We must stop demonizing Trump supporters, because we will need them in the 2018 election. We need to stop calling them all a bunch of racist, sexist, homophobic, Islamophobic bigots, because most of them are NOT. And for that matter, most of the members of Clinton’s coalition were not all-inclusive, utopian progressives. Most of Clinton’s supporters were individuals with focused concerned, usually, though not always, stemming from their own urgent needs.
A true progressive is someone who supports all the movements for all oppressed people. A progressive white person would never vote for a racist candidate. A progressive African-American would never vote for a candidate who was anti-immigrant. A progressive gay person would never vote for an Islamophobic candidate. A progressive Muslim would never vote for a candidate who denigrated women.
On the other hand, people who have focused concerns are those working on issues so urgent to them that they have no time or energy to think about other movements. An African-American focused on ending the police murders of youth in their community may not put any thought into same-sex adoption. Someone fighting to maintain abortion rights may not spend much time thinking about violence against Muslims. And someone fighting to find a pathway to citizenship for undocumented family members may not think anything about the heavy load of student loans. These people will support almost any candidate who supports their issue, regardless of how that candidate stands on any other issue.
But these individuals with focused concerns willingly work with and in the Progressive Movement, because the Progressive movement has embraced their causes. Clinton’s slogan, “Stronger Together” rings very true to them, because they see other people, who might not be interested in their particular concerns, embrace them as part of a overall platform.
A relatively few of Trump’s supporters are truly hateful and dangerous bigots. They are the ones beating up Muslims, painting hate message on mosques and synagogues, and yelling at Latinos, “go back where you came from.” But most of Trump supporters are just people with their own focused concerns. And those concerns are generally related to the need for jobs and financial security. They are not racist, homophobic, etc. They just ignore that element of his campaign because they desperately need jobs, and no one else was really speaking to that. Hillary said she opposed the TPP, but up until her campaign was in full swing, she had supported it. Is it any surprise that a large chunk of blue collar workers did not support her?
I had an interesting exchange through social media with someone who is a strong Trump supporter. He started out with rather abusive language, writing, “Suck it up, buttercup. We WON, and you and your libtard buddies had your asses kicked. Get ready to live in TRUMPNATION! LOL.” But his tone changed as I continued to engage him. At one point he told me that he is not a bigot. He said he lived in Topeka, Kansas, and he and his church had banded together with other churches and with the LGBT community to drown out the ignorant, homophobic voice of the Westboro Baptist Church. He was also proud that Kansas had thrown out many of the “Corporate whores [Koch Brother Rethuglicans].” He wants to get rid of “trickle down” economics, and “move back to where tax breaks are awarded contingent upon the performance of desirable corporate actions [community investment and/or job creation, etc] and where they are not just allowed to park their new found largess in some effing hedge fund in the Bahamas…]”
There is much of value in this man’s thought, and I believe in most of Trump’s voters. When Trump does not give them the jobs and security they hope for, they are going to start looking around again.
And they will support the Democrats, if we have a solid proposal for jobs, for increasing taxes on the wealthy, and for protecting Social Security and Medicare.
Remember that one of the reasons our economy is in such bad shape is because of the passage of NAFTA and GATT, done when Bill Clinton was the President, and while the House and Senate were controlled by Democrats. Bill Clinton said, upon signing the agreement, “NAFTA means jobs. American jobs, and good-paying American jobs. If I didn't believe that, I wouldn't support this agreement.” “I believe that NAFTA will create a million jobs in the first five years of its impact. And I believe that that is many more jobs than will be lost, as inevitably some will be as always happens when you open up the mix to a new range of competition.”
We all know that it didn’t create good jobs; instead, we saw the end of good, union, blue-collar jobs in this county, with nothing to replace them. And lots of white collar jobs left the country, too. I saw one report that said that for every three blue collar jobs the U.S. lost, it lost one white collar job.
I am not an economist, but I can tell that our economy is broken for millions of blue collar workers of all races. We must do something to end this structural unemployment and underemployment.
The coalition that Clinton built is powerful, and represents the majority of American voters. We do not need to change one thing about that coalition. All we need to do is add one more element – a good jobs-creation platform, which will bring in the one oppressed group that we missed – blue collar workers. They will be happy to join with us “PC Libtards,” if they realize that our coalition is going to create jobs.
We must not build a verbal wall to divide the Progressive movement from Trump’s blue collar voters. Rather, we must build pathways to bring us together.