I remember the day clearly when Donald Trump came to speak at Oral Roberts University, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Despite the bitterly cold day, the Republican front-runner drew long lines of your typical bible-belt conservative-Christians. Not surprisingly when one looks at recent campaign developments, a very young, loud, and vocal crowd of protesters also lined up in the street holding signs that said “Stop the Hate,” or, “Grand Dragon in Chief,” and (even less surprisingly) “Bernie.”
We could easily attribute such slogans to the typical, college-age Political Correct movement. That the participation prize, safe space generation so hyper-aware of trigger warnings would direct their own micro-aggressions at someone so bombastic as Trump is of no surprise, especially not since he is running as a member of the Republican Party. Yet now, as Bernie’s flame dwindles faster than the supply of Venezuelan toilet paper, his young supporters are not so ready to detach from the equally (if not more, in the eyes of a libertarian) detestable Hillary Clinton. Instead of the Socialist by Groupthink youth dispersing, like a herd of cattle without a driver into the Tumblr abyss from whence they came or attaching themselves to the Libertarian Party just to “stick it to the establishment,” there is growing support to attach their votes to Clinton. Why? The honest answer is because she’s not Trump.
When one steps back and looks at the two candidates, Hillary, and Trump, from the eyes of a Bernie supporter, one must wonder why this sentiment isn’t the other way around. Hillary represents the establishment, and even the most sheltered college progressive would admit that the establishment is something Trump is not a part of. Hillary is garnering support from publications like the National Review, and drawing endorsements from Neo-Cons of all fang sizes. Anyone who the Republicans are willing to support, the progressive youth are taught time and again to shun that person.
This phenomenon is most puzzling when one looks at a comparison of Trump’s and Sanders policies and rhetoric. Both give lip service to the fact that they are not bought by special interests, and both claim to be against the establishment. Even Donald has admitted once that single payer health care is the way to go. Both candidates run on the message that the middle class is getting screwed, one way or another, by large corporations that send their businesses overseas. Both want to protect American Candle-makers through tariff and tax. Both want to bolster education. And, by all accounts, Trump may even lean more to the traditional left than Bernie on foreign policy. From the eyes of a rational Berniephile, Trump should be their Plan B. So why support Hillary? Again, because she’s not Trump.
The rational Berniephiles are few and far between, and a majority, if not an overwhelming might on the Democratic Socialist bandwagon are there because he’s the candidate who all their friends support. When I spent time among the protestors, nearly all of them fellow college students, they were chanting lines being fed to them by suits skulking around in the background. I don’t think it takes a genius to realize that these suits had some connection to Bernie’s ground campaign in Oklahoma (a very successful ground campaign, I might add. The Bern is big in the Sooner State, even among college students who grew up in “conservative” households).
“No Trump, No KKK, No Fascist USA,” the suits started the chants again and again. Of course, me being the instigator that I was, began to even ask the protestors around me if they even knew what Fascism was. They had no clue. There was one protestor who bore a sign with Mussolini’s profile on it. I asked again, and again, and yet they even seemed shocked to hear my actual definition of Fascism be, “an economic policy devoted to strong central dictation with nominal private control, intense regulation, and dedication to autarkic principles in trade.” The look in the eyes of the anti-Trumpians would be similar to “404 Error.”
I would strive to call this “cognitive dissonance,” and it is the reason why the militant youthful progressives are so egregiously attacking the GOP front-man, without reason, and with all likelihood, driving more moderates or undecideds underneath the wide shadow of the toupee. They cannot attack Trump rationally, or address the fault in his proposed policies (or lack thereof), because in doing so, one would need to similarly invoke the same attacks against their hero, the Berned-out. They cannot attack protection from Chinese companies, because in demolishing the mercantilist ideal, they would have to succumb to Bernie’s same flaws. They can’t attack Trump on health care because he’s one of their own.
What do they attack him on? Trump’s mean words. Why? As outlined earlier, such intolerance of Trump has absolutely nothing to do with the man’s ideas. It has everything to do with how he espouses them. Trump is mean. He is a bully; he makes fun of women (and men, but that fact goes undocumented (shocker)), and other less privileged groups. In the minds of the youth, fascism has nothing to do with objective economic and social policy- it has to do with how it’s delivered. Remember Hitler? He was mean, he hated the Jews, and he was a racist. But, despite these facts, it is never mentioned how “Democratic” Socialist hero Franklin Roosevelt put in place similar economic shackles on the United States during the thirties as his fascist counterparts in Europe. It is never mentioned the hundreds of thousands of Japanese Americans who were relocated and placed into internment camps.
So, where is that all where the hate is coming from? Cognitive dissonance? Possibly, but I propose that that’s just the engine. Who is driving the car? Didn’t you notice the suits lurking in the background? The progressive thought leader preaching their slogan, and their loyal sheep bleating it in return? These thought leaders, members of a progressive establishment a century in the making, cannot stand to see Trump spreading their platform, their economic controls, with inflammatory rhetoric.
Hillary, of course, actually supports invasions that kill people, and accepts donations from the one of the least progressive regimes in the world, but at least, she doesn’t say mean things about disadvantaged reporters. The fascism that the militant progressives want to put in place must come in the guise of a helpful parent. They must maintain that they have the “moral high ground,” that the state is the originator of everything good and well in the world (as long as they’re in charge). It must be implemented and defended from the standpoint that they are the ones who look out for those less fortunate. Rational analysis and economics, of course, explodes their proposed programs, no matter if they’re uttered from Trump’s or Sander’s lips. What the thought leaders of the progressive left are so afraid of is exactly what Trump represents: a wake-up call.
If Donald Trump assumes office as the next president of the United States. All bets are off as to how frequently he is going to be scrutinized by the mainstream media and other sources. Such a polarizing figure would give voice to the libertarian movement, who are the progressive leaders’ real kryptonite, unlike the Neo-con establishment who can be bargained with and can trade social welfare state expansion for expansion of empire. An “Apprentice: DC” theatre would create an extremely lucrative chance for libertarians to show why Trump’s policy is wrong, and therefore, at least for a time being, cause those who so religiously cling to leftist doctrine to question it. If Trump’s policy causes this harm, says he or she who knows they dislike Trump, wouldn’t the same apply to Sanders?
The answer is yes. And that is why the left must fight so irrationally and so violently against rhetoric, instead of policy. Unfortunately for them, their actions are driving more and more undecided voters to sympathize with the Trump movement. Even worse for the progressives, it opens up the doors for us as libertarians to begin to shake the foundations of the progressive base. We have the ability to seize the moment and whisper in the ear of the lost and confused liberal, while Trump does our business for us to the GOP.
