An Insufferable Jerk at Times ...But? Part 2

By Patrick Hall

As noted earlier, Donald Trump’s comportment, or the way he carries himself in public, reminds me of the guys, I grew up with in the 1950s and 60s.

During my adolescent years when my friends and I got into one our occasional scraps, we would call one another niggers, wops, crackers, beaners, spics, jungle bunnies Japs, dumb as Ricans and Polacks, and many other colorful ethnic pejoratives. In the obligatory tussles with our German friends over in St. Boniface Parish, we always managed to do our very best Sergeant Saunder’s calling them Krauts. Those were the days before PC and the pernicious chauvinism of identity politics. Yes, I must admit those weren’t the best moments as friends back in the day. And of course, the situation in the segregated South during this same period was an abomination or stain on the nation.  This was despite our sometimes less-than-perfect ethnic semantics.

Yet a characteristic of how we interacted was that even with these shortcomings, we remained best of friends, notwithstanding the occasional punch to the head.  Reflecting on it, we were left to work things out among ourselves.  Everything didn’t become the stuff of an ACLU, discrimination, Civil Rights lawsuit, or investigation.   No one tried to mandate cultural sensitivity, which today’s diversity and multicultural experts don’t see as just another form of censorship, intimidation, or discrimination.   We all knew intuitively, unlike DEI advocates, that shutting people up doesn’t build anything, much less real tolerance. The DEI industry at its best is little more than moderate authoritarianism. Which is like being a little bit pregnant.  
We didn’t go running to the Federal government for every redress.  Yes, it was tough at times, and not the formula pursued by the contemporary grievance industry, multicultural and diversity quacks, and constituencies within both Democrat and Republican Parties. But it worked! Quite honestly, it is the single reason why today approaching my 73rd year on this earth, I tend to trust Conservatives or just plain PC/Woke adverse Americans. Conversely, your average culturally sensitive, pure of racial, misogynist, gender epitaphs, and too often Democrats, I’m more cautious. To be honest, I don’t trust, modern-day liberals and most Democrats at all.  I guess I need to work more on my trust issues!  Maybe?

I have observed over the years that many Democrats and most Progressive Liberals only perceive or discern black people, Latinos, Native Americans, and other designated oppressed minorities as “ideas.” In most cases, these same Progressives live as far removed from their ideas of the “beautiful multicultural mosaic” as possible.  They don’t have to send their children (if they have any) to the living nightmare of inner-city public schools; nor do they live with the noise and inappropriate, if not barely civilized behavior that is often a permanent feature in less affluent, if not sketchy urban areas.

 Now, don’t get me wrong. I think it is a person’s right, plus a good thing to live in the best neighborhoods where criminality is not so omnipresent.  Living in an area where you are not menaced with being stabbed to death is a plus. My wife and I were both part of this very real situation at our local inner-city Walmart. At the time, my wife was asking a young black woman, with three small children to move her shopping cart which was blocking the entrance to a check-out area. The young mother went straight-up ghetto, first at my wife and then later at me.  Swearing like a sailor and multiple times scowling and loudly threatening to stab my wife and me.

 However, I more than understand that all of us want to provide our children with the best schools, as well as a positive environment.  My problem with liberals and mostly Democrats is that they will quickly lecture you on cultural tolerance and understanding the " oppressed “other.” However, they conveniently don’t live near the cultural discord, if not the ongoing societal decay that plagues many urban areas. To paraphrase the late economist Walter Williams, liberals and caring altruistic Democrats adopt a peculiar grace on the cheap posture in their selective pontification concerning race, cultural diversity (i.e., Tribalism/Balkanization with a Smiling Face), or intercultural tolerance.

In retrospect, this is one of the many reasons so many of us voted for the non-politician and often irritating, SOB businessman Donald Trump. He can be wrongly perceived as such a meanie at times, especially by suburban liberal women, who helped get him out of office in favor of good old Uncle Joe, from Scranton.    Most Trump supporters were just fatigued with your typical say-everything-just-right politician or Obama/Clinton-like Jacobins that infest both political parties. The polite, risk-averse, and phony social filters aren’t there with Trump.  Trump's pitch is indeed imperfect. But that is what we like about this get-on-your-nerves, socially and politically incongruent businessman.   Once again, the man is essentially not a politician.

As I indicated earlier, Donald Trump reminds me of a lot of guys and gals I grew up with back in the 1950s and 60s. Yes, he’s rough around the edges, an insufferable loud mouth, if not in-your-face prickly pain-in-the-ass. This is compared to your typical two-faced empty suit if not dangerous politicians like Obama or the Clintons. Trump is a dangerous socio-political anomaly for both the Democrat and Republican polity.  The former President is not “entirely” in the pocket of big-money donors. He is rich already so he is hardly bought and paid for like many in the nation’s political class. This made Trump especially perilous, if not an existential threat to the Clintons, Obamas, Nancy Pelosi, and even controlled opposition Republicans like Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. As we have seen via the bogus attacks and impeachments of Trump, the echelon of the CIA, FBI as well as the failing Justice Department have all systematically targeted Donald J. Trump for destruction.   He was and still is guilty of the egregious sin of being a DC outsider.  The mostly Democrat political state that runs 90% of Washington has taken it upon themselves to get rid of this weird brash rich guy who likes our country in both words and deeds.  But I am also a realist. I wonder if anyone can save our faltering Republic from the endemically corrupt individuals, we have elected to run the nation.