I have waited a few days to weigh in n the current election fallout, but I have seen some disturbing trends that I want to address.
For those who supported a Trump victory, I congratulate you on your successful mobilization. Any social movement needs a motivated base to energize each other. If I were to make predictions, roughly I would expect that your condition will not improve during a Trump presidency, but there will be a number of groups whose quality of life will decline over the next few years. Some folks have already experienced this on my campus and in the nation as a whole.
If Trump lives up to his platform, I expect the nation to go as Wisconsin has gone under Walker. Economic growth will be sluggish as it relates to working people. They will continue to be dissatisfied with their economic lot and their future. The deficit will ballon as a direct result of those policies, as it has in Wisconsin. People will be no less bitter or disgusted with the direction of the country, and it will likely worsen over the next decade (it may take more than four years to further cripple this economy - Bush's economic collapse unfolded at the very end of his term).
However, what has pained me the most is the rhetoric after the election. The very same people who so desperately wanted to distance themselves from Clinton by arguing they voted against Trump are not affording their opposition the same courtesy. The rhetoric that I see and hear in the media and in conversation is about how racist, misogynistic, and xenophobic Trump supporters are. These are the same folks who cry foul when people lump an entire religion with acts of violence. This duplicity is the hallmark of the "liberal." Let me note that "liberals" are an entirely different species than progressives or radicals, but I do not have time to go into that here.
At the same time liberals decry acts of discrimination before and after the election, these very same people discriminate against people of color in their workplaces. This discrimination is hidden and deprives people of color the same opportunities whites receive simply because of skin color, religion, or nation of origin. The visible hate speech and hate crimes that have been perpetrated are psychologically harmful, but they are out in the open, and all people of good conscience can come together to console each other. The discrimination that takes place in search committees, hiring decisions, and behind closed doors is sheltered away from public view and proceeds relatively unchallenged in our society.
The very same people who decry the discriminatory actions during and after this election are the very same folks who perpetrate this closed-door discrimination. This is the duplicity that I have been fighting since 2013 in my own backyard. There is a statistic in a film I show, "Race the Power of an Illusion," that states, when you hold wealth and income the same, you cannot tell whites and people of color apart on a number of indicators like success in education and work. If wealth and income are equal, all ethnicities are equal. We also know that people with ethnic sounding names are 50% less likely to get a callback on a resume. They are discriminated against in hiring. They are discriminated against in the classroom. But, they also are equal to whites when wealth and income are the same. This means that people of color have to work harder to maintain that equality. They have to work harder just to keep pace with whites. This is the result of discriminatory acts perpetrated by liberals as well as conservatives.
So, I want to call out those liberals who are so quick to dismiss the people who voted against Clinton. Yes, Trump is a horrible human being with deplorable attitudes, but Clinton is a classist, ethnocentric, civilizational mission spouting, warmongering oligarch. Her foregin policy is no less racist that Trump's Victorian-era small-mindedness, but Clinton shares Trump's international perspective that is just a retooled version of the "white man's burden." Our interventionist foreign policy and the racist implications for those killed, maimed, and starved by it, are easily forgotten when people voted against Trump.
No, you cannot console yourself by calling people who voted for Trump racists, etc. You fucking duplicitous bastards are calling the kettle black. This is precisely why liberals find it so difficult to comprehend why the working class has turned against them. You lump them in a category of "deplorables" and expect them to see the error of their ways by joining in your moral superiority. That classist bullshit just does not play with working people.
I know liberals are stunned by the outcome of the election. I know liberals cannot comprehend how so many people could vote for a person with so few qualifications and such a horrible worldview. What you have to understand is that liberals decided to cajole their primary system to produce a candidate who has a long history of being detested, and granted, a great deal of that hatred (from conservatives, moderates, and liberals alike) is due simply to the fact that Clinton is a very strong woman in a nearly exclusively male arena. But, she is also a pretty shitty person and candidate. Liberals ignored that fact, and paid the price. Don't blame the opposition for your lack of foresight. The fact that the race was even close given the quality of the opposition should tell you something about your own mobilization strategy and the quality of your candidate.
We live in a time where we should learn from the past. Reactionary movements are bred out of economic despair and struggle. The liberals had a perfect opportunity to reach out to working people and demonstrate that they could address their concerns. Bernie's popularity mobilized a certain sector of the population, but liberals thought it was enough to focus on his base, but they ignored a huge segment of the population who could have benefitted from grassroots mobilization. Instead, the duplicitous hubris of the liberal party marginalized those folks, intentionally making them feel inadequate and morally bankrupt.
You fucking assholes got what you deserved, and now we, including those who voted for Trump, will have to suffer the consequences. Now, the whole nation gets to feel the despair, fruitlessness, and divisive atmosphere of Wisconsin. Thank you, you rotten liberal fucks.
