Struggling to Relate... or Even to Attempt to Relate

I've been struggling a bit lately... "Lately" may be relative.

On election night, I got depressed and couldn't understand why people would vote for Trump, but knew it was what was going on.  That week, I fluctuated between being numb and being depressed.  I questioned how the country could elect such a man to be President.  Sure, I had been surprised like this before but it seemed just so wrong and so impossible that he would have enough support.

I slowly came to terms with it and started to try to understand his supporters.  Surely, I said to myself, they weren't all racists and misogamists.  I tried to keep an open mind and think about what people might have determined to be the rationale for voting for the man.

Months went by and I collected several reasons.

And then Charlottesville happened.  If you don't know what I mean by that and it's still 2017, I'm impressed that you've crawled out from under whatever rock you've been hiding behind.  If you want a brief recap of the events and some of the aftermath, try Quick Summary of Charlottesville Rally.

It sometimes reminds me of the scene in The West Wing's pilot where Leo is talking to Reverand Caldwell 

Caldwell: "Why does the White House suddenly talk like everyone in the Christian Right is the same?"

Leo: "Forgive me, Al. But when you stand that close to Mary Marsh and John Van Dyke, it's sometimes hard not to paint you all with the same brush."

Why is it that Democrats often label Republicans as racists?  Because Republicans tend to use dog whistles to call racists to their side.  

Why is it that I'm having a hard time not thinking of all Trump supporters as racist, misogamist, ignorant, Islamaphopic, homophobes?  Because pretty much the only supporters I keep hearing  all fit into at least one of these buckets.  It's hard for me not to paint everyone with that brush when the ones voicing their support are doing so in a way that leads me to see them as members of one ore more of the above groups.

I know a few Trump supporters.  I don't know them necessarily very well, but I know them and that they voted for the man.  I know the reasons they give for voting for Trump, I know that they still supported him before recent events, and I suspect they still support him know.  I suspect they support him still because they don't see him as giving aid to white supremacists or at least not much.

None of this is the hardest thing I'm struggling with though.

I generally feel that it's important to understand people and that people aren't evil.  I feel it's important to learn what our adversaries believe and try to find common ground, especially if they won the last competition.  But I've been finding it difficult to follow this.  I've been finding it difficult to keep an open mind about people who support our President.  I've been finding it hard to find the interest in trying to understand, in trying to find common ground, never mind actually accomplishing the task.  I'm not just struggling to relate, I'm struggling to have any desire to relate.

Quick Summary of Charlottesville Rally on 11-Aug-2017 and the events that followed

