NUKES: Ignore Trump And Embrace His Base
We don't need Trump. We do need his base.
The nuclear weapons activist and expert community on Twitter seems not to grasp one simple political fact. America is never going to disarm until most people on both sides of the political divide agree that should happen.
Given this reality, as activists we face the challenge of doing everything we can to heal partisan divides and bring the country together. For we liberals, such a process will necessarily involve reaching out to Trump's base, offering them respect, and acknowledging those cases where they are making a reasonable point. We don’t have to agree. We just have to acknowledge that conservatives are sometimes raising reasonable points.
We might start with something like this…
Ignore Trump
Corporate media is going to cover every utterance coming from Trump because their business model requires them to focus on melodrama to build audience and ad revenues.
Trump gets this. Trump gets that corporate media is a business, and that melodrama is the product being sold. So Trump supplies the needed melodrama, and is rewarded with billions of dollars of free advertising. Trump gets this like no other politician in my long lifetime.
But maybe we don't get it. Maybe we think corporate media is about the news? Sorry, no. Corporate media is, like any other business, about profits.
The media is on the job of distributing Trump’s melodrama, we don't need to help them make Trump even more famous, which is exactly what Trump wants us to do.
If we're talking privately with a swing voter who might be persuaded to abandon Trump, ok, make the case. But nuclear weapons experts and activists blasting out snarky partisan slogans on Twitter to followers who already agree with us accomplishes nothing other than deepening the divide that must be healed if we are ever to disarm.
Trump wants us to talk about him all day long every day. If we oppose Trump, we should do the opposite of what he wants and ignore him. What we should do instead is…
Embrace Trump's Base
One day Trump will be gone, but his base will remain. Nuclear weapons activists will need these folks, so let's show them some respect by being open minded to discussing some of their perspectives. Here's a few examples to illustrate the point.
Immigration: The population of America has doubled in my lifetime. The population of Florida where I live is now seven times larger than it was when I was born. It's not unreasonable for citizens to wonder how much further we're going to go in that direction. It's not unreasonable for them to reject a political class that can't even ask that question, let alone come up with any kind of coherent answer.
Abortion: Many evangelicals voted for Trump out of deep concerns about abortion. Whatever our point of view might be on this never ending controversy, can we at least agree that it's not unreasonable to be concerned about the mass killing of unborn children? It’s not unreasonable to feel that abortion is too often a service where we kill innocent babies as a convenience provided to those too lazy to use contraception. Many liberals feel this way too, right?
Religious Freedom: Some religious people feel under assault by secular culture and so they vote for people whom they feel will represent their views. There's a name for this procedure. It's called democracy. Everybody votes in their own interest. Not unreasonable.
The Genius: Some voters feel that Trump is a political genius. This is not such an unreasonable claim given that Trump came from basically nowhere to defeat every political expert in every party to take the highest office in land.
Iran: Trump replaced Obama’s Iran nuclear weapons deal with a policy of maximum pressure. At the time that seemed reckless and irresponsible. But fast forward to today, when thousands of Iranians are risking their lives in the streets in rejection of the Iranian regime, and we can see that the last thing Iranian protestors want is for us to shake hands with the Ayatollah. So maybe we liberals were wrong on that one?
A Liberal Reaches Out
Ok, so in full disclosure, I'm Bernie Sanders sixties hippy liberal kinda guy who will never vote for Trump in any circumstance. Never. Period.
But being a liberal doesn't automatically equal me always being being right about everything. Being a liberal doesn't mean I can never learn anything from anybody unless they already agree with me. Being a liberal doesn't make me morally superior to those who, out of sincere conviction and authentic patriotism, pull a different lever than I do in the voting booth.
Dear nuclear weapons experts and activists on Twitter.
Please focus on the fact that we need Trump voters if America is ever to disarm. Tweeting something snarky about Trump every day, to followers who already agree with you, does not advance the cause of nuclear disarmament. You mean well, but you haven't thought it through.
Whether we are liberal or conservative, we need each other. And if we don't find a way to come together, we're all going to die together on the same day.
