Commentary
As I watch the Republican National Convention, and listen to Democrats and progressive pundits comment on it, I know that Democrats don’t understand Donald Trump, and they don’t understand why people voted for him in the last election.
It seems that they don’t make an effort to understand, and without that understanding, he has a good chance of winning reelection. Or at least a better chance than they realize and better than the polls show.
After Trump’s election in 2016, a progressive relative of mine posted on Facebook that she really wanted to understand why people voted for Trump. She seemed sincere, so a friend and I both responded with a few reasons. Her response was something like, “but I didn’t think you were a racist.”
So we explained how we were voting for rule of law. We were voting for legal immigration that allowed us to be aware of who was entering our country and how they were entering. We explained that we wanted to prevent terrorists from entering the country. We explained that we wanted immigrants to become citizens but only after they made an effort to accept our culture and laws and customs. Her response each time was along the lines of, “but I thought you were good people.”
Recently, another progressive acquaintance posted on Facebook how there were people she respected and loved who told her they were going to vote for Trump. She explained how it pained her to cut ties with them. She didn’t understand how they could have become so heartless so suddenly. I commented that if these were people she loved and respected, maybe it was up to her to try to understand how good people were doing something she thought was bad. Maybe her understanding was wrong. She unfriended me. Regretfully I assume.
Democrats just don’t understand the popularity of Trump, someone they find utterly repulsive, so they make up absurd reasons and then despise the people who like Trump. But they didn’t start doing this with Trump.
Attacks and Accusations
George W. Bush was a decent man. He was what progressives like to call “authentic.” When he said something, he believed it. George W. Bush didn’t say or do things to get elected; he did them because he believed they were right. Yet the Democrats accused him of many horrible things, including lying so that he could avenge his father’s reputation by declaring war on Iraq. They accused him of purposely sending Americans to their deaths in that war.
George W. Bush was bipartisan. When he believed in something, he had no problem working with Democrats, and many Democrats in Congress were outspoken proponents of war with Iraq, including John Kerry and Hillary Clinton. That is, they were proponents until they found it to be more politically advantageous to attack Bush and repudiate their support of the Iraq War. Despite the horrific accusation against him, Bush never attacked anyone personally. He welcomed Nancy Pelosi as the Speaker of the House despite her many insults of him.
In 2008, Barack Obama ran on a platform of blaming Bush for foreign policy failures and a failing economy. When in office, Obama continued to blame the economy and foreign policy problems on Bush. Four years later, running for reelection, Obama claimed that Bush was so incompetent that Obama needed another four years to clean up the mess.
George W. Bush is an honorable man, but the Democrats attacked him and attempted to destroy him.
John McCain was a war hero and a decent man who had made sacrifices for his country as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. He was a senator who had close friends in the Democratic Party and co-sponsored numerous bills with them. When he ran for president in 2008, he was more moderate than any Republican presidential candidate in modern history. He was never heard to say a bad word about anyone, but the Democrats re-spread a rumor that he had a terrible temper, as if no one else in Washington got angry. They talked about his age and inability to use a computer, which turned out to be because the torture in that POW camp debilitated his right hand. John McCain even berated a woman for calling Obama an Arab during his campaign.
John McCain was an honorable man, but the Democrats attacked him and attempted to destroy him.
Mitt Romney was perhaps the most decent man to ever run for office. A deeply religious man with a strong sense of ethics, the Democrats could find little to discredit him when he ran for president in 2012. Some classmates claimed he had attacked a gay schoolmate in high school, but the schoolmate only came out as gay years after the incident. The Democrats tagged him as a homophobic bully unfit to be president. Romney wrote in his autobiography that he once took a trip with his dog on the roof of his car, so the Democrats used that to attack him for his treatment of the family dog. They said that his venture capital firm had put Americans out of work rather than crediting him for financing many successful businesses. To the Democrats, Romney became a homophobe, cruel to animals, and a greedy “vulture capitalist.”
