
It’s odd that we laugh at Donald Trump, and that we feel superior to him. For the past few days, we’ve all been having a good time pointing at the clown. We should be pointing at ourselves.
Sure, I make fun of him too. I’m glad we are kicking Trump’s ass in the polls, and that decent Democrats and Republicans are uniting against him. I enjoy the hilarious and occasionally cruel mockery of Donald Trump that’s been making the rounds, because it drives home the point that the USA will not accept a racist and chauvinist as a presidential candidate. We shouldn't stop mocking him.
But we really should stop feeling superior to him. Think about it for a minute: it’s our country that nominated him. Even if it's not you who voted for him directly, it's your friends and relatives, your co-workers, your neighbors. It's our media that failed to understand him, and our public conversation that failed to grasp what he was telling us. We blew it. We broke America, and now we own Donald Trump. He is ours and we're not going to be able to get rid of him, even after the election is over.
He managed to project himself all over our world. We shouldn't be making fun of him; we should be making fun of ourselves.
We also need to realize that the rest of the world isn’t making fun of Donald Trump the way we are. The rest of the world is making fun of the United States of America.
Here we are, laughing at the guy with orange skin and creepy robotic children. There's the rest of the world, laughing at the possibly soon-to-be former global power that is tearing itself to shreds in a mad dance of raging self-destruction.
The only other country that isn’t laughing at the United States is the United Kingdom, because Brexit was their Donald Trump … and they couldn’t even prevent it from winning. Based on current polls, I’m very thankful that our ordeal will be over in November when Hillary Clinton becomes President. But the UK's Brexit ordeal is just beginning. I guess they can keep consoling themselves by laughing at Boris Johnson. As long as there's a guy with funny hair on TV, we must be doing okay.
How can leading societies known for their intellectual dynamism fall so helplessly to this kind of stupidity? Because, really, the whole rest of the world isn't laughing at the United States. A whole lot of people around the world are crying for the United States. A whole lot of people are losing faith in the United States.
We need to stop flattering ourselves by pointing fingers at the clown. Donald Trump is one person. We are a nation of 319 million.
Donald Trump is a weird, grotesque bigot with some strange powers of charisma or marketing. He was quite charming on The Apprentice. He got a lot less charming when we got to know him better. But this weird person has managed to become America’s face to the world, and has managed to reach the highest levels of serious political power.
And we’re making fun of him? As if we have our shit together here?
Oh, poor America. The problem is not that Donald Trump sucks. The problem is that we suck.
So much is going on here... I
So much is going on here... I have so many questions about this whole preelection and both candidates. I liked your point that decent republicans and democrats have come together in humanity to say "Hell No" to the bizarre and bloated persona of Donald Trump. I mean, hell, the Koch brothers won't even support him. But I don't necessarily agree that the rest of the world believes that Americans really wanted this candidate. I don't know if he is even a REAL candidate. But maybe that's because I can't seem to fathom that he IS a candidate. This may sound naive, but the only positive strand I can pick out of this disgusting knot is the one that meekly says, "we're a democracy and we can still choose our candidates no matter how bad they are". But maybe that should change...? Donald Trump says there should be a religous test. Maybe there should be an integrity/ethics/empathy test for candidates. Someone better figure out how to administer it and disqualify him before another Berlin wall is built.