Chris Jepson: On recruiting the wavering sane

“That plane represents speech. It SHOULD fly everywhere. It's an ‘idea,’ Trump is. We'll not convert the ‘true’ believers but an argument for sense can be made to the wavering sane. That's where the fight is. Let's all do our part to bring home the wavering sane. It is our 90-day mission. Seek them out and bring them home, so to speak.”

I flew out of Des Moines last week and as I drove-up to the terminal, parked on the tarmac was Donald Trump’s jet plane. Emblazoned on the side of the plane was Trump’s name in “YUGE” letters with Mike Pence’s in much smaller letters underneath — almost as an afterthought. I posted the picture of Trump’s plane on my Facebook page and folks quickly responded to my observation of what a dreadful sight it was, Trump’s plane.

It immediately dawned on me, how wrong my perspective was. I then posted the above in response to the following Facebook friend comment (post) of, “So sorry you were exposed to such a horrible sight.”

Donald Trump represents an idea that has every right in America to be voiced, articulated if you will. Whether or not he represents the “true” values of the Republican Party is up for debate. I think he does.

Without a doubt Trump has energetically harnessed the underlying “dog whistle” that racism plays within the Republican Party. It is a path easily traced back to any number of Republican politicians. One prime example is Ronald Reagan kicking off his 1980 presidential campaign in Philadelphia, Miss. with a speech that proudly stated, “I believe in states’ rights.”

Reagan employed the familiar race-baiting techniques (racist code words to the faithful) of Goldwater and Nixon. Trump has succeeded in firing-up the aggrieved white male voter with his not-so-subtle statements on race and ethnicity. That there is a well-publicized “Southern Strategy” within the Republican Party says it all.

I had a couple of Trump supporters in my home recently. Long time acquaintances. People I greatly respect in many ways but not their political perspective. The husband is a Libertarian (a position I have some solidarity with). I asked the wife if she’d seen the naked images of Donald Trump’s wife? No, she had not. She’s a church going Christian. I immediately booted-up the images and asked her how conservative-evangelical Republicans could square such images with their professed love of “family values”?

She looked wide-eyed at the photos and her comment – I kid you not – was, “You know Michelle Obama shouldn’t wear those gathered skirts. She has big hips like I do and it just doesn’t work.”

Presented with “images” that challenged her worldview, this individual chose to marginalize the Obamas. Would we even be having such a conversation if Michelle Obama had been photographed naked in bed smooching-it-up with a woman? Of course not.

Don-the-Con Trump is a superficial huckster. Many of us understand that. He’s not at all the successful businessman he portrays himself to be. He’s in way over his pay grade. The Trump faithful are like the Jonestown faithful who drank the Kool-Aid. True believers. No amount of factual discourse is going to change their skewed view of America.

This is my challenge to all rational thinking Americans: Identify and convert the wavering sane. Engage those still sitting on the fence regarding Don-the-Con Trump. Talk sense to the wavering sane.

Talking sense to the wavering sane is our 90-day mission. Find ’um, convince ’um and close ’um. Go team. Go America.