This article was written by Austin Raymundo, a first-year student at Loyola Marymount University, and edited by Raymundo and myself, Madison Foote. Though this is a semi-professional collaboration effort, we are also close friends. We've spent a lot of time these past few weeks discussing the election and our feelings toward it. I've given you my perspective as a minority. Here is what he, as a political science and economics double-major, has to say about it.
It’s been only three weeks since a plurality of Americans made the decision that the 45th president of the United States ought to be Donald J. Trump. In the words of American icon, Stephen Colbert, something has gone terribly wrong. Already, there has been enormous backlash in both the social and political realms.This left the majority of this article’s readers (who I presume lean liberal) finding themselves on the edge of an ever deepening partisan divide. Much of America has spent the last three weeks pondering two questions: how did we get to this point, and, where do we go from here?
The media has come to the general consensus that America elected Trump because millions of Americans, a so-called “silent majority”, were angry at the political system, since they felt it had been unfair to them in a way that failed to represent their views and did not allow for fair financial gain. This argument, however, fails to address the following question: why would millions of Americans, who feel disillusioned with the political system, elect a man who became a billionaire off of the very system that they feel cheated them? This question exists because, too often, we tend to overlook an underlying motivator of voters – how they see themselves. In order to fill this gap, one must examine how an average Trump supporter may view him or herself. As a disclaimer, this, of course, is a generalization that does not nor is meant to depict the opinions of every single Trump supporter, just the statistically average one according to exit polling. With this in mind, let’s take a look at the average Trump supporter.
Statistics tell us that the average Trump supporter is white, hasn’t gone to college, and feels cheated by the political system. Additionally, he/she does not and will never identify as racists or misogynists by any measure. They see themselves just as patriotic and well-meaning as a Hillary supporter, a Gary Johnson supporter, or a Bernie supporter, if not more. Most notably, however, while the average Trump supporter doesn’t necessarily have a lower than average income, he/she does come from communities that went through economic hardship, or have previously gone through economic hardship themselves. As a consequence, the supporters worry that the same thing might happen to them. Simply put, they economically insecure.
This financial insecurity is troubling for most Americans beyond the lack of green in their wallets. For some, it’s an issue of pride. No one wants to feel as if they are poor. So the majority of white, lower and middle class Americans (Trump and Hillary supporters alike) tend to act richer than they are. Credit cards, car leases, and complex bank loans have all made it easier for Americans to feel as if they have achieved the American dream while, in actuality, they are economically unstable. In this context, to them, the accumulation of material wealth is indicative of prosperity and hard work. Consequently, when these people see Trump, they see him as someone who has succeeded – a champion whose win is merited by his own hard work. To them, Trump as not the epitome of the American scheme, but the epitome of the American dream.
Thus, most of his supporters believe they could achieve success, too, had it not been for unfair obstacles thrown in their own paths. They needed a scapegoat to blame their problems.Trump gave them one.
Former President Lyndon B. Johnson once said, “If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.” Trump followed this strategy by the book. From the get-go, he pointed at immigrant Latino/as, blaming them for crime and stealing jobs. So he gave his supporters a solution: “build a wall.” In these simple three words, he not only oversimplified a difficult economic problem to digestible terms, but made a solution that appealed directly to what would constitute his base – white, non-college educated, middle and lower class Americans who were asking for a scapegoat for their economic woes. By giving America a group of people that was socially acceptable to look down upon, Trump appealed to white Americans who felt as if they were exploited, enabling him to win the presidency.
That answers why millions voted a man who benefited from the system they hated and(in part) how we got here.This, of course, leaves the question, where do we go from here?The answer lies in a second question: what will a Trump administration look like? There is no definite answer, as Trump’s contradictory statements on a variety of issues, including several recent changes in candor on major campaign promises, leave little indication as to what sort of policies and goals he will attempt to achieve. Despite this, a few things are certain.
First, the partisan divide, which deepened under the Republican leadership’s policy of opposing almost every piece of legislation proposed by Obama on principle, will certainly get worse. Americans on both sides of the aisle have demonized each other to the point that in some parts of California, Trump supporters often keep their political views “closeted”, whereas minority Clinton supporters are attacked in hate crimes in the Midwest. No matter where you stand, one must admit that a reaction this bad to an election’s outcome suggests that something has gone terribly wrong.
Second, Trump’s controversial rhetoric has sent a signal to future campaigns: divisive rhetoric, as disheartening as it may be, works. Many claim the problem was that the political establishment and media failed to take him seriously, but took his rhetoric literally. Trump supporters, on the other hand, took him seriously, but failed to take his rhetoric literally. For future politician’s campaigns, this implies that controversial rhetoric generates headlines but will be taken with a grain of salt by their political constituents. The bar for what is acceptable has been lowered, while our tolerance for partisan mudslinging in the twenty-first century has never been higher.
Third, Trump will be like other politicians in the sense that he will do almost anything to appeal to his voter base.Don’t believe me? Look what he’s already done. Trump, pre-Obama, was a registered Democrat.He held (and to some extent, may still hold) some liberal views. When he entered the presidential primary, he had to assure voters that he was unquestionably Republican. So Trump did the unthinkable in the eyes of a liberal: he disavowed all immigrants, blaming them for the country’s problems, called an entire race criminals, and promised to build a wall.In one swift act, he made himself undeniably Republican. He buttressed this by slinging masterfully divisive insults to Democrats and making absurdist claims that Democrats and moderate Republicans alike shuddered at. It mattered not that he donated to Hillary Clinton before, nor that he went on national television at the Republican National Convention and suggested that he may support gay rights, because he would build a wall, so it was undeniable to all that he was a Republican.
Fourth, and perhaps most troubling, only time will tell if Trump will make America great again, but one thing is certain: in the process, he has (inadvertently or not) given America permission to hate again. The Southern Poverty Law Center announced that over 700 hate crimes between November 9th (a day after the election) and November 16th had been reported, most of which targeted minorities. Indeed, Trump’s tactics have worked masterfully, and their effects will reverberate throughout the entirety of his administration, if not beyond. It is for this reason that a growing group - political minorities - of people feel just as insecure as those who voted for Trump did. But only time will tell how they will react.
With so much uncertainty in mind, where do we go from here? For starters, we can’t stifle our appetite for change, nor give up on the progress the made this century. The election has revealed that there are those who believe that “making America great again” is a form of change forward, demonstrating that America doesn’t have an unified path towards future. Yet time is a vehicle of change and progress, and it is up to us to get into the driver’s seat to take control of which direction we go. Progress often involves misstep and mistake, but, ultimately, we move forward. Our political system isn’t perfect, the political realm has been plagued by misinformation and divisive politics, and the next four or eight years may not be the proudest in American history, but that is no excuse for America to take a back seat. The inevitable only occurs for those unprepared for it. Now more than ever is the time to persevere, for we can’t be complacent with the general trend forward, but rather must take part of it. After all, it was complacency with the status quo that allowed too many to ignore the silent majority who afforded Trump his electoral victory.
Complain all you want about Trump. That’s the easy part. But get ready to work hard for change. Because we have work to do.
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