Throughout this entire election cycle I have heard that we need to pay special attention to the white working class voter. I listened and contemplated their plight, trying desperately to empathize with the disenfranchised voter who apparently felt left behind by the Democratic Party. I nodded my head and researched the data available and wanted to understand why the Trump message was resonating with a group that used to carry my own banner.
Of course the 2008 recession impacted the lower and middle class disproportionately and I even found myself seeing how they must feel that the system was rigged against them. An ideal that somehow the equality of others had stolen something from them, causing a reversed prejudice, warranting the need to take their country back and to make America “Great” Again. I never really bought completely into it but I listened, trying to understand why straight white people felt that lifting others up had somehow caused them to fall down. Even after the election, I read op-eds and listened to pundits say that we needed to focus on trying to “win the hearts” of the male Anglo Saxon and stop focusing on political correctness. The thought that they were willing to turn to the right to solve their problems because the left had failed to do so.
Well, inevitably, I have come to a very important conclusion. I am not a racist, but..... I think enough emotional and political capital has been spent on coddling the special snowflake that is the straight white Christian male electorate. It’s White privilege at its finest. For all the bellyaching that is made regarding liberals and minorities needing a tissue, no one embodies a cold fragile flake of snow more than the Trump voter. No one has a thinner skin than them. No one, throughout the course of American history, has been as catered to or given unfair advantages to then the Caucasian sub sect of society. The simple fact remains that we are better off now than eight years ago, America is not declining, and had they been allowed to work the Obama policies would have made a real and lasting impact on the lower and middle class of all ethnic backgrounds. The real issue is that the Democratic Party has spent the last eight years fighting tirelessly for them but have been blocked, at every single intersection, by the Republican Party dead set on never faltering in their obstructionism of our first African American President. I want to feel their pain but the sad and honest truth is that it is a complete and utter load of bullshit.
Institutional racism is still a very real and present danger in this country. I have written my own piece, as have many others, so I will not reinvent the wheel but suffice to say that there is just no truth to the system being rigged against the Caucasian sub sect of our society. The “working class” is still largely made up of minorities and wage income inequality impacts them at a much higher rate. Things such as justice reform, infrastructure building, fostering an industry in renewable energy, creating jobs in America, Healthcare reform, and the multitude of other Democratic ideals would have impacted and lifted them up even more then the minorities that are suffering. No matter how hard you try to stretch it there is just no factual evidence to reverse institutional racism.
Trump is a snake oil salesman that has sold them a load of xenophobic garbage and unfortunately white folks bought into it hook, line, and sinker. There is absolutely not one single Republican policy that will benefit the working or middle class. 42 percent of white female voters took a look at both sides and decided to vote, against their own interests, for a man that bragged about sexually assaulting women and made hundreds, if not thousands, of misogynistic remarks. They still, despite all of their autopsies, have no real vision of how to make America better.
So, if this is true, why are we in the current situation. I know we are being told that we lost the war, Scarlett, and we must return to picking turnips for scraps but to turn away from the facts would benefit no one. Regardless as to whether it’s uninformed voters, media not holding candidates accountable to facts, or the DNC failing to make their message clear, there is just not one shred of truth that the GOP knows how to create jobs, boost the economy, or govern fairly. When given the chance to govern, their first order of business is almost always in favor of stripping the rights of others due to religious intolerance and even further boosting the wealthy in our country. For a reason unbeknownst to me, they have convinced low income white voters that they will be their champion without actually planning to do anything that would benefit them and the media has played a pivotal complacent role in allowing it to happen. We allowed false equivalencies to be made of Hillary Clinton and have allowed them to lie, slander, and demonize her in a way no other political candidate has faced.
What we need to do going forward is to not change our ideology or to focus less on the down trodden but to make sure that the truth is being uttered. We must make our case clear and resonate to voters and not allow a sociopathic narcissist to play into the fears of the uneducated. The only true remedy, it would seem, is to continue our fight and to double down on that the country just does better economically, socially, and militarily, both worldwide and at home, under Democratic leadership. All that is needed is a simple look into contrasting states such as Kansas, who is bankrupt after GOP leadership on all levels, versus a state like California, who is thriving under progressive policies. The optimist in me wants to believe that when Trump fails to deliver on his campaign promises that it will be seen for the fallacy that it is; However, the realist in me knows they will only try to further blame a lack of results on the left. The Cheeto in Chief will attempt to repackage democratic ideals and stamp his Trump logo on them for political capital but we must not allow that to fly. It will be our job, at that point, to no longer tolerate misinformation. We need our flag bearers to be as unwavering and brutal in the truth as the right have been in the deception.
The sad thing is that this election was much more then about a hypothetical set of political ideals. A large number of people woke up on Wednesday afraid, not only for their rights and economic status, but for their lives under a Trump presidency. The amount of bigoted vitriol is at an all time high and, far too many to count, examples of blatant racist, homophobic, misogynistic and religious intolerance have been reported. We, as the most at risk parts of society, have a realistic fear of living in a Trump America. The protests you are seeing are a product of such fear. We must not stop fighting for them or turn our backs on them because to do so would be to allow true regression to occur. You can’t have it both ways. You either trust Trump to make good on his campaign promises or you do not. It is the job of a leader to lead by example and he has done just that. He has taken an already precarious pot of water and turned up the heat and bigoted rhetoric. I will continue to blame every drop of spilled hyperboiled water that overflows onto the burner on Trump fostering a political and social environment where it is acceptable to hate.
We are a country based on making our political system better for every generation that comes afterwards. Martin Luther King Jr. said it best when he said “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” Please, as rational people, never buy into the rancid Trump steaks that are being sold to you. There are far too many of us that have worked extremely hard for progress and risk far more if the clock is allowed to be turned backwards.