Simone

I don’t like to think or talk or write about Donald Trump because I think the complaints and op-eds and musings and ponderings by people like me are the only reason he’s gotten this far. But please excuse me, because I’m going to break my own rule.

At camp this week, we did a treacherous hike. It was hot and sticky, and all uphill. The kids were whining and crying and injuring themselves. To distract from the many nuisances of being in the Great Outdoors, I’ve found that conversation is useful. Often this conversation revolves around zeitgeist-y topics in pop culture. Being that this past week held the Republican National Convention, Melania Trump’s plagiarized speech came up. Surprisingly, I entered a conversation about artistic and academic integrity, white privilege, and sexism with my campers. It was at this point that a girl much younger than I, but far more politically articulate and aware, entered the realm of discussion. Abruptly, she said she didn’t care about what Melania had or hadn’t repeated from Michelle, because it seemed to her like a mere distraction. She asked if any of us had heard of anything else from the convention. No one could name anything really. Cable news had spent the last few days repeating synced clips from both speeches, and little else. She told us we should know about the kind of things that were said and proposed at the convention. She said we would be very scared. Then someone brought up Pokemon Go and that was that.

On Facebook this morning, I found a highlight reel of the RNC shared by one of my friends and watched it. There was montage of the radio show host Alex Jones screaming about black nationalism outside the convention center, women denouncing Hillary for her inability to “keep her husband pleased,” Nazi salutes and verbal displays of anti-semitism, and passersby suggesting we reintroduce “much more than water-boarding.” I’d always known Donald Trump was a hatemonger, but I hadn’t fully acknowledged the hate he mongered was so violent and passionate and ugly and bold. In my principle-based ignorance of Trump, I haven’t been properly conditioned to his new conservative persona. It wasn’t until I saw his most vocal supporters—supported by the volume of their allies—riled up by signs and excited by the presence of their favorite politicians, that I became anything more than annoyed by his campaign. Now I’m afraid. I was reminded of how politically aware this girl much younger than I, was.

A few nights ago, I dreamt that I encountered a group of undocumented people protesting Donald Trump outside a party in New York City. I approached them out of respect, wanting to know what I could do as an ally. I began speaking to one of the protesters in the group who seemed to be helping lead the demonstration. Very suddenly and very personally, he revealed to me that he, along with a number of the people in that very crowd, and most conservative talk-radio hosts, and Trump himself, had been paid by a collective organization of the country’s top fast-food restaurants. Trump’s entire campaign, and the subsequent disruption of our country’s democratic system, was a ploy. The fast-food companies wanted to distract us from some new, horrible chemical they were poisoning our food with. I wish that were the truth. ♦