Why of Trump
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[ http://www.nytimes.com/…/elec…/stop-shaming-trump-supporters NYT ... Stop Shaming Trump Supporters]
This is,. I think, the best picture of what happened. It isn't a repudiation of Washington ... an absurd number of incumbents notably contributing to gridlock were re-elected.
Just as too many of my fellow atheists, I've sadly come to see, are prone to interpret religion as a deficiency of
personal mental hygiene rather than a complex mesh of interconnected circumstances, habits of thought and most
importantly social connection that many need too much to reject because of otherwise meaningless metaphysical arguments.
Likewise Trump won because too many of my fellow liberals likewise throw language of privilege as a tribal totem
denoting our "enlightenment" and use language derogatory of those who don't acknowledge such rather than trying to
understand that many who refuse assertions of "privilege" often really are struggling or suffering to an extent such
that the notions of "privilege" seems ludicrous.
We fall too easily into habits of thought that crystallize around words that become defensive bulwarks of our thinking
and identity. We then divide in tribes based upon acceptance or rejection of words rather than tryng to understand why
the language is inadequate to share our understanding ... or let us expand our own understanding to include the
experiences of others.
The NYT article illuminates that Trump won, not because his ideas are good - he really didn't express any constructively - but because he provided a channel of rejection and expression of hostility towards those and disillusionment of those we have not been inclusive of ... not because we don't care - we do, I do at least as this is where I grew up, and these are my family - but because they rejected the words we use to describe our ideals. Our "inclusiveness" excluded many closest to us because we were blind to the hurt our words caused.
-- TWZ (20161109)
