During the second evening of the Republican National Convention, as a white supremacist tweet scrolled across a large ticker tape, Chris Christie led chants of “Guilty! Lock her up!” Ben Carson likened Hillary to Lucifer.
As reported on NPR, a french journalist was alarmed by calls to “Lynch Hillary” from delegates that he overheard on the convention floor and was struck by a moment of fear as he imagined what would transpire if Hillary were to show up in that arena, driving the home the reality of the ressentiment he was experiencing. Today, Trump’s own Vet advisor called to execute Hillary for treason.
Without question, we are witnessing a dangerous ressentiment take hold in the Republican party.
“It felt like a dark turning point in American politics -- a sign that our nation is on the brink of something dangerous that we might not recover from.” -Hillary Campaign
“Mr. Trump’s brand of resentment politics,” as New York Times reporters Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns called it, rides what’s known as ressentiment, (in French it’s pronounced “ruh-sohn-tee-mohn”), a public psychopathology in which gnawing insecurities, envy, and hatreds nursed by many people in private converge in public in scary social eruptions that present themselves as noble crusades but that diminish their participants even in seeming to make them big.
In ressentiment, the little-big man seeks enemies on whom to wreak vengeance for frustrations that are only half-acknowledged because they come from his exploitation by powers he’s afraid to challenge head on. No wonder that the 2012 Republican National Convention roared with such delight as Clint Eastwood interrogated an empty chair symbolizing an invisible President Obama. No one wanted to know what Eastwood would have dared to say to the real Obama or what the President would have said back.
Ressentiment perverts their efforts by stoking and misdirecting their frustrations. Whether it erupts in a medieval Inquisition, a Puritan or McCarthyite witch hunt, a Maoist Cultural Revolution, nihilist extremes of “people’s liberation movements” such as the Khmer Rouge, or a strain of political correctness that grips a particular community, ressentiment’s most telling symptoms are always paranoia, scapegoating and bursts of hysteria violence.
The growing ressentiment is fueled by hatemongers of the right who seek to normalize racism, xenophobia, homophobia and misogyny so it’s no coincidence that seven of Trump’s key, rabid supporters are some of the most high profile hatemongers:
Joe Arpaio: “I already have a concentration camp, it’s called Tent City.”
Sarah Palin: “If I were in charge, they would know that waterboarding is how we baptize terrorists.”
Jan Brewer: “You know Arizona has been under terrorist attacks, if you will, with all of this illegal immigration.”
Kris Kobach: “What protects in America from any kind of ethnic cleansing, is the rule of law...I still don’t think it’s going to happen in America, but I have to admit, but things are strange and they’re happening.”
Jerry Falwell, Jr.: “If more good people had concealed-carry permits, then we could end those Muslims before they walked in and killed them.”
David Duke: “Neither Communism, Capitalism, nor any other materialist doctrine can save our race; our only racial salvation lies in a white racial alliance uniting our people with the common cause of racial idealism.
Ann Coulter: “He won me over with that Mexican Rapist speech.”
Donald Trump has run a campaign fueled by bigotry and bluster. Since he launched his presidential bid in June, the presumptive Republican nominee has called Mexican immigrants “criminals, drug dealers, [and] rapists,” proposed banning Muslims from entering the United States, and said women should be punished for seeking an abortion (I could go on). It’s no surprise that his list of endorsements reads like a who’s who of extremism and hate.
This is not who we are.
But this is what we are facing in the general election. We are standing at a crossroads and while there will continue to be struggles within the Democratic party between the left wing and moderate Democrats, one thing we all agree on is that we will not tolerate Trump's racist, extremism.
“No one has to explain to me that we have very serious differences with Secretary Clinton,” he said. “But I think it is also fair to say that there is no issue — virtually no issue — where she is not far, far, far superior to Donald Trump.” -Bernie Sanders
“We have to win. We have to show that this isn't the new normal. This isn't how democracy can or should work. In other countries, politicians might try to jail their opponents -- but not in America.” -Hillary Campaign
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