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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsOne thing Presidents Obama and Trump have in common
One thing Presidents Obama and Trump have in common is that they expose deep divides in the country.
Of course, they are completely different in that President Obama tried his best to heal those divides while Trump does his best to exploit them.
With President Obama it started as soon as he was sworn into office. Many were upset that an African-American was leader of the free world. They believe that role should be reserved to white men. I say men because those same people would have been upset if Hillary Clinton had become President. They would not be happy with a female leader. She too would have exposed deep divides, but like President Obama, she would have done her best to try to heal them.
It was not just about race or gender. President Obama also reached out to the LGBT community, which the homophobes did not like. He treated Muslims and the subject of Islam with dignity, which the Islamophobes did not like. But it is important to note people who opposed Obama were not tolerant and open-minded before he took office. His actions and even his mere presence in the Oval Office brought their hate to a boiling point.
With Trump it started as soon as he began campaigning. Normal people did not believe he had a chance especially because of his behavior, and yet his numbers kept rising and he made it all the way to the general election. He had figured out how to tap into the hatred of the deplorables. They love that he speaks out against immigrants, people of color, Muslims, and that he treats women like dirt and surrounds himself with homophobes like Pence. Trump's success was not in spite of his behavior but because of it.
The way Trump and his people embrace concepts like alternative facts and fake news are great examples. These concepts actually predate his presidency and his campaign. Deplorables used to call CNN the "Clinton News Network" when President Clinton was in office, and they have always had a tendency to dismiss news they did not like as biased and false reporting by the "liberal media." Well, if the media has a liberal bias, why did they help put Trump rather than Hillary Clinton into office?
That is because the idea of the media having a liberal bias is one of many alternative facts. Deplorables live in their own alternate reality actually. They don't realize for example that the economy has been much better under President Obama than Bush, or that Bush wiped out the economic gains made under President Clinton. Then again, they also believe that President Obama is a Muslim born in Kenya and that Hillary Clinton and Democrats are running a child prostitution ring.
So whenever Team Trump talks about alternative facts and fake news, deplorables feel warm and fuzzy inside because they think he is talking about things in which they have believed all along. This is very important for Democrats to understand. Even if Russian hacking, interference by Comey, and so forth had not put Trump over the top, the fact that he ever even made it past the Republican primaries should be very troubling to everyone.
Trump did not create deplorables, just like President Obama did not turn open-minded people into racists by becoming President, but Trump exploited their existing hatred to help propel him into the White House. Even if we are lucky enough to have a Democratic President in 2020, that hatred will not cease to exist.