I waited seven days after the election to start feeling better. Friends in New York taught me about 7-day mourning; we start our lives over every seven days; “seven” is just a personal favorite. No luck. Seven days passed, then fourteen, then Thanksgiving, and then Christmas. With every daft tweet and nepotistic appointment, my mind went back to Nov. 8th.
I don’t blame Donald Trump. History is full of leaders whose views and values I reject. What’s bothered me is that people like him never rise on their own, and Donald Trump didn’t either. He was carried there – yes, by opportunists, partisans, and bigots – but also by people I expect more from. While I’ve accepted the results, I’m still in shock at the absence of American ideals I believed lived in everyone.
There are those who I am most disappointed in. No fancy lead-in here; I’m just hoping that writing out my disappointment will help force this behind me. Indulge the length – this is more for me than for you. Though it is for the both of us. And for the following:
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58% of WHITE PEOPLE:
It takes a lot for me to admit when I’ve been wrong; the mea culpa is not in my nature. And if we’ve spoken recently you’ll know my feelings on the responsibility I believe white people bear right now. (…that they must speak out; that change is difficult when those within the community of oppressors do not speak for the oppressed. Just like men must be feminists and Christians must champion religious freedom, White people must be pro-black.)
But I watched Charlie Rose interview John Stewart a few weeks ago and will cop to buying into the fallacy of the Racist Trumpian Monolith: that all who voted Trump are racist. Believing so was a mistake, and within my center-left echo chamber I never really heard what others folks in Omaha were saying. Since the election I’ve read enough to convince me that there really was enough economic desperation and disenchantment to rationalize a vote for Trump. Adding on general societal racism/sexism, we should have seen a tight race coming.
That said, I still feel a gut resistance to the idea that people felt they were “being left behind” or that they weren’t “getting the American dream they were promised.” They felt entitled, and reality stopped cashing their cheques. It’s hard for me to draw out social or economic sympathy for neighbors who – due to a choice of nature – receive every socio-economic advantage that exists occupationally, politically, or culturally. What other advantages could one want?
When people of color struggled with the crack epidemic, the US government responded with a war on drugs. Today, as white communities wrestle waves of opioid addiction, the war on drugs has been replaced by calls to address mental health crises and economic despair. We’re now “failing” these communities, apparently. Cities are proposing safe sites to provide addicts clean needles and shelter to shoot up. I’m all for the preservation of life, but where was this for black communities in the 80s?
When Ryan Lochte misbehaved in Rio, the media offered the 30 year-old a “boys will be boys.” When 12 year-old Tamir Rice played with a toy gun in a park, he was killed; someone had called the police on a “man” with a gun. Brock Turner will serve 6 months for red-handed rape, while Corey Batey will serve 15-25 years for the same. Ammon Bundy invaded federal land, armed, and lived. A fight in the NBA is between “thugs” “setting a bad example for kids,” while a brawl in hockey is referee sanctioned and shows grit.
I can’t relate to feeling “left behind” in a world built to excuse your every crime and polish away your darkest deeds. You can’t have everything. But my anger towards this set of voters has evolved into something resembling compassion. For a large share, this election was about desperation, and I don’t know what will happen when they realize Trump can’t fix being “left behind.”
Or that he can’t bring back the coal mines.
Or that by “Mexico will pay for it” he really meant “after you pay for it first.”
Or that automation can’t be stopped; the robots aren’t going away, and a fleet of Kivas will do the work of a warehouse full of fillers for lower cost with ease.
Shutting the borders can’t turn the demographic tide, and America will not be a white nation much longer.
These are the facts, and a lot of people have been lied to about them. Voters overlooked sheer incompetence and some really bizarre rhetoric to vote in someone they felt would bring back the best for them. He will not. And so while I am disappointed in them, I also feel sorry for them.
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THE MEDIA:
I remember when I realized the news media had abdicated its responsibility to the public. Brian Stelter (CNN), in a segment, was questioning media coverage of Mr. Trump, and he wondered if his media colleagues were showing “too much Trump.” His lead-in went something like: “In our next segment, I’ll discuss with our guest whether the media is too focused on Trump. But first…we take you to a Trump rally in…” and his producers proceeded to show live feed of an empty podium Trump was about to mount.
College department brochures and House of Cards suggest to me that journalists live to expose truth. They are champions of integrity, with a tireless drive for holding the powerful to account. I didn’t see much of any of that last year. I saw a community so confused by its own principles that we were two-thirds of the way through the election before they started calling out blatant lies and calling idiocy just that.
