Like any election night, November 8, 2016 was a powerful time. But as we saw, tensions were running high throughout 2016 between the sides of the aisle, and November 8 was the climax of all that fighting. To some people, it was the end of the world; to others, it was the most important political victory possibly ever.
In the weeks that followed the election, analysts and journalists took to the Internet trying to understand how things played out the way they did. Democrats (and some Republicans alike) wondered: how did we lose? Wasn’t it a shoe-in? Where did all these Trump supporters come from? Many finally turned their minds to the question of who these people were that they voted this way, though it was certainly not the first time anyone had bothered to ask. The idea of liberal elitism is and was vital to this conversation, this conversation that was portended by so many authors so many months before.
Jaja Liao, writing for Huffington Post, provides a good segue into this line of thought with her piece “The Hypocrisy Of The Liberal Elite,” published a week after the election. She describes herself and her friends as as “the epitome of the ‘liberal elites’ that Trump supporters hate so much” and talks about the shock and anger she observed among her peers the night of the election, as “the map turned redder and redder.” But over the next few days, she notes, the tune of her social media changed: “People were still posting links to petitions and protest events, but they also started posting statuses that were hopeful, ones along the lines of ‘it will be ok.’ By the time the weekend rolled around, my newsfeed had evolved into a third phase— Hillary supporters urging everyone to ‘engage in conversations with the other side’ in order to ‘understand Trump supporters.’”
“I found this third wave of posts ironic,” Liao says. She goes on to tell of how she spent time prior to the election trying to understand the mindset of Trump’s supporters, trying to figure out why they were rallying around this man. She calls for her liberal peers to “walk out of our echo chambers” and try to engage in constructive dialogue with the people they disagree with, to try to bust down the presently constricting role of ‘liberal elite’ and move towards an understanding of the opposition.
At the same time, several people writing in to The Atlantic engaged in a dialogue moderated by Chris Bodenner; reader Jon, for one, speaks of his time growing up in “the boonies” of New Jersey. He conceptualizes the Trump voter as looking for “a collective middle finger to The City [and the urban liberalism lying within]” and sympathizing, to a degree. But he also says that “part of me wants to respond with a middle finger of my own. And I’m afraid it feeds right into the narrative of urban snobbery and elitism we’ve been hearing about.” In so many words, Jon outlines his frustration with this idea of a Trump voter who is looking for a way to get back at the system that has supposedly been neglecting them and their needs. Essentially, he says, I did what you’re supposed to—work hard, make it big, live the good life. I didn’t have connections or rich parents or anything. I made the American Dream happen. Why can’t you, who claim to prostrate yourselves before it? Reader Susan replies, raising several issues with Jon’s perspective—first and foremost, why should success only be possible in the city? She also questions whether ‘making it’ is possible for most people, citing rising college and healthcare costs and a lack of retirement pensions as major blows against the lower middle class Jon claims to be speaking to. Other readers go on to dispute Susan’s evidence while acknowledging her frustrations as valid, but she gets the final word, saying: “I understand why people voted for Trump; they are hoping that maybe, just maybe, he won’t be a politician.”
This hints at the greater picture of liberal elitism, or at least the real tensions at play. On one side, as Emmett Rensin said all the way back in April 2016, you have the smug liberal, who sees their position as the natural and inevitable conclusion of accepting a series of natural, inevitable, independently verifiable facts. There is no discussion to be had. On the other side, you have the righteously angry…populist? Conservative? Trump voter? It’s hard to say—who sees the change and asks what their place is in the new order, or else sees the place they’ve been given as lacking. They look towards Washington and ask how we’re all still putting up with the ‘swamp’ that needs to be ‘drained,’ as Trump has put it.
The problem here, it seems to me, is that these two imaginary people aren’t talking or thinking about even remotely the same thing. They’re speaking fundamentally different languages that have just enough in common to come across to the other as completely backwards. So now I wonder—how do we get people talking about the same thing and in the same way? Alternatively, does this model of the political conversation hold any merit? Is it too biased in one direction or another? Too forgiving, or too damning?
Right off the bat, and this is not something that is entirely your doing, I am frustrated by the phrase “now that the fight has been lost.” I understand that in an election there is essentially one winner and one loser, however, to me, the concept of one group of people or political party “losing” in an election sets up our nation to immediately be divided as a result of this major event. To say that my or your or anyone’s “side” has lost the fight is almost conceding to the notion that all power is lost. I believe that this is incredibly untrue and that this phrase roots the divide in our nation. We are one nation, though, from a recent Gallup poll, 68% of Republicans perceive we are divided and 83% of democrats do so as well. I understand that uniting an entire nation is a nearly impossible feat, however it would be a major step in the right direction if we as a people stop being so cut and dry about everything. A loss does not mean a particular side is consequently invalid and that the other rules the world, and just by changing the way we phrase things could drastically alter that conception.
