You Do Not Fuck With The 14th Amendment AKA On Donald Trump

It's officially the year of the presidential election. Okay. It's time to start taking Donald Trump seriously as a candidate.

So then,

As I become further and further removed from traditional journalism I'm more and more willing to admit my biases. I'm a lefty and as a lefty Trump disgusts me. Since the start of the campaign there was nothing short of large scale monetary bribery that would get the man my vote and even then his yeah chances would be pretty slim.

I came to that realization pretty early. So for me and much of the rest of the left watching Trump has been about two things. First off living in absolute horror that this idiot could somehow manage to be the next president of the United States and perplexity that he somehow managed to get this far.

And to cope with both those thoughts a lot have people have just assumed it a fluke, that sure we like to listen to the crazy stuff the man says but nobody is actually stupid enough to vote him into office. But more and more poll numbers and news reports.

On discussing the Trump phenomenon I trust nobody more than John Dickerson, who released an interview with him this morning.

Dickerson as a reporter for a major news network has been parsing his words, but has stated on Slate's Political Gabfest several times over the last few weeks that love him or hate him people are responding to Trump based on real emotions and that if the left really wants to knock him down they really have to do just that.

You have to wrestle and explain just why he is such an anathema. Why is the idea that this person will be the face of the United States to the rest of the world so hair raising?

You know part of the reason why I love sticking my head into pop culture so much is because it helps me distance myself enough from personal issues that I can really turn them over in my head. A while ago the reason I said Superman is so endearing is because he represents humanity's attempt to be the best of itself and in that moment that's what I needed. I needed to find the courage leave all of the can'ts and buts behind, lift up my bootstraps and at least try be best of myself.

Trump is the exact opposite.

He's so maddening because he plays to America's baser nature. He encourages the country to be the absolute worst of itself.

This country, let me say my country has never been great at matching its high rhetoric.

See your Declaration Americans! ! ! Do you understand your won language? Hear your languages, proclaimed to the world, July 4th, 1776 -- "We hold these truths to be self evident -- that ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL! ! that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness! !" Compare your own language above, extracted from your Declaration of Independence, with your cruelties and murders inflicted by your cruel and unmerciful fathers and yourselves on our fathers and on us -- men who have never given your fathers or you the least provocation! ! ! ! ! !  

David Walker's Appeal 

But we try. Were I born a few generations ago I would be in bondage. Even in living memory the black vote was suppressed. But we move forward. Every now and again we will strive for the promise that is America. Freedom and opportunity to all will but reach out their hand and grasp it.

And specifically in my case the mechanism for which we do that is by guaranteeing rights to citizens. Those rights are dependent upon citizenship. If you were born on American soil you are entitled to that bare minimum covenant from society.

It is the least we can do. Or else we return to the barbarity of prior times.

Where society can arbitrarily decide who does and does not get protection under the law.

The foundational principle that allows me greater freedom than most of the previous generations of my family born in this country have enjoyed is that short of any action that I have taken the state must give me the benefit of the doubt. The state can't preemptively decide that to legally treat me as though I have already committed some sort of crime.  

Yet time and time again that's what Trump espouses towards Muslims and the children of undocumented immigrants.

And the reason why the populous responds to it is because they are afraid. They see the state of the world, the uncertainty of our security as the globe becomes more and more connected and the events of people leagues away begin to all of a sudden effect their lives.

I have internalized the the condition of being alive is uncertainty. "That we only tell ourselves otherwise so we can function"

But facing that truth requires courage. There is no way to predict the future. There is no way to absolutely stop death and destruction.

No matter what you do the universe will make you no promises.

That is the truth, but here is another.

You can choose to face it. To ride into life's uncertainty as Theodin, King of Rohan or falter in flame as Denethor the last steward of Gondor.

We are who we choose to be so we must choose. 

We can not control the world or its outcomes but we can control ourselves and our conduct within the world, to not lie as cowards but to rise even if we must fall we can still rise.

We can still rise.