With the recent election of one of the most controversial figures in American politics, Donald Trump, liberals and republicans alike are taking out their anger on the figure, but it seems that his supporters have also entered the firing line of this opinionated onslaught. Not only have the regular internet trolls taking up arms, but this election cycle major news networks and personalities have joined in the fun. So it is time to ask the question, has the prosecution of opinion gone too far.
As you most likely have heard many celebrities have either come out against Trump or supported Hillary and very few of them have had major backlash. But the same can’t be said for those coming out as pro Trump.
Take this for example:
http://mashable.com/2016/11/18/kanye-west-would-have-voted-trumpt/#A17FGgnCn8qW
Kanye West in this video announces that if he voted he would have voted for Trump. After he announced this the internet and mainstream media went crazy. Why would anyone get so worked up about who someone is voting for. In the clip that Mashable posted portrays this in a negative light, showing tweets making points against Kanye and Trump supporters in general, as well as using extremely condescending language.
Possibly the biggest point used against point used against Trump supporters is their violent, sexist, islamophobic and homophobic hate crimes, which apparently skyrocketed after Trump’s election as this article explains
The article claims that “hate crimes are up up up and trump supporters want to deny deny deny” but it seems the only thing that is ‘up up up’ is people desperate enough for attention that they are willing to fabricate hate crimes on the internet. The article is almost laughable, the image opening the article is of a man showing anti islamic slogans, the article claims that the man is a trump supporter. The image is appalling don’t get me wrong, but if you actually take the time to go to the link attached the picture it just so happens that the original picture isn’t credited as a trump supporter, but rather simply an ‘anti-islamic protester’. What a surprise. The article itself has little meat, much like the other articles on the website, with such gems such as ‘3 reasons the Trump coalition will crumble – and Democrats will have to pick up the pieces’, ‘Dear hard-working white people: you played yourselves’ and, my personal favorite, ‘Jesus wept: How can you call yourself a christian if you voted for Donald Trump’. The website itself is borderline alt-left, not a single article on offer has a single nice thing to say about any Republican, especially not Trump or Chris Christie. Websites like the ‘highly respected’ ‘Saloon’ that lecture the public and imply that all Trump supporters are racists or sexists or some other vile word is the exact reason he won.
But moving back to the hate crimes that got us to this point. A large number of which were completely fabricated. This brilliant article explains it in magnificent detail:
This of course doesn’t mean every hate crime reported after the Trump presidency is false, but it does mean however is that desperate attention seeking people take away credibility from victims of actual hate crimes. It is also very likely, as the article explains, that more of these supposed hate crimes are fabricated. The hypocrisy that has come from the tension between Trump and Hillary supporters is in fact this, before the election people were scared that if Hillary won, Trump supporters would be angry. Claims were made that there would be riots, assaults and according to this New York Times article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/28/us/politics/donald-trump-voters.html?_r=0
A revolution. But now the election has come to fruition and the opposite result has emerged from the chaos. We have seen across the country riots under the name ‘not my president’, or as some may prefer them to be called ‘protests’. We have seen these in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Seattle and many more. These riots have taken a political strategy that consists of not only condemning the alternate political option, but also those who support them. As most of you will know, history doesn’t treat this kind of political manipulation very well. It didn’t work for ghostbusters, it didn’t work for Gawker and it sure as hell didn’t work here. An undesirable side effect of this strategy has turned out to be violence against Trump voters by other members of the public, primarily Hillary voters. As seen here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGRFEiLBZCE
Here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNegGEoohK4
And here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEMZSn8iLr4
I think anyone can agree that these attacks do not represent the community of Hillary supporters or anti-Trump protesters as a whole. But it is important to acknowledge that if the situation was flipped and Trump supporters ganged up Hillary supporters and did something like this, we would hear no end of it. What is being demonstrated in these videos is innocent members of the public being attacked for thought crimes. For years we have avoided the prosecution of acts as simple as these, the very concept of attacking people for a thought crime seems orwellian, but in the twisted, divided political environment that we live in has turned it into a reality
Yet another disturbing example of condescending language towards half of America is this clip from the notoriously byas online news program, ‘The Young Turks’:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBquRAun1RE
Considering that the Young Turks has been so Pro-Democracy in the past this clip seems off at best and hypocritical at worst. The ‘star’ of this clip is Ana Kasparian. She demonstrates with perfect accuracy why Donald Trump won the election, because people like Ana dismisses those with a different opinion to her as ‘stupid’ or ‘f**king dumb’. I consider myself a progressive person and having a republican as the leader of the free world doesn’t make me happy by any means, especially this republican. But I dislike Trump, not those who support Trump. If you support Trump, I disagree with you, but I don’t dislike you.
And as hard this is to say, but the problem that has been put forth is absolute falsehood and in many cases those putting forth the problem are the problem, not all of them but some of them. They rig the debate by creating false evidence. But debate is not the problem, debate is the very core of democracy, without it the world simply cannot function. But if you voted for Hillary or just don’t like Trump in general, disagree with Trump supporters, don’t hate them. And if you see websites or even your nightly news prosecuting people with a slightly controversial opinion, then call them out on it. Because the type of hate put forth by these people suppresses change and goes against the very concept of free speech.