Trump’s rhetoric divides us | Newspaper

Before malls were hangouts for teenagers, there were drive-in theaters. In the 1970s, they attracted teenagers and were a place where you could dream of heavenly dating benches. After all, they were known as “passion pits.”

The crowd at the local “passion pit” didn’t much care for deep storylines and touchy themes. When you pulled into a place with a date, you showed your world, you left. The place was filled with teenagers.

Filmmakers knew what their audience craved and fed it. You could watch three movies in one night, and they were the weirdest, wildest horror movies ever made.

Advertising in newspapers and on the radio sounded like carnival barking at a fair. They would boldly announce that a registered nurse would be on duty if the onlookers passed out in terror. Not to be outdone, another theater across town has pledged an ambulance crew to resuscitate those who are dying.

So if they were teen magnets, why are they as rare today as dial phones?

Iowa cars get cold in the winter. No matter how much a couple squeezes in, they freeze from December to April in the drive-in theater. In the summer of “If the Storm”, the special effects of the film took on a completely new meaning. Sometimes the speakers were as clean as two cans attached with a string. Developers coveted this land for housing and shops.

Most of the movies were terrible, and the hype got even more extreme as the movies got worse. After a while, teenagers began to choose indoor theaters where you didn’t have to walk half a mile to get popcorn, and even if it was raining, you could still see the screen.

Today’s Trump rallies remind me of those rallies back in the day. To entertain the base, he has to become more and more extreme and make more and more outrageous statements.

It’s happening now.

In 2015, as Trump descended his golden escalator, he played the ominous Popera haunt music as he descended. He said: “Mexico is not sending us the best. They carry drugs, they carry crime, they are rapists. ANDand some, I believe, are good people.’

In 2024, his rhetoric became sharper.

He recently called America “the garbage can for the world.” At every rally, he regularly calls his opponent “stupid, sick and mentally ill.” Americans who disagree with him are “enemies from within.” Undocumented immigrants are “pests and poison the blood of America.”

At his rally in Madison Square Garden, a comedian he invited insulted Puerto Ricans by calling “Puerto Rico a floating pile of garbage” and made crude jokes about Hispanics, Jews and blacks. Other cheerleaders called Harris the antichrist and said “her pimps will destroy the country.”

Extreme car advertising has disappeared because it has lost its audience. When America rejects Trump a second time, his hateful rhetoric will eventually fade away because he has failed again.

We need a leader who feeds our optimism, not hatred. We will always be stronger as a united America that embraces diversity. Americans understand that they can disagree, but they don’t have to be nasty.

Bruce Lear lives in Sioux City, taught for 11 years and represented educators as regional director of the Iowa Education Association for 27 years until his retirement. [email protected]

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