Let’s Make America Great Again—and Ignore This Man

[yuiyoshida]

Don’t give him the attention he craves. Our country has more important things to do.

By David Wertime

On Monday, the Man Who Will Never Be President—but who is the Republican Party’s front-runner in early polls—proposed banning all Muslims from entering the United States, at least until he or someone else “can figure out what the hell is going on” with jihadi terrorism. It’s a proposal so nasty, so shortsighted, and so breathtakingly antithetical to the very core of American values that it demands a response and has elicited one from pretty much everyone.

Yet that, by every indication, is exactly what the Man Who Will Never Be President wants. He craves attention, and he’ll get it however he can, fair or foul—by any means or media necessary. The inevitable snarky Tweets, cable news quick takes, outrageous op-eds, Facebook fistfights, and denunciations in the pages of established daily newspapers will seep together into a great, undifferentiated Narcissus’ pool, reflecting back a scowl and a bad comb-over. The evidence suggests there is little, perhaps nothing of substance behind the attention-seeking—no robust campaign infrastructure, no ideologically coherent set of values, and, it’s achingly clear by now, no plan for running the country. But for the Man Who Will Never Be President, the ephemeral but deafening media maelstrom is the thing—his Super Bowl, his Moby Dick, his presidency. It is what he truly cares about, in contrast to the messy, tiring, and inevitably compromised business of actually governing.

So consider this modest proposal for restoring a modicum of civility to our national discourse: Everyday readers, viewers, and social media users sick of this silliness should stop using his name. Since he’s already currently trending on Facebook and Twitter (again), go ahead and get out your last “Trump” now. (That’s mine.) While you’re at it, consider taking the opportunity to thank your Muslim-American friends, colleagues, and neighbors for their grace during this trying time. If you’re on social media, give a shoutout to our Muslim-American teachers, nurses, engineers, firefighters, police officers, and National Guard reservists for their service. And then moving forward, when you dash off that Facebook post, email, or tweet about the latest zany pronouncement, call the man behind it anything but his name. It could be Ooompa Loompa, or Bossolini. I’ll simply call him the Man Who Will Never Be President.

This isn’t really about him, of course. What actually pleases the Man Who Will Never Be President is important only insofar as it helps determine how to remove him from the center of our impoverished public dialogue. Each morning, this great and powerful nation awakes to a host of competing priorities, from education, to infrastructure, to ISIS. The issues we collectively seek to elevate help frame our own perception of our country, and they direct the energies of policymakers with sharply limited bandwidth in very specific directions.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2015/12/don_t_repeat_donald_trump_s_name_make_america_great_and_ignore_him.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

[daleanime]

2. +1

[Glimmer of Hope]

3. The entertainment shows give him time too.

He was on Kelly and Michael this morning. It was bizarre and disgusting.