Three years ago, I was so sure about my beliefs. At that time, I was campaigning with gusto for a grassroots organization to elect Donald Trump as President. For me, the changing politics in America meant an opportunity to support conservative values.
As a law-abiding American, I wanted everyone to follow the rules. Therefore, Trump’s “build the wall” message resonated strongly. Furthermore, as a Christian, I sought a country free of terrorism and religious oppression. Trump’s frank talk about radical Islam and its imminent, existential dangers also struck a nerve in me.
But now into his third year at the White House, I’m not so sure about politics in America. At times, I feel that I have only fed the machinery that keeps people artificially and foolishly divided. Indeed, Trump’s presidency made me question what conservative values mean anymore.
It doesn’t help that Trump has yet to deliver on his core promises. The U.S.-Mexico border is a mess. While the President threatens a good game, he doesn’t back it up. Soon, he will lose credibility on this issue, like he did with his so-called “Muslim ban.”
Even some notable pundits on the right have abandoned the Trump bandwagon, and for good reason. Those that remain probably do so because they vested so much into the campaign. After fighting so vigorously for a contentious, controversial man, who would want to associate with one of his supporters besides other supporters?
That was the trouble I found myself in. I realized that to overcome this plague, I had to remove myself from antiquated thinking.
The New Politics in America
President Trump’s die-hard fans seem to forget that he once was a Democrat. They also forget that they once supported the Bush dynasty, which gave us an untenable military industrial complex. That along with wars we have no hope of winning.
In other words, the current politics in America is a strange hodgepodge of hypocrisies and selective memories. We’re not standing up for conservative or any other ideological values. Instead, we’re merely listening to what tickles our bones at that particular moment.
To get off this vicious cycle, we’ve got to realize that we can’t apply old thinking to a new paradigm. This whole debate about socialism and capitalism is quite frankly getting old. No point exists in engaging this binary examination.
In the end, if you’re the little guy, you get f’d in the ass. The only difference is that with socialism, you get it from many people one time. With capitalism, you get it multiple times from the same prick. We the people, though, act as if one alternative is decisively better than the other.
It’s not. Unfortunately, it’s same dog-and-pony act. That’s why I’m not going to waste a second of my time supporting any of the elitist candidates. If in the end it comes down to another, tired battle between “left” and “right,” we already know the outcome.