We’ve heard from a plethora of voices about what to make of the 2016 Presidential Election, from the professional pundits to our Facebook friends. Yet perhaps the most salient and effective voices we’ve heard come out of the backlash from the satirists, who went from feasting on the comedic absurdity of the election to festering in the absurd reality the results have now brought us into.
We witnessed the shock and dismay of Stephen Colbert watching the result in real-time, who himself seemed to have a hard time swallowing the reassurance he tried to impart to his audience. We felt Samantha Bee’s emphatic rage at the outcome (and the electorate who pushed for such) and let her speak for the anxieties that now face us. And we looked to John Oliver to cut through all the bullshit and just help us understand exactly “how the fuck we got here?”
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In the shock of all that had happened, hearing those voice was especially cathartic, for people like me: young, liberal, and a part of the groups that have the most to lose from a Trump presidency (or at least knowing people who are part of those groups).
Yet I think there has to be a realization that expressing these views probably won’t change anything. After all, we’re really just saying the same things: all along Trump has been promoting a xenophobic, islamophobic, bigoted, untruthful, unsound vision of this country. All that we’ve really changed is instead of saying how bad it will be if Trump is elected, we’re saying how bad it will be now that Trump is elected.
And look at where that has gotten us.
I don’t disagree with John Oliver’s assertion that what is happening is not normal; it’s disgusting. I don’t disagree with Samantha Bee’s points about how misguided the actions of the Trump electorate really are. I don’t disagree with any notion that we should be fighting for the values of the diverse, multi-cultural America that has flourished under Obama.
I am just disagreeing with the vitriol, the rage, the mockery, the contempt that we are directing toward the Trump electorate, especially now that we’re moving further away from the shock of the election and closer to the inevitable reality of inauguration.
I encourage people to listen to the analysis of former Daily Show host Jon Stewart and his successor Trevor Noah. Both acknowledged the hypocrisy of painting Trump supporters as “monoliths” representing the worst of the bigotry this country has to offer, especially after liberals have spent a lot of time fighting the idea that they are “monoliths” who care about nothing by identity politics.
What I think it all comes down to is that we all (and I mean everyone, liberals, and conservatives) need to understand that how we’re communicating with each other now is not helpful. I am as tired of seeing Andy Borowitz somehow finding a different way to call Trump supporters stupid as I am seeing Milo Yiannopoulo calling liberals “snowflakes.” We, as liberals, have to acknowledge that it’s not just the right that has created an echo chamber for themselves.
I’d like to think that we can fight the bigotry and hatred coming from the other side without ourselves spinning our own sort of hatred, even if it’s seemingly justified by the injustice we’ll face. You don’t fight fire with fire, and hatred only seeks to keep us in its vicious cycle. If this election has thought us anything, it’s that we need to start listening to the concerns of each other. The Trump electorate picked a solution to their problems that the rest of us find problematic, but that does not excuse us from dismissing their problems completely. We have to find the ways to express what we think without condescension, without contempt.
If we don’t start to take the poison out of the current dialogue, then who will?
