Wednesday, November 9, 2016

The Victories We Can Get

Last night's election of Trump is a horrible tragedy.  His threats - to nominate conservative Supreme Court justices who would overturn gay marriage, to round up illegal immigrants, to force Muslims to wear identification - should be taken as very real threats to minorities, as well as to American freedom and democracy. 

That said, it is not quite the victory he thinks it is.

I don't think it's fair to call all of his supporters "racists" - at least, not in the form of the word they probably imagine.  Racism comes in varying degrees along a spectrum, and at one end are members of the KKK and the Nazi party.  Many in the US see this section of the spectrum as "racism" and everything else "not racism," but those of us dedicated to fighting against racism of all forms see it everywhere across the entire spectrum.  Still, by calling people "racists" or by saying that their rhetoric is racist, we unintentionally label them as being equal in kind to the KKK - which they aren't.  They're clearly better than that. Let's call everyone in the middle of this spectrum "racish" - that is, sort of racist, but not so violently racist.

When you're racish, you don't question whether things you say are racist, unintentionally or not.  You may make racist jokes, and you think they're funny, and all the while wink and nod and say, "but of course not all people of that race are like that" - even though the joke is only funny if some part of you really does believe that.  Because you don't consider yourself racist, you also don't think that racism is a problem in America, and you don't sit down with members of minority communities to ask them if racism is still impacting their lives - because of course it isn't, it's not a part of your America, in your mind.

This, I would say, is the reality for the vast majority of white Americans.  More than likely, the vast majority of people who voted for Trump last night fall into this category.

This is all to say - they didn't vote for him BECAUSE he's a racist, or because of his racist rhetoric; rather, they ignored his racist rhetoric because it didn't fit their definition of racism, which of course doesn't exist in America.

The same parallel can be made for sexism.  His supporters are sexish, not sexist, and they ignore his sexist comments because they don't fit their definition of sexism, which of course doesn't exist in America.

So, what else did they vote for him for?

Most, it seems, voted for him because he's anti-establishment.  That is, he is a political outsider, someone who doesn't follow the normal rules of politics. 

Hillary, conversely, represents everything the establishment has to offer.  She is part of a political dynasty and wielded complex political forces like a hammer to smash Bernie in the primaries and to repeatedly bash Trump during the general.  Many people, even on the left, noted that electing her felt more like a coronation than an election.

Now, many of us tried to fight back against that idea that being part of the establishment is somehow bad, but even for us it was half-hearted.  Yes, having political experience is a great thing.  We need to have a president we can trust not to turn an ally to an enemy or accidentally start WW3; however, we also hate it when people get elected to office over and over again, when it feels like the entire process gets stuck in a quagmire because everyone in Washington has lost their idealism and is simply churning on the same old worn-out talking points.  We note that everyone in office has a vested interest in simply staying in power, not with rocking the boat and doing meaningful things.

This is why Trump supporters often use the hashtag, #DrainTheSwamp.  It refers to getting corruption and establishment politics out of Washington.  For some reason, they think Trump is the person best suited to accomplishing this.  And they think this will happen even though they elected the very same Congresspeople and Senators that had just been in office.

This anti-establishment fight is one we on the left can get behind, too.  We need to remind Republican voters in 2 years that the swamp they seek to drain is the very one they elected again.  We need to use their hashtag against them.  You want to upend the establishment?  Do it everywhere.  Do it in your state.  Do it in your county.

No comments:

Post a Comment