Giving Thanks for Donald Trump, Uniter

Donald Trump has been criticized for dividing our nation like nothing since the Civil War, or as Trump voters call it, The War Of Northern Aggression. But this Thanksgiving, I would like to give Trump credit for uniting the country as well. Everywhere I look, I see people united in their fierce desire to make a difference. I see people who want to do good, who want to be good.

Everywhere I look I see people terrified not for themselves, but for their fellow Americans, whether they’re transgender or Muslim or African-American or any of the other groups Trump has spent his campaign scapegoating. I see people overcome with a life-affirming sense of purpose, who have found, in this simultaneously awful and inspiring moment, a cause to devote themselves to with their whole soul, with all of their energy and all of their idealism.

I see people eager to break out of their bubble, people eager to reach out to their fellow man, particularly the hungry, the vulnerable, the poor, the desperate and the powerless. I see and hear people asking, with genuine urgency, “How can I help?” They’re asking, genuinely and with real resolve, “How can I personally do my part to make the world a better place? How can I use my time and my money and my convictions to make our nation a kinder and more equitable and just place?”

Trump has inspired the Left to turn words into action. I haven’t seen such a culture-wide ache to band together and unite since 9/11. Trump accidentally inspired all of this idealism and all of this passion and all of this hope in the face of hopelessness by giving us all something concrete and awful and imminent to fight against.

Will all this electric, positive energy result in concrete action and concrete results? I honestly don’t know but right now I’m savoring that Trump and his movement have activated a renewed commitment in the left to fight for what they believe in, for their vision of what greatness genuinely entails.

We are the opposition. This is our time. We must not fail.

Nathan Rabin is a dad, columnist, and the author of five books, most recently 7 Days In Ohio: Trump, The Gathering of the Juggalos and the Summer Everything Went Insane, which was just released in a hugely expanded edition