “just a feeling” is absurd.
8 years ago at 11:11 amNo one gives a fuck about your opinion
8 years ago at 11:39 amHe stated he was unfit because of his statements on building a wall and deporting criminals.
He wanted to put on hold the acceptance of Muslim refugees into our country untill a real vetting process was in place. Which the Obama administration did to Iraq in 2011 for 6 months.
8 years ago at 11:44 amThere’s already a rigorous screening process in place for refugees trying to enter the United States. You can easily Google it. The fact that so many people don’t realize this is alarming.
8 years ago at 5:00 pmThat wasn’t my point Larry. Did you even read your homework?
8 years ago at 9:22 pmWhat was your point then? I don’t follow.
8 years ago at 11:32 pmIf you were attempting to rationalize or soften Trump’s call to ban an entire religion from entering the country by comparing it to the 2011 temporary pause of acceptance of people from the country of Iraq, then I don’t buy it. That pause was of people of a specific nationality, not religion, and it was prompted by an actual Iraqi terrorist that slipped through the cracks, which prompted reform to the refugee program and resulted in the rigorous/”real” vetting process that I already mentioned.
8 years ago at 11:40 pmSo it’s ok to put a halt on an entire country but it isn’t ok to put a halt to an entire religion?
8 years ago at 4:26 amIf you really can’t see the difference in the two situations, both fundamentally and circumstantially, I can’t help you.
8 years ago at 6:36 amPlease explain to me the difference in a group of people from one country and a group of people who have a common belief?
8 years ago at 2:34 pmBut that is his point. What is a “racist”? Is it a white person in a white cloak burning a cross? Is it anyone who says a single thing about Muslims? How many non-PC comments do you have to say to be racist? Because not a single person in the world is without saying or thinking some type of discrimination in their lifetime. Not one, we’re humans. “Racist” is relative for every single person alive who chooses to label someone that way. To say for a fact someone is a racist or not a racist is absolutely absurd. It’s a label that people put on others that they decided in their mind.
That labeling is just for the single individual who made it. That’s why 20 million people on Facebook yelling “misogynist! racist!” only affect the people who stated think it. And that’s why Trump won. No facts or reasoned discussion or conversation. Just yelling their own pre-determined labels at other people. Echo chamber. People can think for themselves, and they did.
8 years ago at 11:49 amHe said he was unfit for making decisions on his wall and deportation because he was Mexican, meaning he’s not able to make objective decisions about this very particular issue
8 years ago at 11:50 amJudge Gonzalo Curiel is overseeing a lawsuit related to Trump University. It has nothing to do with the wall or immigration.
8 years ago at 12:14 pmIt still makes him bias you fucking democratic superfan.
8 years ago at 9:24 pmPresident Roosevelt (A Democrat) did not allow any Jewish refugees in during WWII, and they weren’t trying to kill us. Maybe the current administration are the clueless ones…
8 years ago at 11:56 amDon’t forget about imprisoning Japanese people for their ethnicity. That’s not racist though because he’s a democrat.
8 years ago at 1:49 pmImprisoning Japanese people based on their nationality was really fucking racist. Democrat does not automatically mean not racist, every rational human being will admit to that.
8 years ago at 2:13 pmWell Islam is a religion. For some reason Democrats think it’s a race
8 years ago at 3:33 pmJudge Gonzalo would have been biased against trump. That’s pretty easy to see. And if he was biased then yes he would be unfit to hear the trial.
8 years ago at 6:54 amAlso, preventing Muslims from entering temporarily is not racism. The Muslim faith is not a race. How many black, white, Asian, etc. people are Muslim? If you don’t think radical Islam is an issue then you’re just blind or ignorant. How many more people need to be killed before we do something?
I gotta say, I’m really let down by the number of pussies on this site, but more so in general. People are getting labeled racists, bigots, and blamed for violence. Here’s how you win an argument. Stop apologizing you fucks.
8 years ago at 11:34 amSaying “there’s problems on both sides” isn’t a good answer. Know why? Because the violence comes from one side. There wasn’t riots in 2008, or 2012. News hosts weren’t calling it a black uprising. Republicans weren’t paying people to incite violence at their opponent’s rally’s.
only one side is racist. Only one side is bigoted. And that’s the party that panders to race-baiters like black lives matter and al sharpton. People who call for violence towards whites. Violence towards police. Shout no justice, no peace. People like Clinton, who speaks down to white Americans and call them racist in order to appear morally superior.
Here’s an idea. Stop apologizing for being right.
Stop being a pussy.
Grow a pair.
TL;DR- Grow the fuck up, nobody cares about your opinion.
8 years ago at 11:39 amSlow fucking clap. Spot on, sir.
8 years ago at 1:07 pmI would up this a million times if I could
8 years ago at 1:56 pmRiots, you mean peaceful protest? Obama never called women fat pigs, was accused of sexual assault, claim he was gonna ban all muslims from entering….
8 years ago at 2:01 pmUser name checks out
8 years ago at 2:49 pmSome people are dumb enough to pay attention to these loser protesters. It isn’t time to mend fences or come together or reach a compromise – Trump won. It’s time to implement the policies we voted him in to do.
When Obama got elected he wasn’t worried about coming together, he literally said (paraphrasing), no one cares about your side, you lost, we won, go sit in the corner while we destroy this country and get rich off cronyism. It’s time to tell liberals to go sit in the corner while we fix this.
8 years ago at 2:51 pmI have a few problems with your statement. Now I’m no liberal, but “the violence comes from one side” is just a completely false statement. There have been individuals for and against Trump that have taken matters too far. Also, regarding your assertion that nobody batted an eye after ’08 or ’12, you seem to forget some of the reaction to Obama’s 2008 win. Maybe you weren’t old enough, I don’t know, but while people weren’t necessarily taking to the streets in large numbers, some of it was very, very negative and disturbing. For what it’s worth, I think that we’re seeing this extreme of a reaction to the outcome of the election because some of Trump’s rhetoric has taken all this beyond one political party defeating the other for many people (from both sides of the aisle).
8 years ago at 3:34 pmAnd saying that only one side is bigoted or racist is also laughably false. Yes, the democrats aren’t free from racism like they and a large portion of the media want us to believe, but if you truly believe that there aren’t ANY elements of sexism and white nationalism behind Donald Trump’s appeal, you need to pull your head out of your ass.
8 years ago at 3:43 pmThis is what happens you fuck a stranger in the ass, Larry.
8 years ago at 4:18 pmIf this is what happens, I really regret stealing that car and fuckin’ money.
8 years ago at 5:19 pmIf you don’t want to be labeled as racist, then educate yourself on what you may be doing to brand white people as racist. Simple as that. Stereotypes generally come from somewhere.
8 years ago at 2:29 amAlot of flags and symbols waved by the protesters. I see commie flags, Mexican flags and Turkish flags but the one thing I don’t see are American flags.
8 years ago at 7:06 pmTbh that’s how you play right into how they already perceive you. They perceive you as such because of past and continuing negative experiences with white people. mostly to do with a lack of understanding and language
8 years ago at 2:23 amCall me what you want I don’t care. I’m the guy who isn’t paying for your college and failed healthcare policies and I feel great.
8 years ago at 11:54 am