A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

American democracy is truly skating on thin ice if Trump supporters really believe they can react with gun-wielding violence if   "their" President is impeached.  On Quora, a Trump supporter with the unlikely name of "Anth Jesus" asks: If Trump is impeached and refuses to step down would you support his decision even if it meant armed conflict? This is my answer: A point that needs to be addressed before reading my answer: The term “impeach” does not mean “remove from office.” It means to “put an elected official on trial before a legislative body. Removal from office  is  the outcome upon conviction, but since there are two likely possibilities -  acquittal  and  conviction,  President Trump could be  impeached,  but not necessarily  removed from office  if he is  acquitted. First of all, Donald Trump is not going to be impeached. Based on what I’ve read in the official Mueller Report about Russian in...

American liberals hate this side of the American character.  (White Arkansas citizens protest the desegregation of Little Rock public schools in 1957.) An anonymous conservative (or a troll posing as one) recently asked this question on Quora: Why do liberals hate the United States? Before I answer this question, I’ll ask  you  this question: Why do conservatives spend so much time listening to Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and Jeanine Pirro, who are right-wing “commentators” (I call them propagandists) and are constantly pounding into people’s heads the same message over and over again:  Liberals are out to destroy America! Liberals are evil. Liberals want to turn the U.S. into a socialist hellhole. Seriously? Do you really believe this? (Apparently you do; otherwise, you would not ask this.) Now, for my answer. I’m not a sociologist. I’m not a psychologist. I’m not even a historian, even though that was my strong minor in college. N...

Dear Anonymous, Originally, I wasn’t going to answer this question. I find it insulting, based on partisan hate, and full of ignorance. And, of course, chances are that the original creator of this “query” is a paid troll working for Russia’s destabilizing efforts. But, hey, it’s rather early on a Sunday morning, and since I have nothing better to do, I’ll try to enlighten you. Not that I’ll succeed, especially if you are one of those Trump supporters who believe that “liberalism is a mental disorder.” First of all, let’s look at a map of the world. Let’s, for a few minutes, take  seriously  the “modest proposal” that is the basis for this, ahem, question. Examine closely, my conservative friend, the map above. You no doubt recall from your high school science class that three-quarters of the Earth’s surface is covered by water, most of it  salty  ocean water that humans can’t consume without desalination and purification. The other quarter of the Ea...

First of all, I don’t think that any rational person who has a good conscience and loves this country is intentionally trying to tarnish the image of the U.S. Sure, there are some Americans out there who thrive on creating chaos and want to make the U.S. look like a caricature of a Third World country. Some of them might be extreme leftists or anarchists, while others might be Nazis, white supremacists, and other unsavory individuals who espouse hateful world views. Overall, however, it simply isn’t true that either conservatives or liberals are intentionally tarnishing the U.S. brand, either domestically or internationally. That having been said, the folks that are unintentionally tarnishing the U.S. brand are the folks that helped elect Donald J. Trump to be the 45th President of the United States. Most of these individuals happen to identify as conservatives. Some of them don’t like Trump much but saw in him a means to an end, i.e., to ensure that a Supreme Court vacancy ...

Do liberals hate America? This question is probably one of the main tenets of modern (post-1950s) U.S.-style conservatism, especially after the dark Vietnam War-Watergate era. Indeed, it’s probably one of the Big Three Myths that conservatives (especially the extremist right wing of the Republican Party and the Tea Party) hold dear. (The other two Big Myths are  What is good for General Motors is good for the country  and  Tax cuts for the wealthy benefit everyone eventually. ) While it is true that conservatism (and it doesn’t matter if it is Democratic Conservatism or Republican conservatism) has always sought to demonize liberals in other eras of history (the Big Business-GOP coalition resisted ex-President Teddy Roosevelt’s progressive ideas in the 1912 election and caused him to try for a second non-consecutive term of his own as a third party candidate…which he lost, big time; 20 years later, the same GOP-Big Business coalition called Franklin D. Roosevel...

Can liberals explain why they view conservatives as ignorant? I’m not, by any stretch of the imagination, a stereotypical “liberal.” I consider myself to be a middle-of-the-road independent. However, I tend to side with moderate liberals on most issues, especially those that deal with social issues, such as women’s rights, civil rights for all, gender equality, LGBQT equality, access to quality public education, and freedom of the press. To die-hard supporters of Donald J. Trump and his MAGA crowd, I  am  a liberal in their eyes. So, okay, I’ll bite. I’ll answer this question. First, I will start with a cautionary statement against gross generalizations. It goes something along the lines of “I don’t think all conservatives are ignorant.” in fact, I can name some highly intelligent conservatives that I respect greatly, even if I disagree with many of their opinions: George Will William F. Buckley, Jr. Jennifer Rubin One of these, William F. Buckley,...

Hi, there. Uh, okay. So today’s question is:  For those who didn’t vote for Trump, what would Trump have to do to get your vote in the 2020 election? First, you have to understand that the people who didn’t vote for Trump in ’16 don’t make up a huge monolithic bloc or live in a leftist, anti-American mythical land called Utopia. (Or, as the most aggressive of Trump supporters might put it, Libtardia.) I can’t speak for  every  anti-Trump voter, I can only speak for myself, although I’m sure that my reasons for not voting from the current President are not too different from other non-Trump voters. Photo by Michael Stewart/Getty Images Second, understand this: Donald J. Trump is 71 years old (as of December 12, 2017). As such, he is older than the late President Ronald W. Reagan at this point in his first term. People at that age simply  do not change  their personalities, philosophies of life, political views, or their agendas. These are pretty mu...