In Defense of Trump Supporters and Why They're Wrong

Before I get to the Trump supporters, I must write about the petition that is attempting to stop Trump and why I signed it.  I am politically opposed to Donald Trump, and I have grown to like Hillary Clinton, to the extent that I can like a politician, that is.  But those things have nothing to do with why I signed the Change Dot Org petition.  I signed it because Donald Trump is dangerous; he is a threat to everything that makes America great.  Did you see what I did there?  I turned his motto against him.  I go girl.

The petition is asking the electors to not vote for Trump even if they're "supposed" to since the whole point of the Electoral College is to keep the people from voting for someone who is unfit for the presidency.  Since Hillary won the popular vote anyway, going "against" what the electors are "supposed" to do wouldn't actually oppose the will of the people.  I think the other point of the Electoral College is to help the smaller states be more represented, but I feel like that is less important than the popular vote and the understanding that Trump is dangerous.  I don't know if the petition will actually make a difference, but I signed it anyway, because it's something I can do.  I did hesitate before signing because of things like democracy and the peaceful transition of power, but decided to do it for the reasons I just stated.

I want to be clear regarding my reasons for signing the petition: it isn't because I disagree with Trump politically, even though I do.  This isn't about politics.  It's because he is dangerous.  I would never have signed such a petition against George W. Bush, for example, even though Al Gore won the popular vote and even though I knew (and was proven correct) that W would start wars, run the country into the ground economically, and stifle stem cell research.  Those are political things; he was not a danger to the very fabric of what America stands for. 

As I understand it, the main purpose of the Electoral College is to prevent a demagogue from becoming president.  I have to admit, I had to look up the definition of demagogue to gain a clearer and better understanding of what the eff that means.  Alarmingly, both Google's and Webster's definitions of demagogue seem to be providing frighteningly precise descriptions of Donald Trump's behavior.  The Google definition is clearer: "a political leader who seeks support by appealing to popular desires and prejudices rather than by using rational argument."

And now, onto the actual purpose of this post: my defense of Trump supporters.  Before I defend them, I shall offend them.

There are many (two that I know of anyway) people who feel that many Trump supporters are some form of piece of crap, or deplorable, as Hillary more eloquently put it.  I don't think she was wrong to make that statement, since the things she was describing are unquestionably deplorable, and she was obviously not talking about all Trump supporters.  This deplorable sect of supporters seem to be racist, homophobic, white supremacists, opposed to religious freedom, etc, etc, etc.  I am quite sure that there is at least a portion of Trump supporters that fit these categories of pieces of crap, evidenced by the fact that the KKK support Trump, since the KKK is obviously composed of pieces of crap as described here.  For the record, I don't think the pieces of crap are limited to the KKK, based on things I've heard from non-KKK Trump supporters.  However, I am quite sure that these categories do not apply to all Trump supporters; in fact, I personally know at least one who is none of those deplorable things.  But even the non-deplorable among them have chosen to elect a distributor of deplorable; I saw on Myface (Facebook) a post that stated that all Trump supporters might not be racist, but racism wasn't a deal-breaker for them.  That sums it up nicely, I think.  So now that I have offended the Trump supporters, I shall, at long last, defend them.

I will not be defending the deplorable portion of Trump supporters, i.e. the racists, homophobes, misogynists, etc.  I will be defending the ones who are not deplorable, for whom deplorable things about Trump were not a deal-breaker.

As crazy as it sounds, I think there are people who wanted to vote for someone who holds their political views.  Some of those people, mostly Republicans probably, only saw one political option, and it wasn't Hillary Clinton.  To be honest, while I understand the political opposition to Hillary by Republicans, it strikes me as odd since she seems moderate to me, and therefore potentially appealing to both parties.  But then again, I also think the same thing of President Obama and John McCain, both of whom are opposed by the other party.  Perhaps this is reflective of people's inability to compromise on anything.  But I digress.

Those Republicans were left with one awful candidate who claims to hold their Republican views, and I think they felt like they couldn't bear to vote for someone on the Democratic side, even though she is moderate.  Oh, I guess the above paragraph wasn't actually a digression after all.  They couldn't bear to compromise their political views, even if it meant electing a dangerous demagogue.

I had trouble empathizing with these voters, until I really imagined myself in their position (I'm normally better at empathy than that, I think).  I imagined a scenario in which an alleged Democratic version of Trump (so Trump from a few years ago then) but with the current state of crazies would run against a Republican whom I find vile as a person (because it seems there are people who hate Hillary as a person as well as a politician) and whose political views are contrary to mine.  So Ted Cruz.  I imagined a Democratic but still just as dangerous version of Trump running against Ted Cruz.  What would I do?  I disagree with Cruz on probably everything, and I don't like anything about him at all.  But he's not a danger to our beloved country the way Trump is.  Cruz wouldn't start a nuclear war because someone hurt his feelings on Twitter.  He wouldn't scapegoat entire races of people the way Hitler did.  He wouldn't attack journalistic freedom.  I would like to believe that I would be able to look past the politics, since this really isn't about politics, and vote for the person who is least evil and least dangerous for our country and its people.  I think I would be able to do that, as hard as it would be to vote for Ted Cruz, because ever since I was little, I understood that politics is always a choice of bad and worse, and we must vote for the lesser of the evils.  In my scenario, Ted Cruz is clearly the lesser of evils when compared to Trump.  While I believe I would ultimately make the right choice and cast the sane vote for Ted Cruz, it would be an incredibly hard decision to make and it would hurt my soul to cast that vote.  So I understand the non-deplorable Trump supporters; it probably would have been too hard for them to vote for Hillary.

