On wanting a president who loves me, hates the people I hate, and makes me feel really, really good about myself.
By Hal Brown
Let’s get this out of the way. I don’t think President Biden personally loves me. I don’t think he hates the people I hate because he’s a better person than I am. I think to the extent he hates, he hates what the people I hate believe and what they want the country to become.
When I see him on TV I feel admiration for him but he doesn’t make me feel good about myself. The closest to this is feeling that he is speaking for me.
The closest thing I’ve done to wearing a hat showing to the world how much I admire him is wearing the Ray-Ban 3025 aviator sunglasses which Biden wears.
My partner bought them for me. Being about his age, I’d like to believe they make me look as badass in mine as I think he does in his. Dream on, Hal.
When I watch videos of the attendees at Trump rallies and see interviews with them I am struck by the ways they demonstrate their feelings for him. The minimalists sport the ubiquitous red MAGA baseball caps with either the four letters or the words spelled out.
No MAGA hat is too big.
Giving Trump credit for popularizing four letters which started as an abbreviation and became a word that took on a life on its own here’s what Wikipedia has to say:
Make America Great Again" or MAGA[a] is an American political slogan which was popularized by Donald Trump during his successful 2016 presidential campaign. The slogan became a pop culture phenomenon, seeing widespread use and spawning numerous variants in the arts, entertainment and politics, being used by those who support and oppose Trump's presidency. Since its popularization in the 1980s, the slogan used by Ronald Reagan originally has been accused by some of being a loaded phrase. Multiple journalists, scholars, and commentators have called the slogan racist, regarding it as dog-whistle politics and coded language.
Of course at rallies no Trump outfit is too garish.
No Trump flag is too outlandishly worshipful and bellicose.
Those wearing the most extreme outfits may hope they’ll have their pictures make the news or that they will get them interviewed by TV reporters.
What all these Trump supporters have in common in addition to their off-the-charts high regard for him, and in many instances their belief that he is as close to an infallible deity that a human being can become, is that when these people gather together they feel a bond with each other.
They are with “their people” which means that they not only all believe Trump is their god but that he, or perhaps "He" is a more appropriate way to use the personal pronoun, loves them and hates the people they hate. He makes them feel special.
Even those who seem to follow his rallies around the country wearing t-shirts that say “blacks for Trump” can feel good about having Trump’s rally organizers make sure they are given seats behind him so they can be on TV. They are members of a minuscule minority of Blacks and it isn’t even clear whether they are aware of, or care about, Trump's actual beliefs about racial equality and his policies on addressing racial injustice.
Consider this:
The photo is from this article:
You can easily find photos of many these people by doing a web image search.
You can even find a few photos of men wearings t-shirts saying “gays for Trump." If I could interview any one person from a Trump rally I would like to interview one of these people. See Wikipedia about Gays For Trump.
Of course Trump hasn’t jumped all over the anti-woke agenda and engaged in the demonization of the LGBTQ+ community like DeSantis, but still Trump can hardly be considered a friend of this mostly Democratic voting group.
If I ever go to a Joe Biden rally you won't see me wearing a MAGA hat though I might have a Biden button on my shirt. I will, however, be wearing my Tilley hat and sporting my badass Biden Ray-Bans.
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