I’m posting a comment I made in a diary, because: 1) I haven’t seen anyone offering an explanation for why Trump voters voted against their self-interests; 2) I haven’t seen anyone suggesting that Progressives might respond like we successfully responded in the past; and 3) a number of folks suggested I put the comment up as an independent diary to invite discussion.
Trump supporters voting against their own self-interest doesn’t surprise me one bit, but then, I live with, work with, and try to help Trump supporters on a daily basis.
I’m a teacher in KY. And as such, I’ve been working on the front lines with this sub-culture for over a decade. Teachers are some of the government workers that members of this subculture allow “in,” and so, I’m welcomed onto porches and into kitchens to visit and to help. I not only bring their children’s school assignments when the kids go missing from school for weeks at a time, I also bring food and medicine. I bring clothes and Christmas hams and turkeys and art supplies (there’s a surprising number of artists!) and I’ve even found musical instruments. I bring a lot of dog food. I assist with filling out forms. Sometimes, in response to a desperate email from one of my students, in the middle of the night, I’m a taxi service to the ER or to Grandma’s after he’s beat the shit out of her (again). I plead with children and adults to believe in themselves and get into welding and LPN programs. I help fill out Financial Aid forms. Increasingly, I attend and and hold and rock my bereft students and their family members at funerals. (9 of my current 71 students have lost a parent to heroin) Teachers, here in KY, are afforded access and given trust, and so, while I thought I was signing up to teach science and history, it’s turned out to be a hell of a lot more. I’ve gotten to know the good, bad, and the ugly of it over the years.
What I don’t think I’ve seen anyone addressing is the self-hatred so many Trump supporters feel towards themselves. Why is anyone surprised that people filled with self-hatred could and did vote against their self-interest?
Voting in their self-interest would be a rational, healthy choice, but the people I live with and try to help are members of a profoundly dysfunctional sub-culture.
Why would anyone expect a child who comes from a family generationally riddled with:
- addiction (both drug and alcohol based)
- poverty
- domestic violence
- parental loss and abandonment (the number of kids being raised by Grandma is epidemic due to drugs, death and one or both parents “being away for awhile,” in jail)
- spotty and interrupted educational experiences
- unstable housing scenarios
- few economically successful role models
- pseudo male machoness, but Grandma is actually the Rock most families rest upon
- quasi-criminal-syndicate-anti-gubment tribal orientation — moonshine was but one of the many illegal family “businesses.” Now, it’s drugs, copper theft, and even dog theft.
Why do we expect people growing up in this kind of environment would somehow become emotionally and psychologically healthy, rational, critically thinking, outside news trusting voters?
I perceive their Trump votes like the pained, hurting, angry wail and flailing tantrum of a confused and hurting child desperately throwing their arms in every direction. Their clinched fists are hitting others, yes, but they’re also bruising and bloodying themselves at the same time. And, here’s the thing: they expect to be shafted, because they always have going back to when the British took their lands and moved them up into the rocky highlands. Yes, it does go back that far and it played out here, too. And, even now, too often “home” is a trailer precariously perched on the side of a hill in a holler.
If we want to “respond,” with a response designed to actually DO something, then I suggest we consider going back to the Hull Houses of our Progressive roots for a start. It’s not like we haven’t been there done that before.
If we want to really help and change what’s happened and happening in so many communities, then I suggest we stop spending millions on political ads going to NYC ad firms and take a community action approach.
We could take all that ad money we’ve been sending to the DCCC and give it to our passionate “Bernie Movement” youth to establish Hull Houses to help heal the communities broken by the plutocracy, and the people themselves.
I dream of us putting our Progressive values to work by rolling up our sleeves and being of service instead of continuing our donating hundreds of millions to the DNC coffers, We could investing all that money and energy in both rural and urban communities and responding to the real needs in those communities. THAT’s the direction I’d like to see the “Bernie Movement” take.
I look at the map of how Hull House grew and the services it offered, and I dream of what we could, we might do, to help heal our hurting nation.
In the meantime, my son and I are making a run down to one of those hollers, today. There’s a number of families who are probably short on food with the kids not getting their Free and Reduced breakfasts and lunches over the Winter Break. And, I’ve heard that one family’s toilet is broken. We have an extra kit in the basement that we didn’t have to use, so I’ll take it along in case it might do the trick …
UPDATE: Wow. Rec List? Thank you for the interest, folks. I appreciate the discussion and interest. I’m glad a number of you found this helpful.
UPDATE 2: I’m moving a comment I made up here. It’s poverty people and basic, political, community action 101 that I’m talking about.
Sigh.
