An Open Letter to Hillary's Supporters - Granite Grok

An Open Letter to Hillary’s Supporters

crossroadsGuest Post by Jim Kofalt

Ever since the election, I have heard disaffected Hillary Clinton voters express shock and dismay over Donald Trump’s victory. How could this possibly happen? What on earth would lead half of the voters in our country to go the polls and vote for Trump?  How can I explain this to my kids? And what does it say about America?

If you are one of those Hillary Clinton liberal voters who just can’t fathom the idea of a Trump presidency, I’ll try to explain how this happened. But I’ll begin with a word of caution: you’ll only understand this if you can step away from your current worldview long enough to consider that the people who voted for Trump just might not be the hate?mongers, Neanderthals, and uneducated dolts that you think we are.

Consider (if you can) that many of us voted for Donald Trump despite his obvious and substantial flaws.  We did so because we are sick and tired of the abusive and condescending treatment we have received from the Obamas, the Clintons, the mainstream media, the entertainment industry, and yes, even from many of you…the half of American society that disagrees with our views.

We voted for a man whose behavior has at times been offensive, domineering, and misogynistic. Why?  Because we have had enough of the invective that has been heaped upon us for the past eight years. Whether you like it or not, Donald Trump was the only name on the November ballot that gave us any real opportunity to repudiate the abusers.

America is at a crossroads. We need to answer once and for all the question “Should our society allow dissent?”  To me, the answer is clearly “yes.” But I would encourage those of you who are unhappy with the election results to carefully consider how you would answer this question. Do you truly believe that opposing points of view should be permitted?

FREE SPEECH ZONEThe predominant ethos among many on the left is that speech should be suppressed if it might possibly be interpreted as hateful, hurtful, or outside the boundaries of their own accepted truth.  And virtually everything that the left disagrees with has been lumped into these objectionable categories, whether it belongs there or not.  Ipso facto, dissent is not allowed.

The problem for “our side,” generally speaking, is that we have had the audacity to disagree with many of the policies that have been forced upon us over the past eight years.  We have pointed out hypocrisy and corruption when we have seen it. We have called for a return to principled government and polite society, only to be told that we are vile, ignorant, and at times practically sub-human. Because we have disagreed, we have been demonized as selfish, racist, misogynistic, mentally defective, backward?thinking, superstitious, xenophobic hate?mongers.  We’ve been mocked, ridiculed, regulated, audited, investigated, overtaxed, fined, and in some cases even arrested.

We’ve been told that if we object to open borders and unrestrained immigration, then we are racists and xenophobes.

We’ve been told that if we oppose a massive, failed welfare state in which hard-working people pay to sustain a permanent underclass, then we are selfish and mean-spirited.

We’ve been told that if we support America’s energy independence; including coal mining and oil exploration within the United States, then we must hate the environment.

Saint Al Gore - Church of Global WarmingWe’ve been told that if we aren’t convinced that man-made global warming is real, then we are ignorant flat-earthers who simply don’t believe in science.

We’ve been told that if we object to butchering children in the womb (or even as they are in the process of being born), cutting them up, and selling their body parts, then we must hate women.

We’ve been told that if we have any concerns about allowing men to use women’s bathrooms, we are reactionary bigots.

We’ve been told that your sex life is none of our business (a point on which we can definitely agree), but that if we don’t willingly pay for other people’s contraception, we are narrow-minded prudes who want to confine women to the kitchen.

We’ve been told that if we believe that a person should have to present a photo ID at the polls, then we are fascists who want to deny people the right to vote.

We’ve been told that if we object to government interference in our right to self-defense, that we are creepy “gun nuts” with paranoid tendencies and an inclination toward violence.

We’ve been told that if we point out the correlation between Islam and violence – and suggest that settlement of large numbers of Muslim refugees in the US poses a security risk – then we are religious bigots.

In fact, we’ve been told that if we aren’t fully supportive of Barack Obama and his policies, then we must certainly be racists and that we apparently can’t stand the idea of a Black man being president.