• Charlottesville, VA decides they're going to take down a statue of Robert E. Lee, a Confederate monument (I'm genuinely curious if there are many other countries where the losing side of a conflict have so many memorials to "protect heritage")
• A white supremacist organizes a "Unite the Right" rally.  Let's pause for a moment.  This is someone claiming to speak for the right wing of the country and saying that his position is one that the rest of the right wing should rally around... that position being white supremacy.  I haven't seen many right wing people concerned about this.  Alright, let's go on.
• The city of Charlottesville votes to revoke the rally permit.  
• The permit is reinstated by a federal court the week before the planned date for the rally.
• The rally begins and there are images and tapes of white supremacists, carrying torches ... tiki torches, but torches all the same, performing the nazi solute, and chanting things such as "Jews will not replace us."  During the rally, David Duke (former head of the KKK) says "This represents a turning point for the people of this country. We're going to fulfill the promises of Donald Trump. That's what we believed in. That's why we voted for Donald Trump - because he said he's going to take our country back."  O.k., that gives you some idea as to what the rally was really about... not just "protecting heritage" but rather about stating that the racists are back and willing to be way out in the open. 
• There is a counter-rally with people shouting offensive things at the white supremacists.... though to my mind, you don't really consider a match to be a flame when someone is holding a blow-torch nearby.... none-the-less, there is a reason I mention it.
• After the rally, the groups collide and violence ensues.
• James Alex Fields Jr drives his car into the counter-rally goers, killing 1 and injuring 19 others.  He later explained his actions as being his response to people abusing his car.... This is a scenario similar to stand your ground, I imagine, where if you feel endangered, you can commit murder without expecting repercussions.
• President Trump responds 
• At first by saying that there was a lot of hatred "on all sides"... here's where we come back to the counter-rally folk holding up their matches when others are holding up literal torches.
• He comes back on Monday, after many calls for him to be more vocal about denouncing racists and does exactly that... he denounces racist groups... "Racism is evil and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis and white supremacists and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans,"  Read that carefully because he doesn't actually walk back what he said previously.  He leaves the door open for many of his supporters to consider the counter-protesters to be members of hate groups.  Many believe Black Lives Matter, for instance, to be a hate group, even though the group is about trying to raise awareness of the violence toward blacks and the inequity and racism that still exists in our country.  This is like suggesting that someone calling attention to a house that's on fire is doing so in an attempt to light other houses on fire.
• On Tuesday, President Trump returns to the reporters to talk about infrastructure and, as you might expect, gets more questions about Charlottesville and his responses.  He states again that there is blame to be found on both sides and starts equating General Lee to President Washington, asking that since Washington had slaves, should we be taking down his monuments.  This is commonly referred to what-aboutism, where people respond to a question with "what about this other thing?"  The other thing tends to either not be nearly as problematic as the original element in question or tends to be on a completely different topic.  Furthermore...
• Lee's monuments were put up nearly half  a century after the end of the Civil War and were there to justify Jim Crow laws.
• Lee's monuments are in remembrance of Lee's actions in the Civil War, standing up against the big bad United States of America (and the rights of states to allow slavery), in contrast to monuments to Washington which are in remembrance of his support and leadership of the United States of America (with no direction within this rememberance, one way or another, regarding slavery)... subtle difference there, right?
• Free Speech rallies are planned in 23 states.  One of the first to be held is in Boston, MA.  The Boston event showcases rally goers in the 10's and counter-rally goers in the 10,000's (estimates put the counter-rally protest at between 30,000 and 40,000 people).  Police arrest 30 of the counter-protesters for violence... remember, that's out of 30,000 people who attended.  The rest of the rallies are replaced with online gatherings rather than in person rallies.

Republicans, Racism, and President Trump

If you've missed it, Republicans in the House and Senate have been outraged by President Trump's lack of racism denouncing.  Their interest in distancing themselves from leaders of racist groups is nothing new.  David Duke, former head of the KKK, has been disavowed by various Republican candidates over the years.  Conventional wisdom says that you can't get general support if you're supported by hate groups.

The Republican establishment certainly believes this.  After the defeat in 2012, they had an analysis of the election performed.  The lesson learned was that they should seek the votes of minorities because the white majority was dwindling and the party could not continue to expect to win if it maintained its thorough reliance on white men.  This, of course, comes after the highly racial backlash against Obama's victory in 2008.  The backlash saw racist dog whistle remarks from many of the leaders in Congress as well as blatant racist remarks from the citizens attending rallies against Obama.  There was a strong push to delegitimize Obama's win by suggesting he wasn't a US born citizen... one that Trump would join and come to the forefront of in the years after 2008.

2016 rolled along and the Republicans actually managed to run some candidates for President that were not white men... There were quite a few candidates (17), but among the top 10 were 1 white woman, 1 black man, 1 indian-american man, and 1 man of Cuban descent.  That's right, almost 1/4 of the Republican Presidential ticket were non-white-men.  That's impressive given the breakdown in Congress which shows that while Democrats having a little over 80% as many seats in the two chambers of the Federal legislative branch, they have 3 times the number of women (78:26) and nearly 6 times the number of minorities (94:16).  In fact, the Democrats have just about the same ratio of minorities to whites in office at the Federal level as the country has in its population.  That indicates that the Republicans have a long way to go to bring their office-holders looking like the citizens they are there to represent.

So, the Republicans ran 13 angry white men, 1 angry white woman, and 3 angry minority men in 2016.  That's a lot of anger in one room... too much, in fact, so they had debates of <= 10 candidates instead.  As you might expect, the woman in the group was the first to be taken down by the candidate that would, throughout the campaign, disparage and demean women.  Good news for Trump: white nationalists tend to also be misogamists, so the base of his support is well in hand.  Trump continued to name-call and demean his opponents and serving up red meat for his fearful followers in the form of suggesting that land-based immigration from Mexico, Chinese trade, NAFTA, Obama-care, and Islamic Extremist terrorism were the biggest threats to the US and only he knew how to resolve them.  Care to count the racist elements of that train of dangers?  Go on, take a moment to do the math and find the percentage of issues that are race-based.  Trump was calling things as he saw them, or at least how people thought he saw them, and that was a strong selling point.  Based on responses at rallies, being openly racist, misogamistic, self-aggrandizing, and anti-media were the biggest winners for Trump.

