Donald Trump’s horrible personality distracts us from his horrible policy agenda, and that’s a problem.
Today, Jeff Sessions had a Senate hearing to assess his fitness for leading the federal agency tasked with administering justice in the United States. He has been nominated to the position by President Elect Donald Trump. Topics for discussion included Sessions’ opposition to abortion, his abhorrent record on immigration, and his firm support for the racist War on Drugs. If this hearing and Sessions’ nomination interests you less than the latest gossip about Trump’s sexual proclivities, it may be time to critically re-examine your politics.
Please stop launching ad hominem attacks on Trump. Ad hominem = when an argument is focused directly on a person or their character, as opposed to a position on a particular issue. Yes, there are so (so) many issues with Trump’s awful character. But my God, there are so many more dire issues with the policies he plans to implement in this country. Can we all just agree that no new personal low Trump hits is surprising, interesting, or even that important? We play directly into his hand (and the hands of other shitbags running the show) when we waste vital attention and energy on literal potty talk, rather than actual issues.
Trump is a master at drawing attention to his person rather than his politics, and/or pretending the two are the same thing when they aren’t. This is a deliberate strategy — it allows him to set the rules of the game, forcing everyone else to scramble to keep up. He exploits the more subjective grounding, confuses his opponents and the public, and comes off more or less unscathed; in fact, when it’s ‘liberals’ launching the attack, his mastery of personality judo will often end up making him seem more favorable to the general public (see: gaslighting). And while we’re all staring at the gold-plated abyss of Trump’s disgusting self, wondering what it says about us as a society, the focus is shifted away from his unbelievably damaging policy agenda. It’s classic misdirection.
So let’s just stop. Let’s stop talking about his personal scandals. About his physical appearance. About his Twitter, which at best is just scribbles from his whack-ass stream of consciousness, and at worst, duh, is the absolute cheapest form of propaganda. About his family, unless it’s to point out the unprecedented conflicts of interest that our first billionaire president is about to dump on our already rigged economy. Instead, let’s keep the attention squarely on things like his plans to: repeal health insurance for 20 million Americans; defund Planned Parenthood and limit a woman’s right to make decisions about her own wellbeing; implement inequitable new tax policies; deport 2–11 million immigrants; escalate global nuclear armament; and destroy our planet’s climate. Actual political substance is the firmest ground that we have for resisting or moving forward — the rest is pretty much just smoke and mirrors.
I mean, for God’s sake, a search for “Trump’s hair” on Google yields 361,000 hits. Compare that to the paltry 64,400 hits for “Trump’s economic policy.” Which of the two do you think is likely to have a greater impact on this country, or on your life?
And by the way, the same applies to ‘upstanding’ politicians we may love, like Obama. Personality should not supercede policy when it comes to assessing his record; if your heart melts whenever you see a photo of a smiling Obama in sunglasses, you should at least be able to vigorously (i.e., beyond mere rhetoric/buzzwords) defend his more admirable policies like the ACA or the Paris Climate Agreement. And if you’re ready to defend Obama on these grounds, you should also be prepared to discuss his more problematic record on wealth inequality, the dramatic expansion of presidential war powers, and repeated violations of Americans’ civil liberties (wiretaps, failure to close Guantanamo, etc.)
Let’s accept that in our country of 325 million (and world of 7.5 billion) politicians, and especially presidents, do not really care about constituents as individuals — we’re deluding ourselves and missing the point if we extend them that lofty consideration. It’s policy that links the actual individuals in our lives to people like Trump or Obama, so please, for their sake, let’s focus on that instead.
