Widely held values actually OPPOSE Trumpism’s cruelty, etc.

Many people assume that Trumpism’s cruelty is more widely accepted by Americans than it actually is.  In truth, the vast majority of Americans hold better values.  In order to organize the public to oppose Trumpism, let’s tap into the better values that the vast majority of Americans hold.

In order to push against the right-wing extremist agenda of Trumpism, we need to help ordinary Americans recognize that Trumpism seriously violates our nation’s best values. Ordinary Americans support truth, justice (fairness), human rights, the rule of law, science, preventing governmental corruption, etc. Trumpism violates these cherished American values. Exposing Trumpism’s violations can help us win ordinary Americans (and mainstream media and politicians) away from accepting or “normalizing” Trumpism’s extreme right-wingism.

So let’s expose those Trumpist abuses as “un-American.”

But then some progressives and liberals reply that racism and corrupt capitalism are deeply rooted in our nation’s culture and politics, so they are not really “un-American” but are really expressions of what our country is.

Yes, our country has been plagued by those abuses and still is plagued by them.  But if we bog down in our history’s shortcomings we’ll give up the high ground that we need to claim.  We must not let our nation’s harsh reality distract us from our best values or cause us to abandon our denunciation of right-wing extremism, because that would indeed “normalize” Trumpism as our nation’s mainstream ideology.  That would make us dissidents and outsiders.

Actually, we and a majority of Americans are the mainstream in opposing racism, cruelty, lies, corruption, etc. We must persist in affirming the best American values as what our nation must constantly affirm and uphold. Only in doing this can we expose Trumpists and other right-wing extremists as outside of the mainstream – as violating America’s best values – as truly “un-American.”

 

About GlenAnderson 1499 Articles
Since the late 1960s Glen Anderson has devoted his life to working as a volunteer for peace, nonviolence, social justice, and progressive political issues. He has worked through many existing organizations and started several. Over the years he has worked especially for such wide-ranging goals as making peace with Vietnam, eliminating nuclear weapons, converting from a military economy to a peacetime economy, abolishing the death penalty, promoting nonviolence at all levels throughout society, and helping people organize and strategize for grassroots movements to solve many kinds of problems. He writes, speaks, and conducts training workshops on a wide variety of topics. Since 1987 he has produced and hosted a one-hour cable TV interview program on many kinds of issues. Since 2017 he has blogged at https://parallaxperspectives.org He lives in Lacey near Olympia WA. You can reach him at (360) 491-9093 glen@parallaxperspectives.org