"There was some other reason to vote for him, that allowed you to overlook these facts?"
Uncanny how we might arrive at the same observation of those who pulled the lever for Putin's Tool (to wit- they "voted for him for other reasons").
My take, from *November 12, 2016* (and seven years on, I wouldn't change a word I typed at the time; if anything, my impression of all those who pulled the lever for Putin's Tool has only been reaffirmed by the decisions just last week of the fascist wing of SCOTUS , and the fascist crowd's slobbering glee at the imprimatur of divine sanction to discriminate and brutalize the LGBTQ community as they see fit, and at the erosion of the last vestiges of our electoral democracy):
'This election was about 'issues'. The issues are racism, misogyny, religious bigotry and homophobia.'
"If anyone... asks why the Democratic party hasn’t been speaking to the concerns of ‘decent Trump supporters’, the only rational answer is: WE HAVE. They simply haven’t been listening.
But even this misses the more important— crucial in fact— dynamic of this campaign: naked bigotry in all its forms. It is this ugly reality, which is becoming more terrifyingly real with each passing day...
Even if I accept the proposition that their economic concerns, and sense of cultural abandonment, are so profound that they become less sensitive to the concerns of others, that still represents a moral failing.
African-Americans and Latinos, women and LGBTQ individuals face the same economic hardships (or worse), and are confronted with discrimination, demeaning treatment, political and social shunning or invisibility, and often outright violence. Yet they can see that justice and equality for any of the other groups is not just a way to gain equality of justice for themselves, but a moral imperative, precisely because of what they themselves face and have been subjected to.
Somehow, all of these folks are able to translate their experiences into empathy, but the white supporters of Trump don’t. I’ll say again, it is a moral failing, and I’m not prepared to excuse them because of their ‘hardships’, real or imagined...
...we have a group of people claiming that a) they’re not bigoted, and b) their immediate concerns take precedence over the horrendous effects a Trump presidency will have because of his bigotry and that of his supporters, while telling us not to hold them morally responsible for their vote and all that happens as a consequence, because of a) and b).
That’s some pretty tortured moral reasoning, and I ain’t buying it. Frankly, I’m not buying the ‘I’m not a bigot’ pleading...
The grotesque bigotry exposed by this election represents the singular social, economic, cultural and political issue to be addressed. Why? Because there are no political and economic issues that don’t include elements of discrimination— systemic, institutional, pervasive discrimination— that impacts all matters of equal justice, equal protection under the law, equal opportunity for education and economic advancement, protection of the environment, constraining corporate abuses...
I truly don’t understand how so many progressives fail to grasp this— indulging and excusing racism, misogyny, homophobia and religious intolerance doesn’t ‘bring the bigots into the conversation’, it let’s them off the hook.
We now have had an election that makes the worst of humanity the reference standard for the country...
There are no ‘opposing views’ on crucial issues; only racism, misogyny, religious bigotry, homophobia, and cynical exploitation, masquerading as ‘traditional values’.
I’m really not feeling compassion for Trump supporters...
Not a one can say they ‘voted for him for other reasons’, or ‘don’t paint me with that brush’, or ‘I didn’t really know all that’, or ‘I don’t think he’s really that way”...
There are lessons to be learned from this election... lessons that we need to re-learn, no matter how many times we are taught them.
The one that keeps spinning in my head— this has never been a unified country. The splits were present at the writing of the Constitution, and we have never been able to get even 60% of the nation to agree about who we are, and what we should be.
We’ve heard for a long time about the people of the heartland, those folks in Indiana, Wisconsin, Ohio and Michigan who voted for Trump— but also, of course, all the states of the old Confederacy— feel looked down on by us liberal elites. Indeed, Mencken was not trying to contain his sneering contempt. But he was right in his estimate of these people, wasn’t he? This group did not sign on to ‘The Great Society’ willingly.
The Reconstruction Amendments— the 13th, 14th and 15th— were imposed by force, and opposed by force and fraud and pure disregard of federal authority, up to the present day. The conservative wing of SCOTUS gutted the Voting Rights Act just this year.
There is no shared understanding that we are a pluralistic society, one in which the instruments of justice, political institutions, and the benefits and opportunities of civil society are available to all on an equal basis. The people of the heartland and the old Confederacy do not believe that all have equal claim to call themselves ‘American’.
I have no patience for all the wise and righteous progressives lecturing us about ‘trying to understand where the anger of Trump voters comes from, and what their real concerns are’. Their anger and perceived grievances against ‘the Washington establishment and liberal elites’ can never be an excuse for voting for a racist, misogynistic, homophobic, religious bigot. Let’s dispense with any notion that this election was about anything else than white Christian identity politics and privilege...
...the election has reminded us that a large proportion of the country has never agreed to joining a modern, pluralistic society. They’ve been resisting in more or less open fashion since the Civil War. We just stopped realizing this was true, even when they hang President Obama in effigy at college football games, and spray swastikas on shop windows on the anniversary of Krystallnacht, the night of Trump’s election.
