It wasn’t Trump who divided America
American Thaksin-apologists here are strange characters. They support Thai farmers but not their own equivalent US compatriots – the poor, left-behind Americans who voted for Donald Trump and were castigated as “deplorables” by Hillary Clinton. Their attitude stinks of double standards and contempt.
Years ago a frustrated lefty I knew lost patience with her progressive, educated colleagues, shouting, “Working people get sweat in their ears listening to you.” The offspring of these progressive, wealthy, college-educated people demonstrate solidarity with workers but don’t want to mix with them, much less get to know them. And these are the same out-of-touch people and their offspring who just lost the US election to the “deplorables” – the rednecks, hillbillies, lumbermen, coal-miners, you name them.
Having a billionaire representing the poor doesn’t sound good either. Thaksin Shinawatra ended up serving himself. What Trump will do we don’t know yet. He has vowed to improve US relations with Russia in the interests of creating a more peaceful world. That’s a good thing, and maybe enough in itself to earn people’s votes.
The morally superior and out-of-touch Americans who railed against Trump and his “low-caste” voting base will continue at least to satisfy their self-righteousness and to protect their status in the hierarchy they are trapped in. And their double standards will continue to prevent poor people of “the wrong sort” advancing in life.
What a strange world. Why aren’t the right people running the US – sincere and honest people like Bernie Sanders and Ron Paul?
A Johnsen
