I think it was easy to believe that all the progress the country had made on things like gay rights over the last eight years meant the country was heading full-steam towards becoming a more progressive place. I know I was feeling like "history" was happening in an irreversible way with more and more people jumping on board.
Turns out we were wrong. We didn't want to believe that these working-class whites just didn't give a damn about the rights of their even more vulnerable neighbours. All the progress of the last few years was just incidental because these people had chosen to trust Barack Obama over the corporatist establishment figure Mitt Romney. So this election was definitely a sh-tty way to learn that progress and justice are not inevitable, but... it's a valuable lesson.
Most white people don't really care about the rights of those who have been Othered. It's not that they're against social progress and equality. They're just willing to look past a pretty large degree of hatred, bigotry, and discrimination if it means they can feel like they're being "heard." I think it's awful and inexcusable, but it is what it is, and I guess it's not AS BAD as outright bigotry. But they've still enabled it.
You're lecturing working Americans about the progress they made. Isn't that a tad pretentious?
I doubt you work for a living. I doubt you have a family depending on you working. Someday that may happen for you, but I doubt it's the case now. And, yes, that is relevant. I was as snotty as you toward folks I regarded as Archie Bunker types in my youth when I had no idea of the pressure one takes on when they support a family.
These hard-working Americans you so disparage have (for the most part) families to support. Even if they're divorced, they have child support. And they have been economically screwed. I can take you to a place in Jackson, OH, where the Meridian Automotive plant once was. The jobs are now in Mexico and the lot now has a retail shopping center that may provide 10 jobs that could support a family, where there was once a plant where there were hundreds of such jobs. These folks have moved on, but not to something better (for the most part). And, yet, you want them to support the Goddess of NAFTA as opposed to someone whose trade policies might actually help THEIR situation.
They are, by the way, well aware that the "Othered" folks have no more care for the lot of these hard working Americans than you say they have for the "Othered" folks. The "Othered" folks don't care about the welfare of them, or their families; they care about their own welfare. Let's not attach virtue to the "Othered" folks that don't apply. The "Othered" folks are hardly more altruistic than the folks you disparage.
You're proof that the Clinton crowd hasn't learned a thing about the past election.
Re-read my post and try again. I disparage the white working-class often, but I did not do so here. Unless you think it's disparaging to point out that they ultimately decided it was okay to vote for a bigot, even though they cast their ballots for reasons unrelated to their own degree of bigotry. And if so, I would respectfully ask what fantasy you're living in, because it's pretty clear that Donald Trump has said and done some pretty bigoted things. I would also add that this is an incredibly big concession for me to make, because it represents my attempt to at least give these voters the benefit of the doubt and concede that bigotry was not the motivating factor behind their decision to support Trump. Not everything has to be an argument, boo.
Anyhow, what I am explaining is why I think progressives did not see this loss coming and why the mistake was made. We assumed that the swing voters of the Rust Belt cared about the progress America had made
with regards to social justice, and that it was the inevitable march forward to the right side of history. I'm not saying they should feel like they've seen progress personally (although the job numbers should speak for themselves). I'm saying the country
did turn corners on things like gay rights. Turns out, though, that these Obama '12/Trump '16 voters didn't really give a sh-t about equal rights one way or the other. But Democrats were not really open to the possibility of the firewall falling because we thought the progressive march forward could only gain steam, not crumble away.
We were wrong, because it turns out that these people were never voting for the march forward that we thought they were voting for, even when they did vote Democrat. It was only ever about their own insecurities. Which yes—is how it seems anyone ever votes. We were naïve and took for granted the fact that different branding was needed to connect with those types (she did actually have solid policies for the white working class whether you care to admit it or not).
The election just sears a little more because of all the things they were willing to look past in Donald Trump to cater to their insecurities with their vote. And why they were willing to do so is the million-dollar, realistically unanswerable question.