I believe we have coddled the sensibilities and sensitivities of this group too much, for too long, with offers of mutual understanding and shared benefits, and we have been rewarded with absolutely nothing in return. We are no longer even arguing about what to do, we are arguing about factual reality...
If we are not prepared to face the reality of what is ‘right in front of our nose’-- what the message of this election is, and what it says about those prepared to vote for Trump, then at that point, we as progressives have failed to address the most urgent issues in the nation, the issues we have never been able to resolve— racism, misogyny, religious intolerance and homophobia.
We are in a fight for whether America is to be an inclusive, pluralistic society, nothing less."
I recall reading this the first time and again today as it did then it reminds me of that awful, awful moment late in the night on November 8th 2016 when he hit 270. I also thought we as Americans would never allow a Trump. I knew walking home that evening, feeling a deep sense of both dread and fear that it could never be the same again. I knew I'd never ever be able to know someone voted for this man and still see them as a good person. I knew why they voted for him. I knew they knew why they voted for him. I knew it wrecked (or revealed) America as we knew it. That sense of hopelessness and dread still lives with me every day and I have no idea how to change it because now I know who they are. They wanted me to know. They wanted me to know they valued assholes and vilified kindness. I don't see how it can be forgotten. Voting Republican these days is an unforgivable betrayal of not only democracy itself but human decency in general.
You are not alone. I feel exactly the same way. If people STILL support trump after all he’s done to this country, they are either stupid or bad people.
Every time I read one of your cogent, vivid dissections of the body politic such as it is, I am saddened by how obviously accurate is your description of clown Armageddon. But then I cheer up a bit at the thought that these perceptions are shared, and the desire to steer the ship off of the shoals is a shared one, and shared by people more perspicacious, articulate, and industrious than I. That was just the beginning of the ongoing nightmare, of course, and now the question is whether it is possible to actually get the damn boat off these shoals to which it seems affixed while awaiting complete inundation. I am pleased to see that, in many respects, the unspectacular but steady and somewhat comforting approach of Uncle Joe Biden has helped to nudge things a bit in the right direction.
But the many of the remaining sailors on board still think that those shoals are actually the promised land, where anyone is free to cut loose and let the rest of humanity know just how execrable they are.
I will never stop enjoying the suffering of racists.
"There was some other reason to vote for him, that allowed you to overlook these facts?"
Uncanny how we might arrive at the same observation of those who pulled the lever for Putin's Tool (to wit- they "voted for him for other reasons").
My take, from *November 12, 2016* (and seven years on, I wouldn't change a word I typed at the time; if anything, my impression of all those who pulled the lever for Putin's Tool has only been reaffirmed by the decisions just last week of the fascist wing of SCOTUS , and the fascist crowd's slobbering glee at the imprimatur of divine sanction to discriminate and brutalize the LGBTQ community as they see fit, and at the erosion of the last vestiges of our electoral democracy):
'This election was about 'issues'. The issues are racism, misogyny, religious bigotry and homophobia.'
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/11/12/1597496/-This-election-was-about-issues-The-issues-are-racism-misogyny-religious-bigotry-and-homophobia
"If anyone... asks why the Democratic party hasn’t been speaking to the concerns of ‘decent Trump supporters’, the only rational answer is: WE HAVE. They simply haven’t been listening.
But even this misses the more important— crucial in fact— dynamic of this campaign: naked bigotry in all its forms. It is this ugly reality, which is becoming more terrifyingly real with each passing day...
Even if I accept the proposition that their economic concerns, and sense of cultural abandonment, are so profound that they become less sensitive to the concerns of others, that still represents a moral failing.
African-Americans and Latinos, women and LGBTQ individuals face the same economic hardships (or worse), and are confronted with discrimination, demeaning treatment, political and social shunning or invisibility, and often outright violence. Yet they can see that justice and equality for any of the other groups is not just a way to gain equality of justice for themselves, but a moral imperative, precisely because of what they themselves face and have been subjected to.
Somehow, all of these folks are able to translate their experiences into empathy, but the white supporters of Trump don’t. I’ll say again, it is a moral failing, and I’m not prepared to excuse them because of their ‘hardships’, real or imagined...
...we have a group of people claiming that a) they’re not bigoted, and b) their immediate concerns take precedence over the horrendous effects a Trump presidency will have because of his bigotry and that of his supporters, while telling us not to hold them morally responsible for their vote and all that happens as a consequence, because of a) and b).
That’s some pretty tortured moral reasoning, and I ain’t buying it. Frankly, I’m not buying the ‘I’m not a bigot’ pleading...
The grotesque bigotry exposed by this election represents the singular social, economic, cultural and political issue to be addressed. Why? Because there are no political and economic issues that don’t include elements of discrimination— systemic, institutional, pervasive discrimination— that impacts all matters of equal justice, equal protection under the law, equal opportunity for education and economic advancement, protection of the environment, constraining corporate abuses...
