In yesterday's very Onion-esque Washington Post article entitled "What is this election missing? Empathy for Trump voters", Colby Itkowitz interviews author Arlie Russell Hochschild. Hochschild's book Strangers In Their Own Land describes a five-year long study, much like an anthropological field project, on people living in rural Louisiana. The main takeaway for Itkowitz, and especially referencing the differences between Democratic and Republican voters in this election year, is that "neither side makes an effort to understand the other, but especially progressives... Without understanding, there can’t be empathy. Without empathy, it’s nearly impossible to explore common ground."
There have been more than a few articles lately about how the mostly rural, overwhelmingly white and under educated, supporters of Donald Trump somehow deserve some sympathy for their viewpoints, empathy for the often economically anxious lives they lead, and understanding for how these people have arrived at the point where they are willing, and happy, to back a presidential candidate as extreme, polarizing, and authoritarian as Trump. And who is supposed to be giving that empathy and understanding? Presumably, everyone else: all the rest of us who live in enough of a reality based world to be able to consider another point of view, unlike the subjects of Hochschild's study. In fact, those of use who actually have some empathy to give.
What's hilarious is that there are highly educated East Coast liberal researchers doing field studies of the downtrodden conservative masses in their native habitat, and reporters at big city newspapers spotlighting the anxieties of people living in other areas of the country that they would never otherwise consider visiting.
I'm not an East Coast liberal or have an advanced degree, but I do have some experience with the folks in the hinterlands of the country, the so-called "real Americans". First hand experience, as a matter of fact - until I moved out west to Oregon, I lived among and worked alongside the people of Middle America for most of my life. And I can tell you, flat out, that what motivates those that end up being Republican voters isn't economic anxiety, or opinions on free trade, or whatever level of outrage they can muster about someone's emails. While those may be legitimate concerns at one time or another, these are merely peripheral to the main driver of movement toward one particular political party.
At the moment when President Lyndon Baines Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act in 1964, which outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, the Democratic Party became the party of the minority populations of the United States, along with those who have an antipathy towards prejudice and bigotry. And everyone else has gravitated towards the Republicans.
This is history, it's a fact, and all of the weepy feel good articles in big city East Coast papers and online magazines about Trump voters needing our sympathy can't gloss over a basic truth: that the Republican Party has morphed into a white nationalist movement. They already control most of the branches of the federal government, and with this election, they are perilously close to running the whole show.
Hey, for most of you out there, it's no big deal, right? You're white, and that's okay. Well, I'm not, and neither are my kids, and it's not just concern for what's happening to my country, that I'm feeling right now. In fact, I'm starting to get pissed off. What is happening, right now, is that one of our two major political parties finds it acceptable to pander to a base of hardcore bigots, and thereby mainstream hatred and prejudice - not only towards people of color and non-Christians, but also those with alternative sexual orientations - in order to maintain their power, and relevance, in a rapidly changing demographic.
Getting back to what we were talking about, do I have any spare empathy or sympathy for Republican Trump voters? Wait, let me check my pockets, may have a few somewhere. Oops, sorry - I'm all out for today. Maybe next week.
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