And now, I shall get to the part about why the Trump supporters I just defended are wrong.  I do understand how hard their decision was, but they made the wrong one.  They should have been stronger; they should have made the difficult decision to vote against their views that are merely political, and vote for the person who is not a danger to our beloved country and beautiful Earth.  They made the wrong decision.  Now we must all suffer the consequences.  This isn't about politics.

Is Gaga Self-Censored?

***WARNING: The following contains foul language, though it does not contain language about fowl. Viewer discretion is advised.***

I initially became irritated upon hearing the bleeps in the amazing Lady Gaga song “Government Hooker” from the amazing album Born This Way, because I am not a fan of censorship on things that I buy. This had happened before, when the word “bitch” was censored on the allegedly explicit version of “Bad Romance” from The Fame Monster that I bought. Clearly, that drove me crazy, as I searched desperately for a truly explicit version (I eventually found one somewhere, but I don’t remember where). As I heard the bleeps at the end of “Government Hooker” on Born This Way, I thought I had another annoying search for foul language on my hands.

However, I have decided that this time, the censorship might have been intentional. In “Bad Romance,” the word “b*tch” was altered to sound like “bit,” thus creating a clean version of the song that sounded clean and not too edited. However, in “Government Hooker,” the words “f*ck “and “f*cking” are covered with actual beeps that are disruptive to the song and don’t blend in the way the “b*tch,” altering does. If one doesn’t pay attention to the lyrics of “Bad Romance,” the censorship goes unnoticed; however, there is no doubt at all about whether there is censorship in “Government Hooker.” The censorship of the expletive is clearly explicated in the latter song.

Because of the apparent intentionality, I realized the censorship, particularly of the word “f*ck” fits perfectly within the song’s meaning. The song seems to have several complex meanings, according to this website, but one meaning (that at the time that I am writing this) is not mentioned there explicitly. The song seems to be about government hypocrisy. The government (via the FCC) censors the word “f*ck” as symbolized in the song with the bleeps, yet so many politicians are often found f*cking hookers and mistresses (“I wanna f*ck government hooker”). The hypocrisy continues, as so often, the government figuratively f*cks the people it represents as well as the people it doesn’t represent (“Stop f*cking me government hooker”).

Gaga, nice work, adding at least one layer of thought to your fantastic music. This is yet another of many reasons for why I heart Lady Gaga.

Disliked Worlds Collide

Two links have been sitting in a Word document for almost a month, waiting patiently to be turned into a blog posting. Sadly, those two links were forgotten until now, and now they have lost much if not all of their relevance. However, since I’ve been known to post out-dated things, perhaps it is not too late for these links to shine in one of my joyous blog postings. If you read to the end (before and including the update), you might get a relevant and timely surprise!

If this article is not lying, and I don’t believe it is, then The Tonight Show with Jay Leno falsely portrayed the audience response to Sarah Palin when she was a guest on the show. They replaced the audience's silence and sounds of dismay with canned laughter.

It is rather unfortunate that I’m not terribly surprised that Jay Leno and his people would commit such a vile act of falsely representing an audience’s reaction to create the illusion of comedy, love, and admiration in a vacuum of such things to aid a politician. I expect two types of people above most others to be ethical: comedians and scientists. Did you think I was going to say “politicians”? Really? Why would you think such a bizarre thing? I’ve learned not to expect politicians to have ethics or souls; that way, I avoid a lot of disappointment. Anyhoo, Leno’s (or whoever’s decision it was to edit the audience – since Leno’s name is on The Tonight Show, I will hold him responsible) ethical indiscretion is, in my admittedly strange view, on par with those scientists who screwed with the climate change data a few months ago. Scientists and comedians are people we should be able to trust; when either lies, it truly is a sad day.

Fortunately, in a world of lying Lenos, there are also truth-keepers in the form of satirists. Here, Jon Stewart talks about Palin’s Leno appearance, particularly about her crazy claims that Fox News is "fair and balanced."

As if the evil editing to make Sarah Palin appear more loved or less disliked weren’t enough, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno continues to commit evil acts of duplicitous editing today. The "I’m with Coco/Conan O’Brien" Myface (Facebook) fan page posted this article a few days ago, that tells of a brave and heroic Slash wearing an "I’m with Coco" pin that made a forcibly brief appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. It’s not surprising at all that Leno and his people cannot handle dissent. Somehow, if something like that were to happen on pretty much any other talk show, the host would go ahead and make jokes about it, because that’s what funny hosts do. Unfortunately, Jay Leno continues to not be the funny talk show host that I know he could be. Of course, the other talk show hosts I allude to would probably not find themselves in such situations, for most if not all of them would not have done what Leno did.

