January 19, 2021 (American Thinker) — Leftists and their fellow travelers on the right like to talk about the “Cult of Trump.” The evidence they present for this theory is nonexistent, as usual. But they're right to the extent that we have had this president's back more than any conservative president or political leader before him.
What's the story behind our fervent support of Donald J. Trump? Answer: Trump is nothing more than an avatar, an embodiment of a large segment of the American people who have been marginalized and abused. That is why he is so “loved” by so many. That's also why he's “hated” by so many others.
Notice that the people who love him now didn't necessarily care for him prior to 2015 and some are still uncomfortable with his lifestyle and personality. On the other side, the people who hate him now were once his biggest supporters; he embodied a successful life to them. He was king of the New York tabloids and had a monster TV show on NBC, hardly conservative bastions.
Why the sudden and dramatic turnaround? Because when Donald Trump rode down that escalator and began promoting “normal” ideas without equivocation (Don't call them “conservative” because at this point it's not about liberalism vs. conservatism, it's about normal vs. crazy), he ceased to be Donald Trump and became us. Me. You. All of us who have seen the decline of this country accelerate exponentially these past ten years and are worried sick about it. Donald Trump the person is not the target. Donald Trump the symbol is.
His attack on the rot that is eating America was all-encompassing. Not only did he unapologetically advocate for specific conservative policies, he was a branch in the leftist wheel of removing sanity and logic entirely from the public sphere. Here was the first legitimate pushback against the attempted destruction of truth, objectivity, fairness, justice, liberty and freedom. Here was the manifestation of the people's cry that the emperors of this country have no clothes, that family and marriage are sacred, that biology, facts, truth and real science are what they are, not what the craziest amongst us say they are. That religion doesn't take a distant back seat to every other right discovered in the nethermost regions of the most feverish minds never to see the insides of an insane asylum. That is who Trump is, to his supporters and to his detractors.
When we see him smeared, libeled, disrespected, scorned, and abused, we know that the ultimate target of it all is us. It's religious people who wonder if there's a future for them in this country. It's people with conventional ideas of life, family and community who dread being forced to speak and act against their conscience in the Orwellian name of progress and equality. We see the edge of the cliff in real terms and we're scared, as we should be.
When the media and the left can launch multi-year investigations of a sitting president of the United States, how hard can it be for them to take on and destroy any other conservative target they desire? If the media can completely smother the NY Post and their Hunter Biden story just because they want to, is it so hard to foresee a day when they launch an all-out attack on our way of life and silence any voices in our defense? Months of deadly rioting causing 30+ deaths, 700 injured police, and $2 billion in damages are ignored, pooh-poohed and even encouraged, while a fraction of the same at the Capitol is hysterically condemned as another 9/11. Why? Because the wrong people did it. Shouldn't that cause a shudder to run down the backs of those who traditionally are the first to lose when society goes nuts? When the same people attacking Trump are the ones attacking conservatives, singling us out as Nazis, fascists, deplorables, disease spreaders and lawbreakers, while bending over backwards to excuse the egregious sins of anyone on their side, does that not tell you that this is not about Trump at all?
That is what Trump is to us. To get a bit Biblical, Trump is the dove sent from the Noah's Ark to scout the landscape. That is why we are so dismayed when we see him being mistreated the way he has been. That's why we don't want to hear a bad word about him. They don't mean him, they mean us.
Published with permission from the American Thinker.