“Prove Me Wrong” is a weekly series where I throw out an opinion with an open invitation for the audience to find flaws in my arguments and genuinely prove me wrong. The topics will range and typically cover relevant societal and cultural issues that I want to learn more about. The hope is that, with the help of some audience participation, I can learn as much as possible about difficult topics in the spirit of not being married to my opinions and expanding my limited perspective.
It’s no secret that a large number of Americans aren’t happy with the fact that Donald Trump is the President of the United States. People on the left side of the aisle have been lamenting his inclusion in the election since before it even stopped being a joke to them.
Unfortunately for those people, the reason why Trump has succeeded — may continue to succeed — is because liberals have made it happen for him. How did liberals manage to elevate Trump’s success despite working to bury him and his campaign?
There are several answers to that question. First is the dissolution of sportsmanship in political discourse. Next, the oversaturation of Trump’s name and likeness in the media. Finally, the incredulity and sense of superiority in reference to conservatives across America. These three points all contributed to the victory of the Trump administration.
Modern American liberals have fallen into an ideological pit that has more in common with their opponents than the people they were originally trying to protect. They’re ignorant of the fact that they play the same power games that they condemn others for abusing. The irony seems to be lost on liberals who condemn conservative speakers for their prejudices and won’t listen to them speak because they are conservative.
Conservatives are guilty of this as well. Sometimes it comes in the form of pointed YouTube video titles like “(Insert Conservative Pundit Here) slams Liberal professor on gun control.”
Titles like that are a Freudian slip in that they reveal how the conservative person who posted it has no interest in common ground. They just want their side to be right. Liberals have managed to hammer that sentiment home at just the wrong moment.
For context, the Obama administration came at a time when everyone was sick of Republicans and George Bush. Bush’s administration not only served to further portray republicans as evil, but also stupid. Even though this sentiment extends further back, it has reached a fever pitch in recent history.
In response to that, former President Barack Obama seemed to represent a complete departure from the conservative administration that came before him. Whether or not that’s actually true is unimportant. The actual facts of this issue are technically irrelevant. It isn’t about how things actually are, but more about how people feel they are.
Liberals applied pressure to conservatives at the height of a time when we were wishing for each other to lose more than we were rooting for our own team to win. As a result conservatives rallied behind Trump as a way of saying screw you to the liberals that had been talking down to them for eight years.
This has happened before. One end of the spectrum dominates for a couple terms. People get sick of those guys and then vote in the opposite party. It seems that now we are at a point where liberals want to see an end to conservatism and vice versa.
It’s supposed to work symbiotically. Liberals and conservatives actually complement one another when they work together. In a general sense, liberals are big-picture idea guys who promote change and innovation in society and conservatives focus on the practicalities of those ideas and try to increase efficiency. Without the conservatives the ideas don’t always work and without the liberals systems can become too stagnant.
Ignoring the fundamental need for the opposition was the beginning of the end in terms of sportsmanship and civility in political discourse.
Beyond that, liberals have assisted Trump by constantly plastering him all over the media. In their attempt to make him look bad they made him more popular. Shows like Stephen Colbert’s “Our Cartoon President” have only served to somehow legitimize Trump despite everything he does.
Maybe it has even taken the venom out of the absurd things he’s accused of. I think that by going overboard in their critiques, liberals have become more annoying than the problems they’ve highlighted as alarming. Their outrage becomes a shrill, unbearable cacophony.
I might be more capable of my own outrage if I wasn’t exhausted by someone else’s at 8:30 a.m. on Twitter. I am in no way a Trump supporter, but I am also so annoyed by the way that Trump’s biggest critics handle their critique that I am more inclined to side with Trump even though I never would under most other circumstances.
Liberals are dealing with one of the worst outcomes of articulating your ideas poorly. They’re forcing people who agree with them to disagree based on the poor way in which their ideas are presented. If you’re causing people who should automatically agree with you to hate their own team, then you’re making a catastrophic error in the way you market yourself.
You can tell that liberals have become insufferable because being conservative is the new punk rock thing to be. If conservatism is the new counter-culture, then liberals have completely failed in every way shape and form.
If liberal people don’t do more to rein in the extremist viewpoints of those who have dominated political discourse with unsportsmanlike attitudes and start choosing smarter ways to present their ideas and achieve their goals, they will be left with no one to blame but themselves when Trump remains in office for another four years.
Most importantly, we need to remember that both sides need each other for the sustained benefit of the country. There can be no real progress until the left stops giving the right an excuse to move forward in this climate of unsportsmanlike conduct.
Do you think American politics has lost all sense of sportsmanship? Do you agree that liberals have driven Trump into office? Do you hate my guts and want to stomp them out in front of God and everyone? Email me at opinions@scadconnector.com and be sure to let me know what you thought. Also, don’t forget to point out everywhere I went wrong along the way.