On November 13th, Brian Stelter said the media would have to do some “soul-searching” after Trump’s win. I thought he was referencing a general lack of journalistic integrity, and the pursuit of ratings over a duty to keep people informed. He seemed more to be apologizing for the media getting their predictions wrong. “What did we miss?” he asked. Everything. The media missed everything. Fake news. Falsehoods. Even the “disenfranchised mid-west” narrative wasn’t a thing until the election postmortems.
If I had to guess, news agencies probably thought they would milk the Trump circus for all its worth, pocket ratings gains, watch Clinton win, lampoon Trump, and move on. Now that Trump has won, we’re hearing about “lessons to be learned.” Dan Rather said “Our job now is to stand up, look him in the eye, ask the tough questions, not be intimidated…” Why wasn’t that the job 18 months ago?
I haven’t watched CNN since the election. It seems more interested in entertainment and pop-culture than sharing knowledge and solid information. Today’s most watched videos include notes on viral videos and Kanye.
CHRISTIANS:
I still remember the “Two Corinthians” moment. Trump went to pander to students at Liberty University. While doing so, he demonstrated that he’d either never read the New Testament or never listened in church. Tony Perkins, who Trump blamed for suggesting that language, said “It shows that he’s not familiar with the Bible.” It didn’t matter. Christians overwhelmingly voted Republican, as they have done for years now.
I don’t know how the “Religious Right” became the Religious Right. I don’t know how the GOP became the party of Christians. The obvious view is that major things championed by Democrats – taking religion out of public forums, freedom of choice, marriage equality, etc. seem antithetical to Christian values. To “be Christian” feels like it should mean being against those things and their proponents, and thus being Republican.
But I disagree with that. I am a firm believer in salvation by Grace: that I am redeemed not because I commit “lesser” sins like swearing vs. “being” gay, but because grace redeems all. So I can love freely because I am loved freely. I do not judge, lest I be judged. I do unto others as I would want done unto me, “as this sums up the Law and the Prophets.” It is by my open arms that spread love and evangelize, beyond fights over abortion rights or gay marriage. This is not a Republican message. Or a Democratic one. It is simply Christian.
And so I am concerned by how easily Christians have been cowed into toeing partisan lines and voting Republican by default. We have been reduced to a predictable bloc, so suggestible that by simply being the Republican candidate, Trump convinced 81% of White Christians to overlook the evidence of his character and vouch for his values over the values of a former sunday school teacher.
Christians need to take a hard look in the mirror. We’ve abandoned love and failed our own faith. We’ve become moralist voters, so occupied with telling people why they’ll burn that we’ve built houses around the logs in our eyes. And then laid our praying hands on the guy from the cover of Playboy.
ME AND MINE:
One truth is, as much as we accused the “Deplorable” Right of living in an echo chamber of fake news and racism, people like us treasure our cozy echo chamber too. We are the people of Facebook posts like “Here’s how I feel about <insert topic>, and if you don’t like it, you can just unfriend me.”
We “college-educated city millenials” enjoy our self-righteousness, racing to tsk-tsk the latest transgression, real or imagined. Some of us voted for an obviously unqualified Gary Johnson, under guise of “voting our conscience,” knowing we would not be the most directly affected by Hillary’s loss. This too is privilege. I didn’t hear about too many immigrants voting Johnson for conscience.
I’ve never called my senator to press an issue. I haven’t marched for anything recently. I don’t remember the last time I read a policy or law end-to-end, sub-articles and all. We are from a time and set that has mistaken likes and re-tweets for real political action and influence. We threatened to move to Canada, but are all still here, like he knew you would be. I think we need to be more open. To read more, listen more, do more. Otherwise this will just happen again in 2020.
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I worry about the years ahead: about the appointments to this coming administration; about a twitter-finger-happy president-elect that at first didn’t seem to understand but now abuses the power of his 140 characters; about Democrats vowing to “make things as hard for Trump as the Republicans made things for Obama,” as though devolving to our adversary’s worst nature ever helps.
But I’m also willing to embrace hope and try moving on. I got engaged recently. I’m looking for a house. I’m meeting some friends for brunch next weekend. I’m from a republic that has seen the worst of rulers and has outlasted them all.
Life will go on, and this too shall pass.