Matt Walsh: The Primer for Trump

When it comes to politics I have gone from right to left and back again. I’m Hispanic, a woman, I got pregnant at 16 and was on Food Stamps and Medicaid for all four of my pregnancies, but I am also Texan and was in my mid-twenties when 9/11 happened while I was pregnant with my fourth child. It was after 9/11 that I began to pay any attention to politics. I was sure that the Republican Party was the only party with the balls to bomb the hell out of anyone who wanted to try it again. I saw George W. Bush stand on that pile of rubble saying that the people who had attacked us would hear us, and I cheered with tears streaming down my face. I wanted them to hear us just like most Americans did, because like most Americans, I was scared.  Fear got me to go way right. After I became Catholic the same thing happened, only this time it was fear and anger over abortion. Once I came to see abortion for what it is, it was very easy to be angry about it.

As someone who has lived in fear and anger all of my life, I get it. I get that there is so much evil in the world that we fear for our lives, our country, our children and our families. I also get that it’s natural to be angry at the fact that we have child after child’s life ended by abortion in this country. Everyone is angry when an innocent child is killed. The only difference is that not everyone understands the reality that that is exactly what abortion does.

Every day in this country we wake up and we are told what to be scared of and who to be angry at about it by every single media platform out there. We consume hours and hours of it. Usually, we only consume media that is slanted right, left, pro-life, pro-choice, pro-whatever presidential candidate  and we read bloggers who say all the things that we think and wish we could say. We read them, share them and then get into online arguments with people that leave us feeling like our friends and family are all closed minded idiots with no sense of reality. (Then we scream at our kids because we have been online all day…. or maybe that is just me.)

One of the loudest voices telling us how angry to be at those evil liberals is Matt Walsh. He’s harsh, snarky, loud and angry. And now he is angry at anyone who supports Donald Trump.

Well, let me break it down for everyone: there are Trump supporters because people like Matt Walsh have been the primer that makes Trump stick. People support Trump for the same reasons that they read Matt Walsh. They are angry and want an angry person to speak up for them.   In policy, Walsh and Trump don’t differ. They don’t differ in their delivery either. Both of them tap into people’s fear and anger. It’s very easy to do.

I am naturally snarky and like I said, I have lived most of my life being scared and angry at everything. I often fall into the trap of writing snarky and angry blog posts. I get quite a bit of traffic from them, more than I get for the heartbreaking posts about how God is changing me into a less angry person. Snark is my natural way of communicating, but the truth is that snark, anger and fear only breed more snark, anger and fear. None of which help people come together to try and work towards the same goal of building a better country. It’s polarization and has people drawing lines in the sand and demanding that people choose which side we are on.

When it comes to politics, it gets us Donald Trump. We have lost all ability to have conversations and instead cheer for a man who openly insults and mocks anyone who disagrees with him. We have gained a respect for that by reading bloggers who are snarky, mock anyone who disagree with them and openly insults our “enemies”. Trump has no real plan, has no real logic, has no real substance, but he’s made a great case that we all have every right to indulge in our anger. I can think of many many Catholic bloggers who do the same things. I can honestly say that I can easily be one of them and have been one of them plenty of times. It feels good to vent and let out all the snark, but it always leaves me feeling empty and having to go to confession.

Matt Walsh should not be mad at Trump supporters. He can just look in the mirror and face one of the people who helped make Trump look attractive to his readers.