Why the Left are wrong in their reaction to Donald Trump’s election.
This is the second in a series of three articles.
In this article I explain why, even though Trump isn’t exactly my favourite
person, the Left are wrong to be so disrespectful to American
democracy.
I was on a bus in New Jersey, headed to New York,
the day after the election result came in. A man and a woman sitting a few rows
behind me were discussing all kinds of topics – loudly. Somehow, I don’t know
how, she hadn’t heard the result of the Presidential Election. On hearing the
news, her initial reaction was “Maaaan, they gonna kill ‘im. And it’s gonna
start a war”. I sincerely hope that her projection is wrong.
Then, there were riots across many American cities.
People didn’t want to accept the result; the same homeless man in Times Square
who had previously had the sign “Give me a dollar or I’m voting Trump” was now
sporting a sign saying “Give me a dollar to help me move to Canada”. A new sign
requested a donation from anyone taking a photograph of the sign. I didn’t think
that cause was worthy of supporting, or else this article would have a nice
covering picture.
Now here’s the thing. Election results have gone
wrong for us right-wingers for years. I’ve never moved out of the UK, or even
threatened to, in a fit of petulance. I love my country too much to abandon it
just because the wrong politician has been elected. Yet now the shoe is on the
other foot. They don’t have much experience of what it’s like to lose an
election, and it shows. They’re moaning because more people voted Clinton than
Trump, and yet Trump is President. Well yes, there are good arguments for
getting rid of the Electoral College system – but those arguments only apply
BEFORE the election. They both knew the rules, and campaigned to get the 270 in
the Electoral College. They weren’t aiming for the popular vote win. So who’s to
say that – if the aim were to win the popular vote – the campaign wouldn’t have
gone differently? The really, really galling part of all this is that those in
the UK who are moaning about their electoral system are the same people who
openly laugh at UKIP getting 4 million votes but only 1 MP. There’s a word for
people like that: hypocrites.
When I’ve lost an election I’ve never once gone out
onto the streets and rioted. Rioting doesn’t change anything. The electoral map
in the USA after the riots looks exactly the same as the electoral map in the
USA before the riots. It’s amazing how easily some causes can mobilise their
supporters 24 hours after polling day; perhaps if they’d all gone to the polls
on election day they wouldn’t be moaning now. Well, that’s if they’re not some
of the ‘professional protesters’ being paid to exhibit fake outrage at the
election of the new President.
My North East Labour MEP colleague Paul Brannen
recently tweeted “Brexit, Trump: I haven’t felt like this since I read Cormac
McCarthy’s The Road”. For those who don’t know, The Road describes a
post-apocalyptic world where almost everyone on earth has died. So, clearly no
lessons learned there then. An utterly ridiculous overreaction to politics not
going his way. I would like to be able to say that this was the worst example of
overreaction that I’ve seen on this subject, but sadly it’s far from the
worst.
There’s a sickening video
online. A young boy, who looks to be about 7
years old and who clearly doesn’t understand politics, ‘voted’ for Donald Trump
in a class election. The mother’s reaction, packing a suitcase, yelling at him,
making him leave the house and hold a sign, telling him to leave, that he
wouldn’t be allowed back, was one of the clearest examples of child abuse that
you’ll ever see. She filmed the whole thing and posted it on social
media.
It’s this kind of thing that starts to happen when
politicians stir up the kind of hatred that we’ve seen. I don’t like Donald
Trump for the reasons stated in my previous article, but I don’t go around
stirring up tensions and hatred about it. That’s where the political Left need
to learn a thing or two. The blood is on their hands, just like post-Brexit when
their stirring up of divisiveness over the referendum led to exactly that. Then
they try to blame Brexiteers for the rise in hate crimes, a rise that they
themselves stoked up!
There have been all sorts of calls for Trump to be
assassinated; a dedicated hashtag is even on Twitter. The people who do this
have no respect for democracy, no respect for the rule of law and absolutely no
sense of perspective. Monisha Rajesh, a Guardian journalist, tweeted that “it’s
about time for presidential assassination”. She promptly deleted her Twitter
account after realising that not all of Twitter supports murder. Whilst the
Guardian has distanced itself from her, I’ve yet to see anything from them which
suggests she’s definitely being sacked.
Seeing the progressive, ‘tolerant’ Left inflict
such abuse upon those they disagree with is in and of itself nothing new. The
scale and tone of their invective now is deeply worrying. Whilst Barack Obama
actually gave a very grown-up speech, saying that Trump ‘deserves the chance to
govern’, it seems the Left don’t even listen to their own heroes when they’re in
mid temper-tantrum about a result that they don’t like.
Tolerance, it seems, means tolerating everyone that
you agree with – but being intolerant, bullying and brutal to anyone who doesn’t
dare conform to your own world-view. Welcome to the Left-utopian modern
society.
If there’s one really, really good
thing about Trump winning, it’s watching these people lose. They truly
deserve it.
[Ed:
the last article in this three-part series will be published tomorrow, wednesday
16th november.]
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