Here’s a thought experiment: Could it be possible that Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) and President Donald Trump are the same person?
Not literally, of course, or even in a Victorian-era Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde way. Rather, in the countenance of 21st century American politics, don’t they share more in common — say, an approach and delight in the politics of personal insults — than either would care to admit?
To be sure, they stage a grand drama acting as if they have nothing in common, with a great and growing divide separating their respective political views. At face value, there is no confusion as to who either of them are, or where they stand on the issues of the day.
Waters is a black woman from Los Angeles, who has served as a hard-line Democratic representative in Congress since 1991. In all her time in public office, she’s made no attempt to hide her disdain for GOP leaders or their policies. This is especially true of the current president, for whom Waters has been perhaps the most stridently vocal antagonist in public life.
In contrast, Trump is a white man from Queens, New York, a political newbie who parlayed an inherited real estate fortune and a heavily produced reality television persona into a Republican-endorsed seat in Oval Office. He takes cruel delight in belittling Waters, casting her in overtly racist tones as a “low-IQ” Democratic boogey-woman, hell-bent on destroying him and the hateful America he’s trying desperately to preserve and restore.
Congratulations to Maxine Waters, whose crazy rants have made her, together with Nancy Pelosi, the unhinged FACE of the Democrat Party. Together, they will Make America Weak Again! But have no fear, America is now stronger than ever before, and I’m not going anywhere!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 27, 2018
But opposites attract. And in the strange case of Waters versus Trump, their angry and personal verbal sparring masks a shared strategy, one which fits perfectly within today’s stark polarity of politics. They are — politically speaking — one in the same, engaged in a mutually beneficial battle for the hearts and votes of distinct constituencies that have so little in common, they mindlessly view the other’s ideas as poison to their own. In this rendering of America — red-and-white Republicans and blue-and-black Democrats — Trump and Waters have, with the help of the other, constructed bases of support that satisfies their egos and glosses their political images.
Trump won the White House (but lost the popular vote) by effectively firing up his largely white and male crowds, portraying Waters and other Democrats, such as House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-California), as dangerous and contrary to his supporters’ interests. Earlier this week, for example, Trump told a cheering rally in South Carolina that Waters has become the top representative of the Democratic Party. “This has become the party of Maxine Waters and Nancy Pelosi,” Trump said, turning the crowd’s cheers into thundering boos.
But Waters is no shrinking violet, and her supporters – many of them young and African-American have taken to affectionately calling her “Auntie Maxine” – love it when she unapologetically mixes it up with Trump.
In a series of weekend comments, first at a California campaign rally and later in a television interview, Waters urged her supporters to confront Trump administration officials when they see them in public. “Let’s make sure we show up wherever we have to show up,” Waters said Saturday, during a campaign stop at Wilshire Federal Building in Los Angeles. “And if you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd. And you push back on them. And you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere.”
Auntie Maxine is one of the few elected officials who’s about that life when it comes to resisting Trump https://t.co/6Uvc9y8EwQ
— reggie (@_1942bs) June 26, 2018
That wasn’t Waters’ first tussle with Trump. At the outset of his administration, she announced her intention to confront the president at every turn, beginning with boycotting his inauguration. “Why would I take my time to go and sit and listen to a liar,” she told MSNBC’s Chris Hayes. “Someone who lies in the face of facts, someone who can change their tune day in and day out. What does he have to say that I would be interested in?”
Waters demands Trump leave office or risk impeachment, a call she’s repeated over and over. Asked recently at a Time magazine gala — where she was fêted as one of 2018’s most influential people — if she had any advice for the president, she didn’t miss the opportunity to say it once more. “Please resign,” Waters said. “So that I won’t have to keep up this fight of having you impeached, because I don’t think you deserve to be there. Just get out.”
Trump and Waters relish and benefit from the attention they get from their respective base of supporters. For that reason, the nasty sniping and bitter name-calling isn’t likely to end soon. In that way, they are the same person.
And, come to think of it, has anyone ever seen them in the same room at the same time?