Thursday, March 07, 2019

Blogger's Block

I struggle these days with Nelly's Garden. Two recent posts have discouraged me. The most recent was A Bit Of A Siege in which I described some fraught visits to Ikea. A response (from a dear cousin) worried me. I'd been critical of some aspects of my Ikea experience but ultimately felt that part of what went wrong was my own fault. My cousin had a relative (her husband's side of the family) who worked in the Belfast store and she was concerned, on his behalf, that I had a less than satisfactory experience. That worried me. Made me think that my attempts at light-heartedness might be making someone else feel less than good about themselves.

What can I say? I'm a snowflake. At least no-one has got in touch to rail against me for disrespecting the besieged defenders of Derry.

The other posting that attracted opprobrium was Alpha and Loudmouth. I wrote that one out of shame. Shame because I listened to vile racist abuse and did not speak up. In the comments in response to a regular commenter, I remarked that both women would have been Trump supporters if they lived in the USA. I am certain of that. This drew fierce comment from another regular commenter. I get it. I was associating racists with Trumpism. And I stand by that in the context of this place.

The thing is, I know my conservative (right-wing) and Loyalist neighbours. They don't trust Catholics, they don't like foreigners, they have little compassion for immigrants. They voted for Brexit, even though as citizens of Northern Ireland that was very much against their interests. British right-wingers mainly approve of the United States' current leader.

Definitely, Trump gets a very bad press in the kind of papers I read but I do understand this - not all Trump supporters are racist but, it does seem, that most racists are Trump supporters. And this is what I would like to know, and I know I have at least one Republican Trump supporter who reads this blog, is this - what is it about this man that you support?


8 comments:

Brig said...

Even though I'm dearly temped to give you my reasons, you have already made up your mind, my reasons are not going to change that. So call this AMERICAN conservative, Catholic, fan of the Republic, granny all the names you want...

Deirdre Byrne said...

Some spring cleaning may help Nelly ��

Nelly said...

Deirdre, I'll get back to you. Brig, I'm not looking to have my mind changed, I'm looking to understand.

Brig said...


As I understand it, if one is not open to change, one has little chance of understanding...

Nelly said...

Well, we'll leave it there then.

Mage said...

I can't understand either. He's an acute embarrassment as far as I am concerned.
I hope your Ikea kitchen is going together ok.

Nelly said...

Just spotted this comment Mage. Ikea kitchen is almost complete. Just need to decorate is all. And yes, It is hard to understand the way the world is going at the minute. I cannot help but think that there are too many backward steps being taken.

Connie from Toowoomba said...

If you watch THE DAVE RUBIN SHOW on YouTube where he often interviews folk on the right side of politics, you should get more of an idea of why they voted for Trump.