Trumps latest conduct shows hell make our divisions a lot worse
There may never in American history have been a president who tried harder to unify the country, and got as little credit for it from his opponents, as Barack Obama. Despite being unfailingly thoughtful and always insisting political disagreements weren’t personal, Obama was portrayed by Republicans as some kind of spittle-flecked rage monster whose only goal was to set Americans against each other. They attacked him for not being enough of a unifier while simultaneously accusing him of intentionally trying to destroy the country.
Well now we’re going to see what it’s really like to have a president who wants to divide the country. Donald Trump and the people who work for him are giving new meaning to the term “sore winner,” and there’s no reason to think they’ll change anything once he’s actually in the Oval Office.
On Thursday, President-elect Trump went to Ohio for a rally, as part of what is being billed as a “thank you tour” of states that he won in the election. Consider what Republicans would be saying if Hillary Clinton had won the electoral college, then proceeded to visit only the states that had supported her. They would say it showed what a hateful, out-of-touch divider she was, caring only about the Americans that were already in her camp and doing nothing to reach out to the other side.
Yet despite the fact that Trump lost the vote by over 2½ million votes, I’ve seen barely any appeals for him to reach across the aisle, not enact too ambitious an agenda, or try to understand the experiences and feelings of the 72 million (and counting) voters who didn’t want him to be their president.
He certainly didn’t do that Thursday. As we’ve seen before, Trump had a somewhat conciliatory text written for him on the teleprompter, which had some words about the whole country coming together. And then, as he often does, he went on his own extemporaneous assault, lashing out at the news media, Republican Party leaders, his primary opponents, anti-Trump protesters and, of course, Hillary Clinton — to which the crowd responded with that oldie but goodie, chants of “Lock her up!”
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2016/12/02/trumps-latest-conduct-shows-hell-make-our-divisions-a-lot-worse/?utm_term=.318ffbddad5f
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