Here’s the issue for me. Too often, it’s just me, with teachers in my school, and the kids’ Service Club we’ve created as the only non-faith-based group helping these people. THINK about that. A handful of teachers and some kids using money we really can’t afford to take our of our own pockets? [And, I don’t want to hear that I’m a saint. I’m not. How many of you could specifically know where there was a hungry child and not do whatever was needed to feed them?]
But, I’m in my late 50’s. I’m disabled, in a wheelchair, with chronic pain. The only money I have is coming from my pay check and the donations in kind I can scrape up using my FB Friends.
(Oh, and my son and I also make runs into downtown Cincinnati to take the Care Bags we put together for the unsheltered homeless every few weeks. THAT’s where people end up when they’ve exhausted their welcome on friends and family’s couches. They need water, blankets, coats, gloves, hand warmers, granola bars, bandaids, aspirin, SOCKS, and more water.) I’ve got a real problem sleeping at night know exactly where people are trying to sleep under underpasses in 22 degree weather.
Where the hell IS the Progressive “Movement?” Why do people in KY and other rural areas turn to and are influenced by faith based, religious groups? They are the only groups I see trying to help! The. Only. Ones. So, we’re surprised when they are significantly influenced by the teachings of these religious groups? Where is the non-faith-based group [us] on the ground trying to do stuff? Oh sure, there are government programs, but exactly how do you get to those government offices when they are located at the County Seat, well over an hour away, there’s no mass transit, and you don’t have a fucking car! You have to wait until Uncle Ted is going to the grocery store as it is. You can’t ask him to give up an entire day, one day a month, to take you to sit in an office … where you get treated like crap BTW. (The hill people often get treated like the “trash” they are called often to their faces when they venture outside their community. How often would you go out if all you got were dismissive looks, snickers, and sometimes called trash? “Hillbilly White Trash” THINK about what that does to a poeple’s self-worth, their trust in anyone outside their subculture ...
^^^ Access to services and Access to Non-GO groups providing assistance. This is one of the KEY differences between rural poverty and urban poverty.
My family had local level politicians in our family back in Philly. I grew up knowing you had to be out there, directly, getting stuff done for your constituency, if you wanted to get elected. I repeat: You had to be there, being seen, getting things done — personally. I’ve lived in a state where the Democrats actually control the state House (and had the governorship until just last year), and I have yet to meet or see ONCE the D-Rep from our area. The R-State Senator is everywhere all the time! But, our Democratic politicians? How many times have I seen them organize a community toy drive or dentist visit or information meet-ups regarding Obamacare or Black Lung? Never.
No, it is not enough to get some policies passed at the State Capital and DC level? That may as well be the moon! That’s what I see us as having done over the last few decades. We go big during Presidential elections, pinning our hopes on politicians at the national level, and where are we politically the rest of the time?
All. politics.is local.
It really is being seen getting the potholes fixed that are causing the flat tires that cost you $129 to fix (that’s about 2 days pay at minimum wage). It means that go door to door listening and learning about the needs of your community, and you don’t just try to get a government policy passed to meet needs. That’s the long term fix, and yes, you go for that. But, in the freaking meantime, you are a leader in local Democratic Club that serves as a center for community service. You enlist the local College Dems. You know what that group of teachers and kids are trying to do at the local middle school. You are on everyones’ FB list.
Now, it would be fair to ask me, why don’t I do this? Why don’t I run for office? I am frankly too freaking tired, and I am not physically up to it. And, you know, this is what I think Democratic politicians could and should be doing as part of their job. I’ll tell you this. If a voter knows you’re part of the group that got them the toilet fix kit in the middle of the winter, you have a freaking voter for LIFE. Or, at least they are a hell of a lot less likely to vote for an orange haired clown out of desperation.
One.last.thing. I promise.
A number of you are posting about how ignorant they are [like an educational gap is a character flaw?]. Yes. Yes, they are frequently ignorant about the latest news and what’s going on in the world. However, my response is that if you are going to look down on them or condemn them for their lack of knowledge in this area in life, then I submit that you are outstandingly ignorant about poverty. You are ignorant about the time, energy, and incredibly ingenuity it takes to just survive if you ever have the horrible luck to get on the bottom in this grind-you-up, spit-you-out, capitalistic, cronyism, viscous, plutocracy. Guess what? They don’t have money for a regular internet connection. They don’t have regular cable TV subscriptions. Hell, folks, they are struggling to get the propane tank filled for heat in the winter, and the electricity is regularly getting turned off. (There are no cable lines into where they live!!) They don’t have money for a daily paper or the NYT to get delivered. So, even if they DID have time and energy, exactly how and where do you think they would get OUR liberal messages from afar? They listen to the folks who show up to help them. And, we ain’t there.
Okay. Added rant over. sorry.