Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, has been one of the more interesting observers of the current race for President. He is clearly now fed up, and I can’t help but wonder how many voters quietly share his sentiment?
I’ve been trying to figure out what common trait binds Clinton supporters together. As far as I can tell, the most unifying characteristic is a willingness to bully in all its forms.
If you have a Trump sign in your lawn, they will steal it.
If you have a Trump bumper sticker, they will deface your car.
if you speak of Trump at work you could get fired.
On social media, almost every message I get from a Clinton supporter is a bullying type of message. They insult. They try to shame. They label. And obviously they threaten my livelihood.
We know from Project Veritas that Clinton supporters tried to incite violence at Trump rallies. The media downplays it.
We also know Clinton’s side hired paid trolls to bully online. You don’t hear much about that.
Yesterday, by no coincidence, Huffington Post, Salon, and Daily Kos all published similar-sounding hit pieces on me, presumably to lower my influence. (That reason, plus jealousy, are the only reasons writers write about other writers.)
Joe Biden said he wanted to take Trump behind the bleachers and beat him up. No one on Clinton’s side disavowed that call to violence because, I assume, they consider it justified hyperbole.
Team Clinton has succeeded in perpetuating one of the greatest evils I have seen in my lifetime. Her side has branded Trump supporters (40%+ of voters) as Nazis, sexists, homophobes, racists, and a few other fighting words. Their argument is built on confirmation bias and persuasion. But facts don’t matter because facts never matter in politics. What matters is that Clinton’s framing of Trump provides moral cover for any bullying behavior online or in person. No one can be a bad person for opposing Hitler, right?
Some Trump supporters online have suggested that people who intend to vote for Trump should wear their Trump hats on election day. That is a dangerous idea, and I strongly discourage it. There would be riots in the streets because we already know the bullies would attack. But on election day, inviting those attacks is an extra-dangerous idea. Violence is bad on any day, but on election day, Republicans are far more likely to unholster in an effort to protect their voting rights. Things will get wet fast.
Yes, yes, I realize Trump supporters say bad things about Clinton supporters too. I don’t defend the bad apples on either side. I’ll just point out that Trump’s message is about uniting all Americans under one flag. The Clinton message is that some Americans are good people and the other 40% are some form of deplorables, deserving of shame, vandalism, punishing taxation, and violence. She has literally turned Americans on each other. It is hard for me to imagine a worse thing for a presidential candidate to do.
I’ll say that again.
As far as I can tell, the worst thing a presidential candidate can do is turn Americans against each other. Clinton is doing that, intentionally.
Intentionally.
As I often say, I don’t know who has the best policies. I don’t know the best way to fight ISIS and I don’t know how to fix healthcare or trade deals. I don’t know which tax policies are best to lift the economy. I don’t know the best way to handle any of that stuff. (And neither do you.) But I do have a bad reaction to bullies. And I’ve reached my limit.
I hope you have too. Therefore…
I endorse Donald Trump for President of the United States because I oppose bullying in all its forms.
I don’t defend Trump’s personal life. Neither Trump nor Clinton are role models for our children. Let’s call that a tie, at worst.
The bullies are welcome to drown in their own bile while those of us who want a better world do what we’ve been doing for hundreds of years: Work to make it better while others complain about how we’re doing it.
Today I put Trump’s odds of winning in a landslide back to 98%. Remember, I told you a few weeks ago that Trump couldn’t win unless “something changed.”
Something just changed.
Insert the standard Alexis de Tocqueville, C. S. Lewis and Lionel Trilling quotes here.
Bullying? . . . Nah too easy to jump on that reference.
You know, I don’t always agree with Scott, I think sometimes he overplays his case, but that right there. If he’s remembered for no other quote that one right there is gold.
He might be right about those HRC supporters who are “involved” being bullies, but there are an awful lot of her supporters who actually haven’t been following the news and just sort of follow her because…
They are not bullies; hey are not that engaged.
They do vote, however mindlessly. They watch the today show and Ellen and tend to be aghast at the horribleness of Donald Trump. HRC is, to them, a comfy old shoe. She has always been a part of their life and they see no harm.
Insults and name-calling are the upper limits of the deceitful discourse you will experience with the typical, low-to-moderate IQ Hillary worshipper.
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“Bullying? . . . Nah too easy to jump on that reference.”
HHHUUUHHH?!?!
Have you not seen the wiki leaks emails where the Ds sent people into Trump events to deliberately provoke & harm men and women?
Bully is a nice way of putting it.
Wow. This person is a cartoonist? He writes exceptionally well, and with superb expression of ideas. Esp., “..That reason [to lower another’s influence], plus jealousy, are the only reasons a writer writes about other writers.” Can’t top that.
This entire election is not going to end well. The pro Trump crowd, such as it is, is sick and tired of the elitists on both coasts…Hollywood, Silicon Valley, the hedge funds, the Uniparty, CNN, the Compost, the Slimes, Common Core, H1B visas, Obumblercare, Soros, etc.
Some time ago I made a comment here that I saw an uprising coming. I think we are a lot closer to it now. Eight years of hard left garbage from Oblumber and more to come from the Hildebeast…this is not a leftist country and it will not easily be made into one.
I was referencing someone who has been mentioned a few times on this website who is oh so totally not supporting Hillary…
But advises you to go vote for her if you’re in a swing state.
