If Trump is Strong, I Want to Be Weak

 

I'm not a fan of Trump. Anyone who reads what I write and sees my FB posts can see that. 

 

Whenever I share something about him a little debate goes on in my mind about whether to post that meme or article. 

 

'Do you really want to give the man the attention he so desperately craves?' The cautious part of my mind asks. 

 

'A huge segment of the electorate and the media gives him that attention anyway.' I reason. 'And they often don't recognize him for the fascist blowhard he is.'

I had this same debate with myself while trying to decide on whether to dedicate a blog-post to his candidacy. I decided it was worth it.

 

If nothing else, I can make sure there's a public record of where I stood on his candidacy during this election. 

 

I want to write this, not in the hopes of swaying his supporters. I'm almost certain they will defend the man regardless of anything he says or does. I write this in the hope that people who may regard him as just a joke will see just how dangerous he could be for America and for the world.

If I boil my feelings on the man's campaign down to one word, that word is 'repulsive'. 

 

His personality, his platform (if his ramblings can even be called that), his manipulation of people's fears and prejudices, his willingness to dish out insults but throw a hissy-fit if anyone attacks him, his gleeful pride of his own ignorance, his blatant, never-ending ego-masturbation. 

 

There is nothing, nothing redeemable about what this man says or stands for. His ravings represent a version of America that mindlessly indulges the darkest parts of our history and society. 

 

Like many populist demagogues throughout history, he gives his followers a temporary but ecstatic high of security and confidence by making them part of his own grand myth. He makes his people the heroes of an epic story in which they are 'winners' and every problem in their life is the fault of some other (Immigrants, Muslims, Liberals, the Media). 

 

Hitler did it, Mussolini did it and now Trump follows in their goosestepping wake. He is creating his own simplistic black and white universe for anxious Americans, angry (often justifiably) at all things established to lose themselves in. It's a universe removed from the complex nature of reality. But it's a simple one to accept and understand, which is why it has such appeal in a time of anxious uncertainty.

And it is that willingness to swallow Trump's koolaid that is most frightening. What Trump says is repulsive but I think there is still an argument to be made that he is simply a reality tv-showman playing to his audience's fears. There's still some doubt in my mind over whether he is truly committed to all the BS he spouts. 

 

What is far more troubling to me are the people who get so lost in his fantasy that they begin to see everyone who differs or disagrees with them as an enemy. The example of two Boston men beating up and urinating on a homeless Hispanic man in Trump's name could just be the tip of the iceberg.

Once this kind of alternate, Nativist fantasy is mainstream (as I fear it is becoming) it can be hard to get rid of. Even if the story itself is inconsistent people cling to it because they need that story to make them feel empowered. 

 

For the kind of mythology Trump peddles is not for strong, secure people. His story of  'Make America Great Again' is for those who are profoundly insecure and doubt themselves in a time of change. 

 

And that includes Trump. He needs to believe his own BS perhaps even more than his followers do.

He bristles as every hard question thrown his way by reporters. He feuds with those few voices in the mainstream media that call him out on making up stories about Muslims cheering the collapse of the World Trade Center. He throws personal insults like a toddler when his own tweets get read back to him for a debate.

 

Is this the mark of a secure strong leader? 

 

A man who styles himself as a strong leader who will make America great, cannot handle a tough line of questioning and talks lustfully about punching protesters in the face when they try and disrupt his rallies.

 

If this is what strength is in Donald Trump's America, if it is measured not by how well you can engage your opponent in mutual discussion but by how loudly you can shout, pout and throw a tantrum when the entire world does not declare you to be the best man in the universe, than I am perfectly fine being weak. 

 

If winning in Donny's United States is demonizing others to make yourself feel better, I'm happy to be called a loser. 

 

If being great, means having an ego so frail that it can be shattered with a single question, than I earnestly embrace being small. 

 

Donald Trump is a clown, but he is a dangerous clown. And if the people of America lose themselves in his world we deserve everything that comes next.

Then Why Am I Still Alive? - A Response to the Vitriol Against Syrian Refugees

Some of the more vitriolic rhetoric about the danger of Syrian Refugees has got me thinking:

'Why am I alive?'

I've been thinking of this as a rhetorical question recently in light of the paranoid flurry of social media activity regarding Syrian refugees and the Paris Attacks.

(Never mind that none of the shooters appear to be refugees and seem to be Muslim citizens of Belgium and France.)

I ask this because if certain voices on the right are correct concerning the nature of Muslims, I shouldn't be alive today.

You see I was an American who spent two and half years living in a Muslim majority country. Egypt to be precise.

I did not live in a walled off compound surrounded by guards. I lived in an apartment building near downtown Cairo. My neighbors and practically everyone in the building were Muslim.

Every workday I would grab a taxi (usually driven by a Muslim) to my company where I would work with Muslims and Christians making advertisements. I would eat with Muslim colleagues and would sometimes have discussions with conservative colleagues about US involvement in the region.

After work I would often go to a coffee shop (run by Muslims) and drink coffee having a conversation with the Muslim owner.

I would then walk home past Muslim owned shops and restaurants to my apartment occasionally saying hi to a Muslim neighbor I might see in the hall.

Sometimes I would go out at night with Muslim friends. I would sometimes accompany them into mosques (or restaurants or movie theatres depending on what we wanted to do). Occasionally, I would even have a beer or to with one of them.

 I would celebrate the end of day fast with Muslim friends during Ramadan (I actually fasted the full month one year).

I went to Muslim engagement parties and weddings.

And at times my Muslim friends and I would also have lively discussions and disagreements with each other.

Now, here’s what confuses me about my time there in light of some of the rhetoric about Syrian refugees:

Why was I never threatened with conversion or death once during my two and a half years there?

Why was I never made to feel unwelcome as a Westerner?

Why is it that people treated me the same after learning I was American?

Why could I walk down the streets of Cairo with a cross around my neck and not end of decapitated?

Why is it that I was never kidnapped or held hostage as I walked through the streets after work when I was known in the area as an American?

Why is it that even after having religious disagreements with Muslim colleagues at work they still talked to me and were friendly the next morning?

Why is it that even though I lived in Egypt through the Arab Spring and the election of the Muslim Brotherhood I wasn’t immediately dragged out of my apartment and shot?

All these ‘whys?’ can be summed up with one question.

‘If all 1.6 billion Muslims are so inherently dangerous, intolerant, violent and hellbent on destroying Western civilization- Why am I still alive???’

Why is it that in the two and a half years (and in the midst of political discord and upheaval no less) my Muslim neighbors, colleagues and friends didn’t show their ‘true faces’ and murder me?

The answer is this- The friendly, hospitable, generous and tolerant faces they showed me were their true faces.

A friend and I (I have the long hair.)

It makes me sad that I have to write that.

I do not deny that Islamic Extremism is a problem in the Middle East and many Muslim communities. I don’t deny the tragedy of the victims of terror attacks in the West and in the Muslim world. And there are many different social and cultural practices in Egypt that I don't think are right.

But those who would eagerly judge four million Syrian refugees by the actions of seven men who shared their faith but not their nationality are slandering.

If all the hundreds of Muslims I knew and interacted with daily truly were the knife and Kalashnikov wielding fanatics of ISIS I wouldn’t be writing this.

If that doesn’t somehow show how blind fear is driving the hateful anti-refugee rhetoric coming out of some Western circles, I don’t know what will.