The Raj tries to explain why God-Emperor Trump should try to heal the nation and bring its fractured pieces back together again (cf. Humpty Dumpty):
America, right now, despite the aforementioned affluence and peacefulness, is a truly unpleasant place to live. We are not loving our neighbors.
The unfortunate result of this, despite its being inherently unfair, is that Trump alone can and must lead the way in curing this condition. No one else is in a position to do it and he cannot expect his enemies to help him, if past performance is any indication.
In order to really “make America great again,” so we can indeed live with each other, even if Durham indicts half a dozen of his opponents, even if he wins a smashing victory in November, the president must resist two powerful temptations: vengeance and gloating.
He should be “the good father,” which he evidently is to his own children, not the angry or cheated man, which he is to his political opponents, justifiably or not.
Sorry, but that’s just not gonna happen, Rog, despite the noble intent. For two opposing factions to come together, there has to be some common ground and some comity on both sides.
We conservatives have tried both (bipartisanship, polite grassroots movements like the Tea Party, and moderate Republican presidents like George W. Bush), and the fucking Commies have responded with feral intensity to trash all of it.
Unity can only come under three sets of circumstances: a common basis for society, a shared enemy, or a desire to be united. We have no common ground between Left and conservatists; in fact, we’re diametrically opposed.
Actually, we do have a shared enemy, all right, except we conservatives are becoming united against the Commies (they’ve always been united against us), and the common enemy we now have is each other.
We’re way past wanting to be united. The Left has called us every epithet under the sun; they’ve started treating us conservatives like we’re totalitarian Nazis not worthy of even being allowed to eat dinner in peace; and if we dare to express opposition to them, we’re attacked either literally by their Pantifa goons, or in the media by the shouting heads at CNN et al. It takes two sides to want to be united, and the Left isn’t interested because they’ve begun to believe their own insane propaganda.
So no, I don’t think President Trump should try to bring the two sides together. In the first place, such an effort will fail because the Left (and their Never-Trumper noch schleppers) absolutely hate his guts and will repulse (not would — there’s no conditional circumstance) and revile any of his approaches. Secondly, even moderate conservatives are starting to learn what we ultra-conservatives have known all along: no matter how much we try, the only time the Left will accept us is when we do precisely what they want, and only then. “Bipartisan” to the Left, in other words, means “we’ll agree to do something with you only as long as you’ll agree to do exactly what we want”.
Frankly, I’m sick of it. There are two socio-political groups in this country, and each one has a diametrically-opposite idea to the other of what this country should look like and how it should be governed. Our Humpty-Dumpty nation has fallen off the wall and is finished, over, done with.
There are two solutions: geographic partition, and actual civil war. (If this sounds similar to 1860, it is. People always wonder how things could come to such a pass back then; now it should be quite apparent. The problem now is that the Left is trying to paint Middle America as the slave owners, when in fact the opposite is the case.)
I would prefer the first solution — even though partition itself would cause violence to break out as the details became known and acted upon. As for the second solution: frankly, I’m getting to the point where I think I’d just have to handle whatever a genuine civil war might bring, and let the chips fall where they may. One thing I do know is that I will be the last to start it, but once engaged I will do my level best to finish it.
You see, I’m not interested in living the rest of my life in a California- or New York-type of society. That’s not what I signed on for when I immigrated, back in the mid-1980s. I suspect that there are lots more immigrants like me, and still more people among the native-born population who have seen their civil rights eroded and their society turning more into Southern California.
I’m not the only conservative who feels this way, if the events in Virginia are any kind of portent.
The Virginia situation might yet be averted at the next election, by the way, which should see the Commies kicked out of statewide office. And we as a nation might still get another five years of grace when Trump is reelected later in 2020. After that, however, all bets are off. I don’t think conservative people are going to go adopt the “reconciliation” that Roger Simon is advocating — there is no longer a future for gentleman-Republicans like George W. Bush in our polity. I also know that the Left always needs an enemy, and if there isn’t one, they’ll create one. Which, right now, is us: Middle America, Flyover Country, the White Patriarchy, Western European culture, Christians, the Deplorables, or any and all of the above.
So here we are. Good luck to us all.