By Scott Tibbs, November 30, 2016
The big man on campus: Every man wants to be him, and every woman wants to date him. Sounds innocent, right? Sounds harmless, right? Nope. A decade ago, a letter to the editor whined that the Indiana Daily Student "silenced every lesbian woman on campus by implicitly denying her existence." The IDS denied lesbians "the right to express their love." The letter ends on a dark note: "Silence can be deadly."
Let me be clear: This is why Donald Trump is the President of these United States. People are sick of being scolded for completely innocent comments that are attacked as "micro-aggressions." People are sick of being treated like garbage. People are sick of being demonized for having a different opinion. People are sick of being told they have "white privilege" and therefore their opinions are invalid. People are sick of virtue signaling, moral posturing, and social media lynch mobs. People are sick of falsely being called racist, sexist, bigoted hatemongers by social justice warriors.
But Leftists clearly do not understand the real anger and frustration with political correctness. That is why they are viciously attacking people who voted for Donald Trump as people who voted for white nationalism, racism, sexism and even homophobia. (That last one is laughable.) All of the other reasons someone would support Trump are tossed aside, because if you voted for Trump you must be a bigot or you find racism to not be a disqualification.
But here is the problem: Many Trump supporters do not think he is a racist. But let's concede for the sake of argument that Trump is a racist. Leftists have cried wolf so many times for so many years that they have lost credibility in claiming someone is "racist." When you cry wolf thousands upon thousands of times for decades, people tend not to believe you when the wolf is actually devouring the sheep. Does anyone remember the vicious personal attacks on George W. Bush for not supporting "hate crime" laws after the brutal murder of James Byrd? Two of his killers got the death penalty. The third got life in prison.
Furthermore, this was a status quo election on the Republican side. As the Republican nominee, Trump got about as many votes that Mitt Romney, John McCain and George W. Bush did in 2012, 2008 and 2004. Unless you are willing to say that 60 million people are all racists and have been voting for racism for four election cycles in a row, you will need to explain why that group of 60 million people is so different from the people who voted for Romney, McCain and Bush.
And while I am defending Trump voters, I will point out again that I did not vote for Donald Trump and I do not regret that decision in the least. I would make that same choice a million times over.
If Democrats want to win elections, demonizing sixty million people as deplorable racists, bigots and hatemongers is not the way to do it. This is exactly the kind of elitist arrogance that fueled so much resentment this year. If you cannot accept that sixty million people simply had a different opinion than you do, and if you cannot treat them with respect, then you cannot hope to convince them and you may even turn off many moderates in their own base. Democrats are heading down a politically dangerous road here.
