You Shouldn’t be Surprised by the Election Results
Before you read another article about how Trump is a threat to democracy, I want you to consider how you might be one.
About two years ago, I was taking an Introduction to Communications course at my local community college, instructed by an amiable Quaker woman in her fifties. The students were an eclectic bunch of lower-middle class locals, most of whom were in their late teens or early twenties. One of the late-teens was a passionate, opinionated young woman (whom I’ll call Kathleen) majoring in Women’s Studies. One could guess at her major from the copious stickers decorating her thermos; one said, “Grow a Pair” in front of a pair of ovaries; the others were mostly cliched feminist mascots such as Wonder Woman, Michelle Obama, and the woman in a bandana flexing her biceps. The removal of Confederate monuments was being publicly debated at the time, and as a class exercise in communication, we were to debate the removal of the monuments. Together, we crafted a list of rules for the debates, and agreed on the following:
No shouting
Don’t talk over another person
If you’ve already spoken and someone who wasn’t yet spoken has something to say, let them speak
If you become angry, leave the room to cool down
No ad hominems.
When the instructor suggested, “Try to empathize with others’ points of view,” however, Kathleen interjected,
“But I don’t want to empathize with a Trump Supporter!”
The instructor’s suggestion was discarded.
For the past four years, I have heard countless liberal friends and acquaintances profess incomprehension at the popularity of Trump; “I just can’t get into their world;” “I don’t want to send like one of them, but…”
The Trump-Supporter takes up a mythical space in the minds of white liberals as The Deplorable, The Enemy, The Nobody I Know.
When Trump was announced as the Republican candidate for president in 2016, my own uncle — who lives in a large house in Georgetown and has never been to a foodbank — threw a tantrum and announced that he was moving to Germany. In 2020, we are looking at the possibility of a second Trump term in office, and my uncle has not moved anywhere. Liberals are wont to decry the infantilism and irresponsibility of Trump’s fans, and yet many of them abandon all pretensions of determination to fight for what they claim to care about when it turns out that they actually must fight for it.
Considering that the number of votes already counted makes it clear that Trump’s victory in 2016 was no fluke of history, one would think that liberals would do a lot better to start to try to comprehend. After all, you can’t possibly make someone want what you want if you don’t understand them. What, then, are we to make of the emphatic insistence on the part of white liberals that they could not possibly understand this sizable demographic?
There is a small house in my neighborhood so adorned with pro-Trump flags that it almost appears, from a distance, to be dressed as one would dress a doll. Walking by recently, I noticed a new flag that said, “Trump 2020, Fuck Your Feelings.” At first, I thought the emphasis was on “feelings,” but I later realized that it was, in fact, on “your.” Working-class whites are fed up with the educationally privileged sanctifying the feelings of everyone else, while demonizing those of lower-class whites. Instead of unifying the poor by focusing on socioeconomic inequality, the knowledge-elites have racialized poverty and reinforced an inaccurate picture of White America as comprising entitled Karens and Donalds. Impoverished white Americans, for the past ten or so years, have had to contend not only with poverty, but also with the finger-waggling of wealthier whites for not being up to speed on the newest “correct” terms one must use, and the postures one must take, to show the world that one is not racist. I imagine that a vote for Trump, for Americans like my neighbor, is a fuck-you to those who would shame working-class white Americans.
In the next four years, trying to combat Trumpism by pushing ourselves further away from those who voted for the guy would be a capitulation both to Trump — who uses the intolerance of liberals as fuel for populist rage — and to those who would love to see American democracy crash and burn in a bitterly divided end. Parallel to our domestic discord is the fervent wish of China and Russia to see America crippled with demoralization. In a functional society, people should not have to see eye-to-eye on every issue in order to cooperate. We need to swallow whatever sense of righteousness we might have, and start navigating how we can survive the next four years -what our priorities are, what we are willing to compromise, and what we can cooperate on. We must learn how to prioritize cooperation over alliances.
I recently read a report from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on political polarization in Southeast Asian countries, the introduction of which might as well have been written about the U.S. right now:
“The consequences of polarization, from executive abuse of power to the politicization of the military, pose distinct risks all institutions in a democracy. What is more, political conflicts often reverberate throughout society, fueling intolerance toward and even violence against minority groups. In some countries, these negative effects have proven significant enough to shatter the constitutional order {…}”
It goes on,
“The different remedial efforts examined in this report suggest four overarching guidelines for actors seeking to counter polarization: They should limit objectives and lengthen timelines, develop in-depth local expertise, focus on systemic changes that foster sociopolitical inclusion, and purposefully cultivate credibility across the political divide.”
This is not the time to skulk around and tweet about fantasies of immigration. Those who give up on democracy so easily didn’t deserve it in the first place. Trump is a reminder that democracy takes work, and that those who forget it will not be spared for their complacency. It’s about time we grew up, stopped seeing pro-Trump voters as “enemies,” and instead started to try to figure out how we can build bridges of communication, find common interests (or at least common humanity) with them, and take up the responsibility of fighting for what we failed by taking for granted.
Your country needs you yet.
Quoted Report:
