According to his base, and perhaps to Twitter too, President Trump is the persecuted President. I've seen that idea expressed in the Facebook posts of some of his supporters.
Why does he get persecuted? He says something outlandish in a speech or he attacks a critic or opponent in Twitter. And because of those things, a flood of criticism comes his way. That flood is unfortunate because it does nothing more that solidify the support he gets from his base. But solidifying support is not the only effect that criticisms directed has. For when his base sees their hero getting so much flack, his base feels that they experiences persecution too. Thus, it isn't only Trump who feel the hostility, so his base doess too.
The religiously conservative Christian part of his base already feels persecuted. Why? It is because there is a change in some cultural values especially about sex. The greater acceptance of homosexuality, as in the legalization of same-sex marriages in society, has rejuvenated many of my fellow Christians. That is because for some, being persecuted can give one a feeling of significance. But it also has the effect of giving many of my fellow Christians a reason to withdraw from society, and possibly reality, while still seeking to have a controlling hand the writing of laws.
Now it isn't because I share a vast majority of the religious beliefs of these religiously conservative Christians, that I will say the following: we can't afford to let Trump's base to feel justified in withdrawing from society. There are two reasons why. One reason is pragmatic and the other reason has to do with democracy.
The pragmatic reason why we can't afford to let Trump's base withdraw is that we need all of the voting help we can get to defeat Trump in 2020; we must steal votes from his base. First, we need to realize that people are reluctant to change. And so people need very compelling reasons why we should change from Trump. There is no guarantee that the Democratic Presidential nominee will provide such reasons on their own. In fact, I myself have not see any valid reasons to vote for a Democratic Presidential candidate since I stopped voting for Republican candidates. And thus to defeat Trump in the next election, we need to steal votes from his base.
The second reason why we can't afford to let Trump's base withdraw from society has more to do with the principles of democracy. Those principles say that to achieve a state of democracy in one's nation, the state must belong equally to each so that there is no oppression of any group. That is as true for Trump's base as it is any marginalized group. And since we are not going to treat those in Trump's base as ICE has been treating immigrants, we need to learn to collaborate with them no matter how resistant they are to that endeavor. And so to collaborate with them in the political process, we should not only want Trump's to be politically represented, we should look to what we can learn from them. Despite their many faults, Trump's base does have important viewpoints that we need to pay attention to.
So what should we do with Trump's inflammatory statements? When he attacks people in interviews or at events or makes wild claims, then it is the media's job to fact check him and point out any errors and inconsistencies. But when it comes to Twitter, perhaps the best strategy is to ignore his tweets rather than competing to see who can post the best put downs of Trump. Again, all that does is to give him a stage to perform before his base and to make his base feel persecuted and thus more alienated from the rest of us. We should simply ignore his tweets so that perhaps some of his base will see his penchant to attack people without provocation. And thus we hopefully better reach his base and at least let them see on their own that Trump is a bully who does not deserve their support.
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