UPDATE April 11, 2010

These disliked worlds collided s’more on SNL; The Tonight Show with Jay Leno will be featured on The Sarah Palin Network.

Fox News Creates Britney Controversy (EXPLICIT LANGUAGE)

(Originally written as an email on March 29, 2009)

The following contains explicit and/or suggestive language, references to illegal drugs, and may contain animated nudity. Viewer discretion is advised.

I think this is funny....You know that Britney Spears song "If U Seek Amy"? I learned yesterday from the VH1 Top 20 and from Fox News that it's meant to be "IF u see ka(y) me" --> "F * C K Me." (That’s right -- I’m censoring the explicit language even though I warned you about it.)

It's rather funny that Fox News brought my attention to this, because I certainly wouldn't have noticed and when they did bring it to my attention, I had to think about it to get it. The people on Fox News didn't notice it either until it was brought to their attention, and they also had to think about it to get it.

If it takes these presumably intelligent adults on the TV and a slowly sharp-witted linguistics major like myself so much effort and attention-bringing to get it, why would they think innocent kids will get it? They actually say on there that kids are more savvy and will get it...I feel like that's not true, I think the innocent kids and innocent teens wouldn't get it, but the slutty teenagers who are already screwing each other or the kids who are already familiar with the cursed and evil f-word might get it, maybe.

I think it's pretty stupid for them to bring so much attention to it, since they're defeating their own purpose really. Furthermore, I think it's stupid to complain about this song's cryptically and barely verbalized explicit language rather than its slutty messages -- I mean, if they're going to complain about something.

Also, if they are complaining about the slutty messages, then they should complain about countless other things too -- things that are a lot more explicit than that -- because those are a lot less cryptic. It's also funny how they don't even mention what I think is an explicit drug reference, where Britney sings, "Is she smoking up outside?" Doesn't "smoking up" refer specifically to smoking the weed? In my day it did. That seems a lot more wrong to me.

Regarding my not getting of the F-*-C-K Me thing, I did actually sense that there was something sexual in the phrase "if you seek Amy," I just couldn't figure out what it was. I definitely noticed the weird/wrong grammar of "All of the boys and all of the girls are begging to if you seek Amy."

It really is pretty funny, once you get what she's saying, particularly the whole big section where she says "If you seek Amy tonight" repeatedly.

Anyhoo, I really don’t think kids would get it, and if they do get what the word is, I think there are far worse things they could hear. Regardless, I think it’s a great song.

While on the topic of music and lyrics, but otherwise completely unrelated, I think that Katy Perry and the man from Hinder should marry each other....They both sing about still being in love with an ex when they're with someone new ("Thinking of You" and "Lips of an Angel").

I hope you're not disappointed in the lack of animated nudity...I said this "may" contain it, like the disclaimers all the fox cartoons had for a while after that whole brouhaha Janet Jackson’s booby caused.

(On April 16, 2009, I wrote another related email)

Omfg! I f'ing heard “If U Seek Amy” on the (FM/terrestrial) radio, and they f'ing bleeped the "If U Seek Amy" part!!! Holy mother-f'ing sh*t, how the f are they bleeping the cryptically encoded cursing, but not bleeping the very obvious and clear drug reference, "Is she smoking up outside"?! That is so f'ing f'd up!

So it's wrong to publicly broadcast a barely understandable curse word, but it's perfectly okay to make smoking weed sound cool? I mean, the whole song is overtly and non-cryptically about how awesome Amy is, and the song suggests that Amy smokes weed, so obviously it's really cool to smoke the marijuana. You know that's how stupid kids (and stupid adults) will think. (Yes, I am suggesting that people who think it’s cool to do drugs are stupid.)

Furthermore, how the h*ll is it okay for that Christina wannabe Lady Gaga to sing (in "Just Dance") all about being so drunk on red wine that she doesn't know where she is or how her shirt got turned inside out? So the FCC apparently thinks it's good to encourage stupid kids to smoke the weed and get drunk enough to be date raped, right? But it's not okay to creatively and cryptically spell a profane word, so cryptically in fact, that reasonably intelligent adults don't get it even when it's brought to our attention, because even then we have to really think about it to get it. Britney is essentially censoring herself; it’s excessive for the radio to further censor her. Ironically, bleeping it really just draws attention to the profanity; it draws as much attention as Fox News complaining about it does.

Grr, this makes me so angry. I should smoke weed and get drunk and then tell people to if you seek Amy, because that's what the radio told me to do, and Britney, Amy, and Wannabe Christina are cool and I want to be just like them.

F*ck!

[It should be noted: I have never, nor will I ever part-take in any illegal drug use.]

[Please see my next blog posting about Lady Gaga and why I was wrong about her regarding my statements implying that she is a wannabe Christina Aguilera.]