The Chasm Widens

[rangerrebew]

The Chasm Widens
by TOM MCLAUGHLIN
January 25, 2017

Not many people in the Portland, Maine area see the world as I do. It's been five years since my wife and I bought a second home across the bridge in South Portland and I've kept a low profile. I do meet, however, with a group of writers every couple of months who know I'm a conservative columnist out in the hinterland. At last Wednesday's gathering, everyone expressed dismay at the upcoming Trump inauguration and after listening for a while, I told them I voted for him. Instantly, the new person in the group who was sitting right next to me, said: "You're an a**hole!" Everyone tightened up as I turned to look at my accuser, but no response was necessary. It was clear who the a**hole was.

Congress Street, the main thoroughfare in Portland, was blocked off Saturday when my wife and I were trying to get to the YMCA where our nine-year-old grandson, Alex, was competing in a swim meet. The local Women's March was breaking up and as I searched side streets for a way through, women and girls were carrying their signs back to their cars. The Portland Press Herald said ten thousand turned out. That's a lot for Maine, but I was in the heart of America's northeast bastion of progressivism where Trump is the devil incarnate. Hardly any of the 30 million women who voted for Trump live in the Portland area.

Read more: Family Security Matters http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/the-chasm-widens#ixzz4WsoZqdvS
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution

[Sanguine]

Good essay.

[Maj. Bill Martin]

I think he nailed it, and it's about time we recognize the reality that "bringing the country together" is neither possible, nor even desirable.  There are core, fundamental differences in worldview that cannot be glossed over or minimized.  It's about time those of us on the right admitted that the left has been at war with us for more than half a century, and fight back.

Trump is certainly an imperfect champion, but as Lincoln said about Grant, "I can't spare this man - he fights".

[Fishrrman]

Maj. Bill wrote:
"Trump is certainly an imperfect champion, but as Lincoln said about Grant, "I can't spare this man - he fights"."

Probably the best analogy regarding Trump and Republicans/traditional-minded Americans that can be made.

He may not be a man for all seasons.
But -- imperfect champion that he is -- he is the man "for this season".

That's why Trump won, and in doing so won states that hadn't "voted Republican" in a generation. He fights.

NO other Republican candidate could have done this.
Not Cruz.
Not Kasich.
Not little Marco.
None of them.

I still can't quite believe what I'm waking up to in the news everyday.
It's like the nation is being "De-obamaized" -- his entire "legacy" erased.

Can he go further?
Could he completely de-legitimize the left?