In your piece about the conceptualization of the Trump voter, I remain upset to this day about the generalization of that voting population. I know that people are left wondering: wow, where did all of those voters come from?? And with this stems and fuels the liberal elite’s misconception of the hallmark “Trump voter.” People see Trump voters as the hicks, and as you said pointed out with the Jon dialogue, those looking to get back at the system. This notion is supported in an article from the New York Post, which brought up a piece about Ned Resinkoff, a senior editor for the progressive ThinkProgress, who wrote about how “rattled” he was that his plumber, “a middle-aged white guys with a southern accent,” may have voted for Trump. Resinkoff noted how he couldn’t shake the sense of potential danger” from this encounter. It is this kind of characterization that led people to believe there was one single kind of Trump voter, and that is just wildly incorrect, which is the reason why people were truly so shocked with the election results.
I forgot to put my links! Here they are:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/197828/record-high-americans-perceive-nation-divided.aspx
http://nypost.com/2017/01/11/why-liberal-elites-are-so-resentful-of-middle-america/
I’m going to focus more on the “political discourse” part of your post.
Although there probably is a certain degree of liberal elitism that is fueling anger with right-wingers out there, I think there’s a decent amount of legitimacy behind some of the liberal standpoint, and it’s a bit more tame (and makes more sense) as well. The reasoning I’ve heard often for liberals shunning conservatives (which probably comes across as elitism) is that it’s basically impossible to hold a conversation with them simply because of everything that the right has come to stand for. As one man explains in a Huffington Post column, how can a gay person sit back and pretend to be friendly with someone who was a Trump voter (see link)? It doesn’t matter if you voted for Donald because you thought he might be able to help the economy — you weren’t voting for “Donald Trump’s Business Skills,” you were voting for what his entire platform stood for. That (VERY OBVIOUSLY) includes a Vice President who literally scored a 0% from the Human Rights Campaign, indicating a VERY anti-gay-rights stance (see link 2). One might ask the same question about a Mexican talking to a Trump voter — how do you shelve the emotions that come with remembering that “their” candidate called your people rapists? If you don’t want an emotional example, fine. How can liberals who are concerned about climate change talk to Donald Trump supporters when their President doesn’t believe in global warming (see link below for the scientific consensus — spoiler alert, it’s overwhelmingly in the favor of global warming).
So, those are just some examples, but I think there’s probably a decent amount of misinterpretation coming from the right here. Yeah, some liberals are still on their high horses (I guess they haven’t realized that isn’t working very well), but give some credit to the rest of them — how can you ask anti-Donald people to set aside their core values to have dialogues with Donald supporters who voted for someone who literally opposes the very being of said liberal. Like I said earlier, I personally think the whole “I didn’t vote for him because of his scary rhetoric” defense is absolute garbage — you very clearly didn’t vote for just his economic policies, you voted for the whole candidate. What that shows the now terrified people in this country is that you value “business” more than you value humanity — why should they talk to you?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/we-cant-be-friends-because-you-voted-for-donald-trump_us_584ee562e4b04c8e2bb0c7d8
http://www.ontheissues.org/IN/Mike_Pence.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change
I accidentally left my comment on your other blog post and it won’t let me post a duplicate comment, so I’m going to try and use this line to post it.
I believe there has always been a rather simple model that represents the point you are trying to make. There are many people in big groups, and it is not possible for all of their voices to be heard. So while there are moderates saying things to each other that make sense and are reasonable, there are radical groups on both sides that say drastically different things from even those in their party. But who does the opposing group hear, the moderate or the radical? Of course it is the radical. Their position and their words are that much more infuriating, that much more enraging that they must be responded to. These things that only a minority of the party is saying are brought to the forefront of the discussion. They become the topics that you see on the news, on blogs across the internet, and people fighting about in the streets. So while the large group of moderates on both sides are arguing with the small group of radicals that they oppose, the majority standpoint is lost in the constant battle of making others see how bad the “opposition” really is. Of course, this “opposition” is no more than the radicals, so it is pointless. It is not indicative of the majority. If there is any hope for the state of discussion in this country, people must realize that there is no point in arguing points that are not important to the majority of the whole. If by some stroke of luck, we could have the majority on each side see the majority on the other side for what they are, and not for the radicals that intentionally provoke, civil conversation could again exist. In the end, it is the same problem and argument as the fact that the majority of Muslims are not radical, but that is all most people see. I believe people realize that now. And the sooner they realize it is likewise for in-state parties, the better.
https://reason.com/archives/2012/08/16/what-democrats-mean-when-they-say-radica