A Tuesday column on Forward titled, “No, We Don’t Have To Be Friends With Trump Supporters,” has reached peak Trump derangement syndrome, thanks to its toxic demonizing of Trump supporters.
In the article, author Talia Lavin essentially argues that Trump and his supporters are so evil that trying to find any sort of middle ground with them is pointless. The only option is to “fight,” as she says.
“To be a Trump supporter in 2018 is to have seen every cruelty unleashed thus far and to bay for more,” she writes.
“The central and salient feature of Trumpism is brutality: the desire to crush one’s enemies, to sweep those who are unlike you away, to humiliate and punish difference,” she continues. “It is the most consistent characteristic of the man at its center, and it has spread to its minions.”
After establishing that all Trump supporters, regardless of their individual actions, are evil, Lavin then builds to her main argument — that there is no room for common ground.
“When they go low, stomp them on the head,” she asserted..
“To respond to this onslaught with politeness is a doomed endeavor,” she continued.
To many moderates and even liberals, Democrats appear to have gone too extreme. But to Lavin, they’re not extreme enough.
“The current elected Democrats in Congress seem not yet to have realized this, insofar as their opposition seems mainly to consist of strongly worded letters, numerous members voting in egregious nominees, and milquetoast policy-paper pronouncements that are incapable of breaking into a news cycle.”
So, what does Lavin suggest we do?
“It is high time, when you find yourself next at a dinner party with someone who has gone Trump, to smash your glass to shards and leave.”
I’m no campaign expert, but I’m pretty sure smashing glasses is a poor strategy for defeating Trump in 2020.
(Cover Photo: Gage Skidmore)