This Was Not a Change Election, This Was a White Grievance Election
Bill O’Reilly famously declared back in the spring that if any Republican other than Trump won the nomination that the GOP could count on the white aggrieved voters that powered his campaign would stay home. They didn’t stay at home, of course, because Donald Trump executed a campaign of dog whistles, outright demeaning rhetoric and spectacular lying to pick at the scab that is this country’s white grievances.
Trump famously blamed trade deals and government complicity in the disappearance of the kind of good middle-class jobs at places like Bethlehem Steel or US Steel or American Motors or RCA that let you support a family right out of college. He told voters that he would bring these jobs back and that he would get rid of the trade deals, the regulations and the taxes that were holding back job creation in the US. On top of that, he blamed immigrants for taking jobs, used Obamacare as a proxy for poor people taking your stuff and impressively – for a guy born with a silver spoon in his mouth – made these people believe that he felt their pain.
But he did it reminding these white voters that they shouldn’t be treated in the way we treat our niggers, our spics, our people of whatever denigrated color or gender who are *supposed* to be working these low wage jobs. He did it by reminding them that *this* is why they are unhappy – that they are living with the treatment that we usually reserve for our lower class citizens and Making America Great Again was always about making sure that working class white people enjoyed the privilege of being a white person – whether they were working or not.
And a few of our white friends on the far left were working this white grievance thing too – pining away for their grassroots to rise up and immediately dismissing anyone who did not fit their ever-changing vision of political purity – their complaint was that they were Right and White and they are supposed to be listened to. It didn’t matter that most of them (at least according to my FB page) lifted not one damn grassroots finger for anyone. It didn’t matter to them that much of the anti-Hillary narrative was not only false, but originated from right-wing messengers.
So now we have this showy handwringing and finger pointing about appealing to working class white people. Certainly, Trump did that, and he did it with a combination of an appeal to white supremacy and outright lying to these voters. Because he did not have a plan to bring back these good paying jobs. He just promised some magic because that is what these voters wanted to hear. Because, let’s face it, if you have a $25.00/hour manufacturing job, you get to preserve your superiority over those black and brown people who just made all of the wrong choices to make minimum wage at jobs that disrepect them.
And of course, he lied to them. Those big plant manufacturing jobs are not coming back here unless the government throws money at investors and weakens unions and environmental protections. Some folks are looking expectantly at an infrastructure package that may be the first place to work with this administration. Except that this package may come as a privatization package (which will cost everyone more) and will likely come with provisions to undermine Davis-Bacon. Jobs are not coming back from Mexico unless it is worth the while of the owners and that means figuring out a way to subsidize their profits and weaken unions. And while their Southern brothers are delighted to work at manufacturing jobs that pay just above minimum wage, there is nothing about the government conspiring with owners to disappear your wages.
Draining the swamp isn’t going to happen, since the Congress didn’t change and Trump is busily tapping the same old wrong GOPers who are very skilled at the bait and switch – Isn’t it horrible that these black people have food stamps? While they are busily handing over the Treasury to their friends. Because as long as white people can internalize an image of themselves as being better than *those* people, the status quo power structure can do what they want. Newt Gingrich has floated the idea of a new House Un-American Committee – this time going after supposed ISIS supporters ). Ken Blackwell (yes, that Ken Blackwell) is back to make sure that only white straight people have any civil rights.
But hey, we all knew that all of the Trump campaign was a pack of lies. And the white working class has been buying the GOP lies about tax cuts, less regulation and somehow American business will save the day. Since 2000, we’ve lost more than 5M manufacturing jobs and since 2000, we drained our Treasury to provide tax cuts to wealthy people and businesses and the manufacturing job loss continued apace. But white folks with the same economic anxiety of black folks and brown folks facing the same destabilization have been routinely voting for GOP Representatives, Senators and Presidents who routinely bamboozle them on the possibility of the revitalizations of industries that haven’t gotten enough money to return in the last 30 years and won’t.
I’ve been listening to plenty of people who supported Trump tell reporters that he won’t be as bad as he was on the campaign trail. Meaning that the rationalizations have begun. The SPLC has documented more than 250 hateful incidents since Election Night and that doesn’t seem to be slowing down. The thing that the Trumpeters know about their voters? That they will be delighted with policy and actions that make sure that their narratives and prejudices about black and brown and non-straight people are reinforced and government actions make sure others are hurt. As long as they provide the bread and circuses that reinforce their grievances, we already know that these working class people will continue to side with and vote for the very power that keeps them economically destabilized. And we already know that they are completely on board with the suppression of votes from black and brown people.
The fix? Y’all got to come and get your boys (and girls). Your community needs to rise up and take responsibility for itself. This campaign was focused entirely on white supremacy and now the racist and misogynistic themes of Trump’s campaign are going to be SOP for this administration. And White folks have been voting for this bamboozlement since Ronald Reagan and white folks need to get in the mix and critically engage your people. The white working class has been complicit in the demise of middle class-sustaining work for decades and you need to get them a clue. There are no new or better-paying jobs at the end of the grievance rainbow — we have 30+ years of data on that. New or better-paying jobs might be at the end of a rainbow that abandons its supremacist nerve endings and joins forces with the black and brown and female and LGBTQ Americans who *are* out fighting the fight for a better economic future — reining in Wall Street, higher minimum wages, single payer health care, unions. You need to go out and get your boys woke — the corporatist system continues to count on your boys to make sure that the rest of us don’t get more than two steps forward. Because all of this white grievance is working hard at killing this nation.