Mitt Romney is an honorable man, but the Democrats attacked him and attempted to destroy him.
When Clarence Thomas was nominated by George H.W. Bush for the Supreme Court, he was grilled by Democrats about an incident that, if true, amounted to making some tasteless jokes. He allegedly told these jokes to Anita Hill, his assistant at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission who at the time took no action but years later, after much cajoling by the Democrats, suddenly recognized this act as amounting to sexual harassment. Thomas was ridiculed and harassed by Democratic senators on national TV. He eventually won the appointment because the Republicans held a majority in the Senate and a few Democrats voted with them, but Thomas went into seclusion for years.
Clarence Thomas is an honorable man, but the Democrats attacked him and attempted to destroy him.
Hypocrisy and Lies
Contrast this with how the Democrats treated Bill Clinton who lied under oath about his affair with a subordinate. He cheated on his wife. He lied to the American public. He eventually was forced to admit his lie publicly. The Democrats at first said he was falsely accused. After his admission, they said his apology was enough and that the country should “move on.” Clinton is still revered by the Democrats.
Later, Democrats embraced the #MeToo movement with their new slogan, “believe all women!” But this slogan only applies when a Republican is accused of sexual harassment. Brett Kavanaugh’s personal life was damaged by the Democrats during his confirmation hearing for the Supreme Court. He was accused of committing an act as a teenager that, if true, was simply immature. At worst irresponsible. There were no witnesses other than the accuser who could find not even a single friend to corroborate her story. But Brett Kavanaugh was portrayed as a sexual predator, and he was brought to tears on national television.
Brett Kavanaugh is an honorable man, but the Democrats attacked him and attempted to destroy him.
Contrast this with the accusation of sexual harassment against Joe Biden. Democrats shrug it off. Democrat women simply say they trust Joe Biden. Progressive activists who shouted that a sexual predator should not be allowed to hold high office, who attacked President Trump and harassed Brett Kavanaugh, say that Biden’s accuser is political motivated and, contrary to their slogan, should not be believed.
President Trump made a statement about “very fine people on” both sides of the protests in Charlottesville regarding whether Confederate statues should remain or be taken down. I know many decent people who didn’t want the statues torn down. President Trump was not talking about white supremacists, but the Democrats have continued to spread that useful lie, as recently as Joe Biden’s speech at the DNC. Yet Democrats, for three months, have been supporting the “peaceful protests” around the country where churches and other buildings are being burnt down, innocent people are being assaulted, and police are being attacked.
The Democrats attack President Trump for, at worst, being inarticulate and unclear in his statement, yet they proudly support Marxist, anarchist, domestic terrorists and see no hypocrisy.
Every time President Trump says something awkward, praises himself hyperbolically, or says something just plain stupid, I cringe. I wish that the Republican president was someone more eloquent, less egotistical, more thoughtful to represent my politics. But then I remember how the Democrats treated more eloquent, humble, thoughtful Republicans. And I remind myself that this is exactly why Donald Trump won and why he will probably win again in November.
The Democrats don’t understand, but the majority of Americans do.
As long as the Democrats attack decent people, even when they do it with eloquent speeches using multisyllabic words, average Americans will despise them for doing it. In 2016, most Americans wanted a president who was twice as nasty, twice as loud, and who attacked first. They wanted Donald Trump.
The Democrats have only become nastier and more transparent since then, which makes me believe that most Americans still want Donald Trump in 2020.
Bob Zeidman has a Bachelor of Art and a Bachelor of Science from Cornell University. He is an inventor and the founder of successful high-tech Silicon Valley firms including Zeidman Consulting and Software Analysis and Forensic Engineering. He also writes novels; his latest is the political satire “Good Intentions.”
The views expressed herein are solely those of the author. As a nonpartisan public charity, The Epoch Times does not endorse these statements and takes no position on political candidates.
