US 2020 Election Series: Supporting Trump from abroad – Part 2

US 2020 Election Series: Supporting Trump from abroad – Part 2
Donald and Melania Trump at the Taj Mahal

“There is something called Trump derangement syndrome, ‘TDS,’ Jevaan informed me. “That's the name they have given it in America. And they say it's a threat to democracy, but he was democratically elected, you have to accept it. The problem is you were not able to accept what the other person sees; the other person's perspective is not being digested. And if the person who doesn't have your perspective, has an opposite perspective, he is a bigot. So how can it be a danger to democracy if somebody has been democratic elected? So that's a problem. That's the way that people exaggerate it.”

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US 2020 Election Series: Supporting Trump from abroad – Part 1

US 2020 Election Series: Supporting Trump from abroad – Part 1
Trump standing at a lecturn with the Indian and American flags

Gautham is a very proud Trump supporter and a staunch conservative, although he is anti-guns and pro-choice. And like Trump, Gautham is not known to filter the thoughts flying through his brain before they come out of his mouth. You will not die wondering what Gautham thinks about things. Jeevan is another US citizen born in India who migrated to Chicago, Illinois in the 1990s to study, and has been back in India since 2001. Like Gautham, Jeevan is anti-gun and pro-choice, but unlike him, Jeevan was traditionally a lefty who was devastated when Trump became president. He has since changed his mind after deciding to try and understand why people voted for Trump, and his subsequent performance. He is keenly interested in politics and has researched and thought a lot about this.

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US 2020 Election Series: Trump trauma

US 2020 Election Series: Trump trauma
Donald Trump assuming the position

“It wasn’t about the lying (about the size of the crowd), it was that he was so upset about it,” Dan explained. “Even then I could see that he was ignoring facts. I could see very clearly in that first event that this man was not in touch with reality, and I got really scared on Inauguration Day. Within a week of his inauguration I was thinking he was unstable. “Also, that was when I started to notice the other disturbing pattern, that his supporters will accept the most outrageous red herrings. They will take anything that they would never have accepted from another politician, for the most thin and ridiculous explanations for his behaviours. They will take those and latch onto them like they have believed in them their whole lives.

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Notes on being different from a privileged whitey

Notes on being different from a privileged whitey
Me wearing a bright pink wig

Ever since the video of George Floyd’s death and the rapid amplification of the #BlackLivesMatter movement the world over, I have been pondering the privileged whiteys who don’t believe in white privilege. NEWS FLASH! Everyone is racist. Everyone is judgemental. I don’t care who you are. I have been asked about whether Australia is a racist country when I have travelled in India, the Middle East, and Asia and my answer is always the same.

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