Donald Trump won by nine points, roughly, here in this bastion of republican politics, and I can see why. See, during the primaries, I was a supporter of the great orange train wreck.
Back when he was just a candidate, he seemed to connect to me. It's as if, finally, there's someone who will just say what everyone's thinking. He spoke like an everyman, with all the cursing and the slander we wanted to channel at The Man who, in our eyes, damned us to a fate we never wanted. He never built anything, he simply tore down what we told him too, and I was one of the many, pointing at Washington.
Then I watched the Democratic National Convention. See, I only watched bit of the RNC. The catharsis gets boring after a while; endless talk of taking back what's ours and putting the everyman back in power just faded into pure hatred of anything establishment, like we were the Simpletons from a cantile for Leibowitz.
The DNC, however, was a revelation. Yes there were scraps and protests, but it was still exhilarating to be so upbeat. The catharsis was wonderful, the talk of striking back at the corrupt powers an adrenaline rush, but what happens when the anger dies down? It was during this convention, proudly displaying all the american values that make us great, that I realized something important.
I realized that love trumps hate. I realized that even the most brutal insults I reveled in could not beat the hope I felt after the DNC. I was converted. The insults became disgusting after that. The “outsider” bent became a fallback against the amateurishness instead of a quality.
Thcatharsis was over, and I was appalled by the monster I egged on.