Most recently, we’ve been told that Hillary Clinton “deserves” to be president and that if we didn’t vote for her, then we are denying women the dignity and equality that they deserve.

The party of peace, love, and tolerance has called us every name in the book.  The champions of open-mindedness and diversity have done everything they possibly could to silence opposing points of view.  We have been targeted by government agencies, shouted down in the public square, and attacked verbally (and sometimes physically) by the party of peace, love, and tolerance.

spooky-pathIs there any room here for civil disagreement?  Is there a path back to normalcy? I’m not optimistic.

The important question right now is  “Where should we go from here?” Should we try to find common ground by listening to each other and seeking to understand? Or should the party in power do everything it possibly can to advance its agenda, and tell the other half of the country to go screw?  This is the debate going on right now among those of us who voted for Trump.  As a supporter of Hillary Clinton, how would you like us to answer that question?  Should we shut you out, shout you down, and vilify you as unworthy of having an opinion?  Or should we at least try to find some common ground?

For the past eight years, the Democrats have had a clear answer to those questions. Just after he took office in 2009, Barack Obama famously said, “Elections have consequences, and at the end of the day, I won.” Over the next eight years, this attitude has been a pervasive theme of the Obama presidency: I won. You lost. I’ll do what I want, and I don’t care what you want. You might as well not even exist.

The Obama administration has acted unilaterally on such a vast array of issues that it would be virtually impossible to recount them all here.  They have pushed forward with an immigration amnesty program despite its clear illegality.  They have enacted a nuclear treaty with Iran without proper Senate approval – by pretending that it is not a treaty but merely an “agreement.” They have declared their dominion over all waters of the United States, including puddles and ditches.  They have imposed a federalized curriculum on schools, threatening financial penalties on those who do not comply.  They have declared war on the Little Sisters of the Poor, insisting that religious communities pay for contraception that they don’t need and which they find morally objectionable.  They have settled Muslim refugees who have not been properly vetted into communities that are forced to provide them with food, housing, and education at local taxpayer expense.  They have denied health care choices to millions of people after promising that they could keep their insurance plans and their preferred doctors.  They have sought to force our schools to allow teenage boys into the girls’ locker room.  They have attacked the law enforcement community and thrown gasoline on the fire of racial conflict.  They have vilified Christians and gun owners as ignorant “bitter clingers.”  All of this in the name of peace, love, and tolerance.

We are done. In fact, we were done years ago.

If you are one of the 61 million people who voted for Hillary, I am asking for your sake as well as mine that you carefully consider how we can move forward as a civil society.

When you demonize people for their opinions, or when you remain silent while others to demonize them, you are contributing to the problem.

When you stand by and allow free speech to be suppressed because you disagree with the speaker’s point of view, you are contributing to the problem.

When you fail to pro?actively seek the truth and to question the conventional wisdom of “your side”, you are contributing to the problem.

When you tolerate unfair, illegal, or unconstitutional actions simply because it’s “your team” that’s doing it, you are contributing to the problem.

Please consider the consequences of your actions. It is said that turnabout is fair play.  With the Republicans in power, is that really what you want?

We all need to get back to common decency and reasoned discourse. We need to stop seeing “our team” and “their team,” and start seeing people. We need to be willing to have conversations and not shouting matches or propaganda wars.

If the past is any indication, I don’t have high hopes for a return to civility.

If you voted for Hillary Clinton and you have bought into the story that Trump voters are either stupid or hateful (or both), then you need to challenge the paradigms that are prevalent on your side of the political fence.

If you want to create a better world, then you need to begin by disavowing character assassination as a political strategy, and calling it out when you see it.

If you truly stand for peace, love, and understanding, then you need to start acting like it.

If enough of you aren’t willing to take a stand for principles and insist on a civilized debate from ?both sides of the political fence, then the nastiness we’ve seen over the past eight years will only get worse.

The ball is squarely in your court.  How will you play it?

 

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