Terry Mosher 3

TERRY MOSHER

Hillary Clinton 2

HILLARY CLINTON

I find it very disturbing how so many people on Facebook and elsewhere, including community people writing into the local newspaper, express so much raw hatred for president Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

These people are obviously Trump supporters, and that further dismays me. What, do I tell myself, am I missing? In Barack Obama you couldn’t have a more classy, intelligent and wholesome person. In the dirty world of politics he’s Mr. Clean.

Yet, the hatred just drips like acid about him from these people.

Why?

The only logical answer I can come up with is that these people are extreme racist. They see a black man and despise him for being black. Wow, I hope that is not so, but would reasonable person come up with a different answer?

Then there is Clinton. If you just do the research, a reasonable person would have to conclude that Clinton was so far better qualified for the office of president than the other guy that it wouldn’t even be close. It would be so lopsided that it would make the 1916 college football game between Georgia Tech and Cumberland look like a squeaker (Georgia Tech won, by the way, 222-0, the largest rout in college football history).

I’m trying to be fair, here, so I will say right up front that I was not a Clinton supporter. In addition to there being a feeling that she felt entitled to just about everything, she was a lousy campaigner. That is why she lost to Obama. I would equate her campaign ability to a football player who is a terrible practice player but put him in a game and he’s all-pro. Some players are like that. Clinton was like that. She was over-qualified to be president, but she couldn’t get pass the practice of getting there. Yeah, she is intelligent, but she’s horrible about taking a test, so to speak.

On top of that, the White Nationalist (and Russia) did a great job of painting her with the ugly brush. There was an overabundant of false stories about her planted on social media, especially Facebook. You would have thought by reading these lies she was the worse combination of Hitler, Attila the Hun, Pol Pot, Osama Bin Laden and Joseph Stalin.

Plus, I think when historians look back at this time they will see that the world was in the beginning stages of the rise of extreme nationalism. You see that in Europe, Great Britain and now in the United States with the rise of far right in protest to the people fleeing all the hot spots around the globe, mostly in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

The rise of ISIS and terrorist attacks throughout Europe and the threat of terrorist attacks associated with the Muslim religion have fueled that rise of white nationalism and far right not only in Europe but here in this country.

History is littered with eras that are triggered by something, World War I had several triggers – conflict over territory, the rise of nationalism and the vacuum create by the decline of the Ottoman Empire. The final trigger was the assassination of Austria Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie.

World War II was caused by multiple things: Japanese invasion of China, the rise of Italian fascism and the final straw was Hitler using nationalism to take control in Germany and his aggression against Poland that led to Britain and France declaring war.

So we are in the beginning of nationalism in this country, which allowed a potential strongman like Donald Trump to tap into anger that was building up over illegal immigrants that could bring in terrorists that one person angrily said to me recently at a local store “could kill us all.”  His feeling is shared by men like him, and my defense to him that this country was built on immigrants, fell on his deaf ears.

So, really, Clinton had no chance to win. The suffocating rise of nationalism, especially the white kind, was too much to overcome. If her opponent had been Attila the Hun, she would have still lost.

But what gets me, and will always nag on me, is how seemingly good people can be so full of hate, not just toward Clinton, but to Barack Obama, too. That is scary. That is how Hitler rose in Germany – Germany for Germans kind of thing that led to the killing of those who didn’t meet the right criteria (Jews, the handicapped, etc.).

I’m afraid we are in for a very bumpy ride. I hope when historians look back at this period – I’m assuming we will have a future, which I think is in doubt – they will look at it as a good time.  Right now, though, dark clouds are coming in over the horizon and I have a dreadful feeling that we are in for some bleak times.

Back to work for me. At least I have that where I can lose my thoughts in my stories on people. It keeps me sane.

Be well pal.

Be careful out there.

Have a great day.

You are love.