“A basket of deplorables,” “irredeemable,” and “angry” are just a few ways the Trump supporter has been described. Some of us don’t know a single Trump supporter personally, at least not an open Trump supporter. Our social media friend list has been scrubbed of provocateurs, for a clubhouse sort of vibe. For the non-Trump affiliated, we have to rely on Twitter and comment sections to get a real sense of the kind of person that supports Trump and his worldview.
Ryan, a loyal Trump supporter, and I had been tweeting for about two weeks before our exchange about the 2016 presidential candidates turned into a frank discussion about race, gender and class. At the heart of it, our discussion identified the ways in which we conceptualize America, from its past to its promise. However, the real turning point, you could say, came in the form of a Trump supporter meme Ryan forwarded to me that, for him, summed up his current state of mind:
You are patiently standing in the middle of a long line stretching toward the horizon, where the American Dream awaits. But as you wait, you see people cutting in line ahead of you. Many of these line-cutters are black—beneficiaries of affirmative action or welfare. Some are career-driven women pushing into jobs they never had before. Then you see immigrants, Mexicans, Somalis, the Syrian refugees yet to come. As you wait in this unmoving line, you’re being asked to feel sorry for them all. You have a good heart. But who is deciding who you should feel compassion for? Then you see President Barack Hussein Obama waving the line-cutters forward. He’s on their side. In fact, isn’t he a line-cutter too? How did this fatherless black guy pay for Harvard? As you wait your turn, Obama is using the money in your pocket to help the line-cutters. He and his liberal backers have removed shame from taking. The government has been an instrument for redistributing your money to the undeserving. It’s not your government anymore; it’s theirs.
This, I imagine, is how many Trump supporters feel. Perhaps, similar feelings are undergirding right-wing movements all over the world. Although they come in the stock form of a troubling Hallmark card, they are words to describe what is honest and in earnest. They are big feelings that take a level of vulnerability. They are a revelation of a belief system that should not be ignored…which is why it is so disappointing that these words are so completely devoid of fact-based reality.
As a student of American History, I have learned the 400 years of my country quite well. I’m here to tell you, the only demographic that has consistently cut the line to the American Dream has been white men. From the Homestead Act, that granted European immigrants fresh off the boat hundreds of acres of free land, to Jim Crow that eliminated competition for labor, to the G.I. Bill that gave white men a free college education, low-interest 30-year home loans, and steady full-time work in factories that discriminated against women and people of color, the history of “cutting the line” in America has been the story of white men in America. This is not to say that white men haven’t worked hard and been exploited. It’s just that, at best, that only puts them in the same boat as the rest of us.
It stands to reason, that if we are to have an honest conversation about fairness and justifiable anger in this country then we have to compare experiences, American experiences. We should consider the genocide of Native Americans that cleared swaths of territory for white Americans. Consider the lesser known plight of Asian immigrants who came to this country in the wave of mid-nineteenth century immigration. They settled in the West, building railroads and working in agriculture, but were denied citizenship until 1952. We should take into account the half billion dollars of Japanese-American property that was confiscated by the U.S. government during the Internment and sold away to none other than white opportunist. We shouldn’t forget that the labor unions that collectively bargained for the eight-hour workday, and workplace health and safety standards, actively excluded black and Asian laborers from membership. And we should always remember, not only did white fear of black progress lead to countless lynching and property destruction throughout the country, but white fear encapsulated in “Yellow Peril” led to Chinese Americans regularly being lynched in the post-Civil War era. Most notably, the Chinese Massacre of 1871 in Los Angeles when five hundred white men tortured and hanged 18 Chinese residents out of pure rage for the little bit of the American Dream they had achieved.
If it wasn’t stupefying enough that the meme’s author and its empathizers seem completely unaware of America’s brutal past, they do something that is a telling sign of their limitation: they ignore their own history with struggle as well. Contrary to populist belief, most of American history is more the story of a class struggle where the American worker--white, black or otherwise, struggled against exploitation in an economy that produced concentrated wealth and widespread working poverty. In fact, only in the years between the end World War II and the 1980s, did American workers, particularly “white” American workers, see their incomes afford a middle class existence. Before the G.I. Bill’s Home Owner’s Loan Corporation, most American factory workers couldn’t afford to buy a home. Before the 1950s, the middle-class suburbs didn’t even exist, nor did the highways that carried workers there. Ironically, those suburbs and highways were gifts of the New Deal, paid for by exorbitant taxes on the wealthy--the type of ‘big government” program Trump supporters rail against today.
Surprisingly, that isn’t the only disconnect of the Trump supporter the meme signifies. With glaring absurdity, the writer castigates Obama and every college-educated woman and minority for freeloading off white men. It shows ignorance for how higher education works. Graduate students pay for their Masters, PhDs, and JDs with either loans or private grants. Clearly, Trump supporters like Ryan and this author don’t know that federal student aid, like Pell Grants that we all pay into with federal taxes, doesn’t cover graduate school. So, all those women and minorities who hold advanced degrees didn’t get them because some Trump supporter paid out of pocket. The fact of the matter is the Obamas afforded President Obama’s Harvard education, writing the final pay-off check with book sales from best-selling biographies. It’s no wonder Trump supporters think every black person that goes to college needs Affirmative Action. If you don’t understand the fundamentals of achieving a college education, you’re bound to misconstrue the motivations and capability of those who do.
This brings me to my final point. After a lot of consideration and extensive research, I am convinced that Trump supporters, like their leader, don’t really want to win. Don’t get me wrong, Trump and his supporters are masters of railing against; but no amount of coiffed blondes on cable news can obscure the fact that they are simply the angry mob of 2016. Let’s be serious, government, at no time more than now, has to solve some pretty complex problems. Because Trump supporters aren’t really interested in solving problems, Trump doesn’t need a plan, just slogans. If Trump supporters were interested in solving problems, they might take the time to examine the problem. They might notice that the Deindustrialization they are struggling with today began in black communities of South Los Angeles in the 1960s. The rigged system they protest at Trump rallies is the same rigged system of Mexico that allows the wealthy to evade fair taxes, which drives the very illegal immigration they disdain so intensely. They would recognize the heroine epidemic plaguing their suburbs today is the crack epidemic that ravaged inner cities in the 80s. If Trump supporters were really serious about America’s survival in the global economy, they would look across the color line and learn from past mistakes instead of falling for empty flattery and favoritism.
I dare say it, but what this election has truly been is a very, very awkward but candid conversation that was long overdue. And Trump can take credit for that. From my conversation with Ryan, I gleaned Trump supporters understand there are far graver consequences in the outcome of this election than there are for, let’s say, the Super Bowl. Trump supporters must suspect that their most visible college-educated pundits have no intention of trusting their TV dollars to Trump. What Trump supporters really truly want, I believe, is not the responsibility of government, but simply to be heard by government and all the rest of us. Just like a mass shooter, they want to scare us into giving them our undivided attention. They are saying: enough with blaming them for the problems of the black community; enough with Mexico, and every other oligarchy, exporting their poor to America to be fed, educated and imprisoned by American taxpayers; and enough with politicians not putting the American people, instead of their financial interest, first. They are saying a lot of other messed up stuff, like show me favoritism, but that’s beside the bigger point. So to Trump supporters everywhere I say, we hear you. The media hears you. I hear you.
The thing is, I just know better than to agree with you.