Friends and Enemies

The Symbology of Trump

When the oak is felled the whole forest echoes with its fall, but a hundred acorns are sown in silence by an unnoticed breeze.

-Thomas Carlyle

Saturday night I was at dinner with my wife and some friends when the news about Trump’s attempted assassination broke. Seeing the reaction of those around me reminded me that Trump was more than just a presidential candidate. He is a symbol, and the people love him. They love Trump because for the first time in their lives someone is speaking for them, he represents Americans from deindustrialized towns, farming communities and flyover states. And it is for this very reason that those in power, hate him, they hate him because they despise everyday average Americans, they hate him because they hate us.

The elites do not care about us. They have no problem gutting the manufacturing base and sending our jobs overseas, flooding our towns with fentanyl, and replacing us with Third World immigrants. They see us as a problem, a thorn in their side, a nuisance that needs to be dealt with.

For all his faults Trump had the audacity to stand up for us. It’s ironic because Trump is not one of us, he’s the last person one might expect to stand for the American heart land. He is a real estate mogul, a billionaire, and he’s from New York City, he’s about as far from everyday America as one can get. But this only makes the powers that be hate him more—because he’s one of them. He always has been. He went to the same parties, funded their campaigns, and at the end of the day, he dared to turn against them. Trump is more than just a political nuisance for the establishment. He’s far worse than that. He is a heretic. He is a traitor.

He dared to stand up to them and stand up for us. We can argue till we’re blue in the face about Trump’s politics. I will be the first to admit he is not someone with whom I share many political beliefs. But he is a friend, and if there’s one thing, we have learned since 2016 it’s that Carl Schmitt was absolutely right. Politics is about friends and enemies.

The line between friend-enemy was made clear on July 13. There is no longer any ambiguity to be found. Conspiracies aside, there is one fact that remains: the rooftop from which the shooter fired on Trump was left unsecured, and there is zero reason that should’ve happened. The only logical explanation is that it was done intentionally because they wanted everyone to see his brain turned to pink mist on live television.

They wanted us to see that because they wanted us to understand our place. They wanted us to realize that this is not our country anymore. They’re in charge, and we need to sit down, shut up, and go back to politics as it once existed—to continue to choose between a false binary, a ruling party and a controlled opposition.

They wanted him dead, and they wanted it televised because they wanted to send a message. That message is clear: they hate us. They hate us for not sitting by and watching as they raid the treasury, as they demographically replace us, as they send our sons to die in far-off lands.

We were supposed to sit down and shut up, and if we’re being honest, that is what most of us were doing until Trump. Trump had the audacity to expose them for who they are, to turn against them, and to rally those states they deemed flyover country and offer them hope.

Regardless of his policies, or whether you agree with him, it is undeniable that he has rejuvenated the average American’s believe that they might control their own destiny. He has given us a vitality that had long been dormant. We watched over the last couple of years as Republicans and right-leaning people won victories at the state level, became active in school boards, county commissions, and mayor’s offices. These political victories were largely because Trump exposed them for who they are, and by shedding light their intentions and exposing the cancer that is Washington he reinvigorated a people who had previously resigned their country to vultures.

The establishment hates Trump because he represents the average American, he represents you and me, he represents our families and our communities. They want him out of the way because they want us out of the way. He was supposed to lay down and step aside because we were supposed to lay down and step aside. They wanted him dead because they want us dead.

Regardless of my political disagreements with President Trump, he now has my full support. When those coastal elites look at him, they don’t just see a brash, loud New York real estate executive with eccentric hair. They see factory workers from Ohio, they see fishermen from the coast of North Carolina, they see farm boys from Iowa. They see Americans, and they hate us.

-TJS