The Obsession With Trump is Pathological

 Agree OR disagree, the following article hit some obvious notes for me. Are we OBSESSED with all things Trump?

Whenever I post anything on Twitter that somebody disagrees with, I know what’s coming. Predictably, somebody will call me a Trump supporter.

It doesn’t matter what the subject is. I can disagree with the way Biden withdrew from Afghanistan, say I don’t believe in child pornography, or mention inflation and somebody dredges up Trump.

Last week I published an article about adoption that had nothing to do with politics. It was a story about how my son and his wife are planning to adopt a special needs child. Sure enough, somebody responded by bringing up Trump.

The writer’s words regarding my son’s determination to move forward with the adoption were, “That’s the kind of character trait that had people still defending Trump after his supporters tried to burn down the capitol.”

Maybe he disagrees with foreign adoptions, or adoption of special needs children, or bringing them into the United States, and that’s fair commentary. But what on earth does any of this have to do with Trump? My son and daughter-in-law happen to be staunch Biden supporters, for what it’s worth.

After observing five plus years of media and social commentary and seeing responses to my own posts, I’ve concluded that our national obsession with Trump borders on pathology. Rather than driving people away from Trump or driving the former president into oblivion, the obsession is making him into a force to be reckoned with.

Amanda Marcotte wrote in a 2020 Salon article, “Are we addicted to Donald Trump? It’s a question that’s haunting journalists and political commentators, most of whom hate Trump but cannot deny that his name drives traffic and ratings. Even though Trump lost the election and Joe Biden will be the next president, Trump continues to be the big attention draw for political websites and cable news networks.”

Monica Crowley, an opinion contributor to The Hill, said, “President Trump left office seven months ago, but the pathologically obsessed left just can’t quit him. Every left-wing media outlet ceaselessly talks about and curses him like it’s August 2018. Yet their six-year-long, wild-eyed, anti-Trump mania has, in many ways, only made him stronger.”

The far left will continue to vilify Trump and the far right will continue to flock to his rallies. But those groups don’t count when it comes to elections. The swing voters are the deciders. They sit somewhere in the middle, wanting to get on with their lives without the extremism. If they believe one side is more fanatical than the other, they are likely to go in the opposite direction.

People who are so pathologically addicted to hating Trump that they can’t see through any other lens risk appearing fanatical. People in the middle, the swing voters, might start to think, Maybe Trump isn’t the real threat. Maybe it’s this rabid hatred that keeps us from being united.

We can’t have a reasonable political discussion anymore without it degenerating into name-calling if we don’t subscribe to every single opinion the other person is spouting. And swing voters are noticing.

If Trump runs for president in 2024, and it’s beginning to look like a real possibility, I hope people campaign against him based on ideas and convictions rather than hatred. Trump’s name calling and mockery didn’t get him re-elected, and a pathological hatred of him will not get his opponent elected.

My suggestion is that liberals return to liberal values and move beyond the narrowed thinking that has emerged from this singular obsession with Trump. Liberal values, in case you don’t remember, include critical thinking, tolerance, individualism, liberty, democracy and freedom.

In a 2011 article in HuffPost, Geoffrey Stone wrote, “Liberals believe individuals should doubt their own truths and consider fairly and open-mindedly the truths of others. This is at the very heart of liberalism. Liberals understand, as Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once observed, that ‘time has upset many fighting faiths.’ Liberals are skeptical of censorship and celebrate free and open debate.”

This 2011 article seems like an echo from a distant, more tolerant time. In our current decade, ignorance and hatred are trampling reason. But I’m an optimist. I believe the one who promotes these liberal values will be the winner in the next election, because Americans in the middle are sick of the hate.

By Bebe Nicholson

https://medium.com/the-partnered-pen/the-obsession-with-trump-is-pathological-dd81dd180c2c

Not that I necessarily agree with Bebe, after all there are GOOD reasons to be critical of  and concerned about the influence of Trump, but does Bebe have a point? Are there examples you can think of where conversations have turned to something Trump because someone has to make EVERYTHING about Trump? Just curious.