And never posts any of the charges against her unless something like huffpo does first.
And spends more time and effort discrediting things like O’Keefe’s vids rather than call out the corruption they expose.
Someone who does the bullying part very very well…
My grandfathers were coal miners. and UMWA members. They voted the way Papa John L. Lewis told them. My parents were depression kids. FDR ran in every election since Ginger Rogers sang “We’re In the Money” in pig latin in 1933. My mom and dad, every election they were voting for FDR. If there’s one thing my dad had a horror of, it was that I would become “a right winger.” My brother worked for Ford. Everyone in my family voted Democrat because of their own personal mythology. “Democrats are for the little guy.” I was told that over and over. I was always a little guy. (The only criminal defense lawyer who isn’t is Matlock.) Yet I felt in control of my own life. I always felt Republicans would be more responsible for the general good. I didn’t need anyone to take care of me. Maybe I was fooling myself, but I believed my Republican vote was spent for the nation, not for anything it was going to do for me. Democrats – since the 30s – always seemed to be telling the voter what their vote was going to buy them. That’s how I saw it, anyway, and I don’t think that’s changed. I think there has been a disconnect between rhetoric and policy for some time. My enthusiasm for the GOP has gone downhill ever since Ronald Reagan left office. They’ve been the gang who couldn’t shoot straight for a long time.
Heaven protect us from the twits who will blindly vote for HRC because it is “stylish” or simply based on gender. Also from the socialists who are the hard left true believers
Too bad her full 30 plus year history of blunders, bluster and obfuscation could not be printed in the mainstream media.
I guess if she is elected this country will get what it deserves – in the middle of a nose dive with little hope of pulling out. I just watched a documentary on Rome this weekend and the resemblance is frightening!
I agree 100% that Clinton has done a lot of dividing of the country — some predict she will do for sex/gender relations what Obama did for race relations. That said, let’s not forget the, shall we say, elephant in the room — Trump’s dividing of conservatives and of the GOP into bitterly warring factions. His alt-right followers (NOT all or even most of his supporters, but enough to cause trouble) are pretty darn good at bullying too. There are good reasons to favor Trump but I dunno that opposition to divisiveness and bullying is one of them.
this country will get what it deserves
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Democracies always do.
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“Democrats are for the little guy.”
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They love the little guy so much they do there darndest to keep him small.
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Trump’s dividing of conservatives and of the GOP
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More likely that Trump is the dividend rather than the divisor. Ben Domenech over at The Federalist made the point that Trump is what you get when people have lost faith in the system. If he’s right, we’re getting off easy —if he wins that is
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Generalized observation:
Democrats diet on hate caused by selfishness, envy and stupidity. That is their thing. Their solution: free stuff, lax moral laws and total control.
All Democrats would like to be like Trump. But since that can’t, they seek to destroy him.
Reflection;
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/standingonmyhead/2016/10/america-there-may-be-trouble-ahead.html
Peace.
I don’t think we are that hateful of each other. I think the devil is lying to us through his big mouthpiece. Riots are sometimes staged and sometimes carried out as a rite of passage in some locales. (riot of passage) Those two candidates got to the tops of their tickets not because we hated as much as because we weren’t really paying attention. At first we reacted to having our buttons pushed like the Pillsbury dough boy… but we are coming to our senses.
It is not going to be 4 years of terrible– didn’t your folks remember the depression as a good time in many ways …? People sang songs like “Ain’t got plenty of money, maybe we’re ragged and funny but we’re rolling along, singing a song, side by side…”
The news is not covering that more people are going to bible studies. including teens. Catholics are coming to their senses about abortion reality and about false preachers. God is Love and with our cooperation it will be Love to the rescue,
Love to the rescue!
Great sentiment.
We are either feeding the good portion of ourselves, ie Bible Studies, or we are feeding the bad, any number of behaviors that blanket the Holy Spirit.
Love will turn the tide on Roe v. Wade.
Love will eventually conquer the idea of lifestyle choices, and because Love and Truth are the essence of God, Love and Truth will win the day.
The darkness we are in is not perpetual.
It is temporary.
The agape love that transforms selfishness into selflessness is moving in. The new Springtime is approaching.
God is Truth as well. Funny how that one seems to get second fiddle, when arguably, it is first and foremost. Well, actually, Being seems first – Father, Son and Holy Ghost sort of paralleling Being, Truth and Love.
No wishing to take anything away from the Glory of our Lord please allow me to correct my order. Truth and Love. 🙂
It’s interesting how complete God is and how incomplete we are.
Our striving and thirst to serve him through neighbor is continual, as it should be, since this is the only chance we have while we’re laboring in the vineyard.
Thanks cmatt.
Have a great weekend.
As far as I can tell, the worst thing a presidential candidate can do is turn Americans against each other.
Worked for Obama.
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Today I put Trump’s odds of winning in a landslide back to 98%
So that’s why Donald likes him. 🙂 Go big or go home!
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@Bears for Trump, Now we can vote for a GOP candidate that’s half Republican and half Democrat. Enjoy a little of both. As a bonus, we can enjoy an office holder with the largest disconnect between rhetoric and policy we’ve ever seen, primarily because he’s 99% rhetoric. Ok. He just had a big policy speech. Not surprised he’s just thinking of it now.