Demonizing and dehumanizing Trump supporters
Hillary called them “deplorables,” Biden called them “garbage,” and Trump haters frequently denigrate them. That kind of poisonous rhetoric can have horrible long term consequences.
I’ve long warned about the grave danger of the mass demonization and dehumanization of President Trump, which has been relentless for 11 years now; propagated by the media, Democrats, and establishment Republicans. But I think that the demonization and dehumanization of Trump supporters might be even more dangerous.
In the past, high level politicians were always attacked, but their supporters were not. It stood to reason that you hoped to win those people to your side, rather than alienate them.
That changed when Hillary Clinton made this legendary comment at a campaign rally in 2016: “You could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic - you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up.” Ironically, she made that comment while standing at a podium that had the message “stronger together” - her campaign slogan - posted on the front.
She was using a tactic that liberals had frequently used for as long as I can remember - trying to win an argument by invalidating the person who they’re arguing with, rather than by constructively defeating the argument. But I had never noticed a politician doing that to the supporters of his/her opponent. Hillary wasn’t arguing against the views of these people; she simply dismissed them by calling them bad names.
And though she lost the election, that comment planted a seed that has unfortunately blossomed, to the extent that the next Democratic president, Joseph Biden, famously referred to Trump supporters as “garbage.”
On social media these days, Trump supporters are frequently called “MAGAts” - “maggots” - and accused of being dumb, ignorant, hateful people who are in a cult. On a side note, the most cult like behavior I’ve ever seen in mainstream society is from those who hysterically called people murderers for not wearing cloth masks or not getting the so called COVID vaccines.
Sometimes Trump haters denounce a person simply as a “Trump supporter,” as if that fact alone is all that you need to know; that it automatically makes him/her a bad person.
That’s not to say that zero Trump supporters are bad people. But most are good people who are drawn to him because they want a thriving economy, safe streets, a secure border, strong national defense, and a president who simply puts America first - all of which many recent presidents, both Democrat and Republican, have failed to do. Many are also scared of the woke insanity now supported by almost all Democrats, and embrace Trump because he speaks very strongly against it.
Trump’s political career will be over in less than three years, but tens of millions of his supporters will still be active. We must fight against the persecution of them. Holocausts don’t happen overnight. They start with continuously demonizing and dehumanizing people until enough of society decides that they’re dangerous and must be eliminated.