The Day After Tomorrow

post by Jacob Falkovich (Jacobian) · 2016-11-07T23:47:05.000Z · LW · GW · 0 comments

Are you rooting for Donald Trump tomorrow? Please read the text in red. On Hillary’s side? Please read the parts in blue.

Imagine: it’s Tuesday night and the result is beyond doubt – a landslide for Crooked Hillary. What do you plan to do? Retreat in disgust from mainstream American discourse and retrench in your bubble? Claim that the “system is rigged” against you? You should be embarrassed, that’s what a leftist would do.

Imagine: it’s Wednesday morning and your next president fuhrer is Donald Trump. What do you plan to do? Scream that the American voters are idiots? Threaten violence and civil disobedience? How very Trump of you.

There are 324,118,787 people in America. The president is just one of them, and so are you. We all shape the kind of country we live in.

Do you hate Hillary’s corruption? Choose integrity. Pick your leaders based on their actions, not their promises. Did the person talking about working class problems spend a single day working a blue collar job? Is the person warning you of foreigners quick to use offshore labor when they can save a buck? This country will be saved by men of principle leading men of principle, not by making compromise with sin.

Do you hate Trump because he’s disrespectful? Choose respect. Learn to respect people from faraway lands, with different tastes and strange beliefs. And by these I mean: Oklahoma, Nascar, Jesus. In case you forgot, respect doesn’t mean letting them live somewhere out of sight. It means respecting their voice and their choice.

Do you hate the lies of the mainstream media? Choose objectivity. Does Breitbart make money when they report the unvarnished truth or when they they post outrage clickbait? Don’t consume just the media that feels good, broaden your view and you’ll see a truer picture. What use is free speech if one doesn’t freely listen?

Do you hate Trump’s bold-faced lying? Choose truth. Do you share articles that attempt to get to the bottom of issues, or memes that make your opponents seem stupid? Be wary of bullshit that promotes a cause you support. Bullshit in the service of a good cause isn’t virtuous, it’s corrupting.

Do you hate the Democrats’ betrayal of American culture? Choose the best of that culture. Promote the best of America: the collective values and individual freedom. Forget about the politicians and their petty fights, talk about the Americans who lead the world in every art, science and enterprise. Remind the world why this the greatest nation that ever stood.

Do you hate Trump’s ego? Choose humility. Don’t fall for simplistic narratives that describe the world how you want it to be, not how it is. Did you study the research on crime, educations, trade, guns, immigration, healthcare? Or did you read a tweet by Vox? These are complex issues, they involve hard trade-offs and unpredictable effects. Be humble when you opine about them.

Do you hate the intolerance of the social justice movement? Choose tolerance. SJ demands blind loyalty, but you believe in honest criticism. SJ hates white men, but you don’t judge people on superficial traits. SJ wants civil war, but you know that Americans aren’t your enemies, even the ones who voted for Clinton. 

Do you hate the intolerance of the alt-right? Choose tolerance. AR demands blind loyalty, but you believe honest criticism. AR hates foreigners and minorities, but you don’t judge people on superficial traits. AR wants civil war, but you know that Americans aren’t your enemies, even the ones who voted for Trump. 

You are better than them. They have no principles, but you can understand their worldview without compromising yours. They blame you for everything they don’t like about America, but you can listen to their challenges and offer them real solutions. In a country that’s going to shit, you can set an example. Fuck the president, you and 324,118,785 other Americans can make America great again.

Don’t be the Trump you don’t want to see in the world.

 

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