What does this mean about America?
I think it’s a huge mistake to write off all Trump voters as racist and misogynistic. This is the ‘lesson’ that many liberals are taking from the election. MSNBC anchor Joe Scarborough suggested that Trump won because of racist Hispanics (against themselves??) and sexist Black men. This is absurd; support for Trump increased or stayed the same from 2020 to 2024 in nearly every demographic.
To be sure, racism and misogyny played a large role in getting Trump elected. Since 2016 his political campaign has been surrounded and propped up by the alt-right. But that doesn’t explain the motivation of everyone who voted for him or the apparent shift to the right across America. It’s a serious error to think that fascism* is simply when a nation goes collectively insane. That downplays its danger and makes regular people more susceptible to its rhetoric.
*Yes, Trumpism is fascism. Actual scholars of fascism have been saying so for years, well before any Democrat politician was willing to come out and say it.
What this election reveals is a deep dissatisfaction with the way society is – whether that’s the rising cost of living, a feeling of alienation from power, or any number of other factors. The Democrats and establishment Republicans represent the status quo of useless neoliberalism, which is precisely what many Americans are trying to get away from. So when Trump bursts on the scene, telling them that he will solve their problems – by implementing nationalist economics, getting rid of immigrants, and taking vengeance on the establishment – they naturally flock to him. Sure, he has personal flaws, and there’s a chance his policies will only make things worse; but who else has recognized their problems and given them any solution at all?
Bernie Sanders was right when he recently stated, “It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them. First, it was the white working class, and now it is Latino and Black voters as well. While the Democratic leadership defends the status quo, the American people are angry and want change.” I would only add that neither the Democrats nor the Republicans have ever really been for the working class.
Trump’s victory is disheartening, but it also shows an opportunity. Half the nation is so angry at the status quo that they are willing to vote for someone as noxious as Donald Trump. If the left can present them with a real solution to their problems, at least some of them will come over. Indeed, some of Trump’s supporters seem to be leftists who just don’t know it. This should be our attitude toward Trump voters:
When Trump era policies destroy your access to healthcare, education and clean water I will not be there to gloat, I will be there to help you organize.
When Trump era policies deport your friends or legally deny you healthcare I’m not going to stand over you and say “[see]”, I’m going to help you organize.
When Trump era policies defund public schools in your district and their vouchers aren’t enough for private school, we will not be there to gloat and point fingers, we will be there to help you organize.
Trump’s policies will inevitably fail to solve people’s problems, and will likely make them worse. When they do, we have to be there to help them pick up the pieces and build something new. And not in a paternalistic way, like authoritarians want to do through the state. We have to help organize them to solve their problems as a community.
As Christians, this is especially true of us. Despite how Christianity has been co-opted by some evil people to serve their own ends, we must rebuild the Christian legacy of serving the downtrodden and opposing unjust systems of power. Peter Thiel, the billionaire behind J. D. Vance’s rise to power, blamed Christianity for the rise of “wokeness” because it “always takes the side of the victim.” Let’s prove him right.
Yes. It will be harder to do this under another Trump administration. He’s repeatedly said that he wants to use violent force against the “enemy from within,” which for him includes even milquetoast liberals like Adam Schiff and Nancy Pelosi. But that only means we have to work harder. If we give up, nothing will ever get done.
So what lesson should we take away from this election? We need to fight like hell to build a better future. That’s our best chance of winning over the right.
Edit: Looks like Adam Conover came to pretty much the same conclusions as me: https://youtu.be/MAJafY-4at0
https://jacobin.com/2024/11/trump-election-lessons-democrats-labor
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