I truly don’t understand how so many progressives fail to grasp this— indulging and excusing racism, misogyny, homophobia and religious intolerance doesn’t ‘bring the bigots into the conversation’, it let’s them off the hook.
We now have had an election that makes the worst of humanity the reference standard for the country...
There are no ‘opposing views’ on crucial issues; only racism, misogyny, religious bigotry, homophobia, and cynical exploitation, masquerading as ‘traditional values’.
I’m really not feeling compassion for Trump supporters...
Not a one can say they ‘voted for him for other reasons’, or ‘don’t paint me with that brush’, or ‘I didn’t really know all that’, or ‘I don’t think he’s really that way”...
There are lessons to be learned from this election... lessons that we need to re-learn, no matter how many times we are taught them.
The one that keeps spinning in my head— this has never been a unified country. The splits were present at the writing of the Constitution, and we have never been able to get even 60% of the nation to agree about who we are, and what we should be.
We’ve heard for a long time about the people of the heartland, those folks in Indiana, Wisconsin, Ohio and Michigan who voted for Trump— but also, of course, all the states of the old Confederacy— feel looked down on by us liberal elites. Indeed, Mencken was not trying to contain his sneering contempt. But he was right in his estimate of these people, wasn’t he? This group did not sign on to ‘The Great Society’ willingly.
The Reconstruction Amendments— the 13th, 14th and 15th— were imposed by force, and opposed by force and fraud and pure disregard of federal authority, up to the present day. The conservative wing of SCOTUS gutted the Voting Rights Act just this year.
There is no shared understanding that we are a pluralistic society, one in which the instruments of justice, political institutions, and the benefits and opportunities of civil society are available to all on an equal basis. The people of the heartland and the old Confederacy do not believe that all have equal claim to call themselves ‘American’.
I have no patience for all the wise and righteous progressives lecturing us about ‘trying to understand where the anger of Trump voters comes from, and what their real concerns are’. Their anger and perceived grievances against ‘the Washington establishment and liberal elites’ can never be an excuse for voting for a racist, misogynistic, homophobic, religious bigot. Let’s dispense with any notion that this election was about anything else than white Christian identity politics and privilege...
...the election has reminded us that a large proportion of the country has never agreed to joining a modern, pluralistic society. They’ve been resisting in more or less open fashion since the Civil War. We just stopped realizing this was true, even when they hang President Obama in effigy at college football games, and spray swastikas on shop windows on the anniversary of Krystallnacht, the night of Trump’s election.
I believe we have coddled the sensibilities and sensitivities of this group too much, for too long, with offers of mutual understanding and shared benefits, and we have been rewarded with absolutely nothing in return. We are no longer even arguing about what to do, we are arguing about factual reality...
If we are not prepared to face the reality of what is ‘right in front of our nose’-- what the message of this election is, and what it says about those prepared to vote for Trump, then at that point, we as progressives have failed to address the most urgent issues in the nation, the issues we have never been able to resolve— racism, misogyny, religious intolerance and homophobia.
We are in a fight for whether America is to be an inclusive, pluralistic society, nothing less."
I recall reading this the first time and again today as it did then it reminds me of that awful, awful moment late in the night on November 8th 2016 when he hit 270. I also thought we as Americans would never allow a Trump. I knew walking home that evening, feeling a deep sense of both dread and fear that it could never be the same again. I knew I'd never ever be able to know someone voted for this man and still see them as a good person. I knew why they voted for him. I knew they knew why they voted for him. I knew it wrecked (or revealed) America as we knew it. That sense of hopelessness and dread still lives with me every day and I have no idea how to change it because now I know who they are. They wanted me to know. They wanted me to know they valued assholes and vilified kindness. I don't see how it can be forgotten. Voting Republican these days is an unforgivable betrayal of not only democracy itself but human decency in general.
You are not alone. I feel exactly the same way. If people STILL support trump after all he’s done to this country, they are either stupid or bad people.
This. So much this!
I love your clever title, "Reframe"!
A clever suggestion, on how to get out of the current mess we find ourselves mired in!
Time to get busy!
Every time I read one of your cogent, vivid dissections of the body politic such as it is, I am saddened by how obviously accurate is your description of clown Armageddon. But then I cheer up a bit at the thought that these perceptions are shared, and the desire to steer the ship off of the shoals is a shared one, and shared by people more perspicacious, articulate, and industrious than I. That was just the beginning of the ongoing nightmare, of course, and now the question is whether it is possible to actually get the damn boat off these shoals to which it seems affixed while awaiting complete inundation. I am pleased to see that, in many respects, the unspectacular but steady and somewhat comforting approach of Uncle Joe Biden has helped to nudge things a bit in the right direction.
But the many of the remaining sailors on board still think that those shoals are actually the promised land, where anyone is free to cut loose and let the rest of humanity know just how execrable they are.