Supporters ate it all up.  Finally, a candidate willing to be openly part of that group that the popular culture has been so opposed to.  Popular culture, for decades, has been anti-racism and anti-misogamy.  Trump's supporters loved the concept that political correctness was why their leaders tempered their words and used dog whistles instead of being, what popular culture would consider, openly racist and sexist.  It's stifling our discussions, they would say, to not be able to talk in terms popularly considered to be racist and sexist without being called racists and sexists.  After all, how can you have an honest discussion about Mexicans being rapists, Muslims being terrorists, women being emotional wrecks, and Blacks being lost sheep, duped into voting for a party that doesn't represent them, all these topics, while being labeled as someone who believes negative things about particular races and women?  How can you possibly stand up for racist beliefs when you'll be called a racist?  It's hard, I'm sure.

Anyway, the point being that for decades, the Republican party leaders had welcomed the quiet racism and almost-under-the-radar sexism, using dog whistles, code words that many of us understood the true meaning of but could be denied.  Now, Trump was openly saying the racist and sexist things the dog whistles had indicated in a seemingly-defensible way.  Much in the same way that the anti-government undercurrent that has supported the Tea Party was fostered by the Republican establishment and right wing news and talk shows, the undercurrent of racism and sexism, while based in a culture from the past, has been nurtured and given aid and comfort by the same parties.  The Tea Party has become a problem for the Republican establishment because of a lack of interest in negotiating or doing anything that could be identified as promoting government... an issue that the Republicans trying to accomplish anything in Congress, even with control of both chambers, are running into now and undoubtedly questioning their push to get to this point.  Likewise, Republican leaders are looking at the support being given to the racists now and railing against it.  They were the ones that helped get us here though.  It's hard to take Fox News saying that the President is not treating the situation appropriately when they've been pushing us in this direction for quite some time.

So, here's the question I have: Are the Republican leaders in Congress right to think that they can't be openly supportive of white supremacists?  And are labels so damaging and so upsetting to people that they would prefer to empower the worst of the racists than to recognize that maybe, just maybe, they are indeed a bit racist and maybe, just maybe, they should accept being labeled as such when they say racist things.

Is Trump’s Support About to Crater?

Basket of deplorables.  That’s what the nazis and other white supremacists are to us.  And that’s what we think everybody else thinks too.  That’s why, when Charlottesville had a protest, that looked an awful lot like it was entirely nazis on one side, shouting “Heil Trump” and other slogans that are all too reminiscent of 1939 Germany, when those protesters showed up on our televisions and in our social media feeds, that’s why we all assumed the nation would agree that these were clearly the villains in the story that was unfolding.  Trump came out and denounced the hatred “on all sides”… surely *this* would do the trick, surely the nation would see Trump the way the left-of-center had seen him this entire time, as a repugnant racist, or at least someone who would be willing to play to repugnant racists and embolden them beyond what should be considered reasonable in 1950, never mind 2017.  

But here’s what the media and many of my friends are forgetting…. this already happened… not only had it happened, but it had happened in a number of different ways throughout the campaign.

Trump announced his candidacy by suggesting, essentially, that immigrants were the problem we were facing and that those crossing our southern border were nearly all (if not all) criminals of a particularly unsavory type.  “They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists, and some, I assume, are good people.”  It doesn’t take much to unpack this and it matches his style entirely.  He isn’t saying everybody that crosses the souther border is a criminal, that’s just what he’s heard about, right?  He’s not saying something bad about a rival GOP candidate for President, he’s heard other people saying it, but he’s not saying it, he would never, but you’ve heard about it, right?  But I digress… many understood that he was calling Mexican’s criminals and lowlife scum.  Many thought he was a joke after that speech… but he wasn’t…  and his supporters backed him.

Trump later called for a ban on Muslims entering the country.  We had thought you couldn’t get more blatant with your racism but there it was.  Subtly hidden within the fear that Muslims coming to our shores might be terrorists… that they are a great threat that must be dealt with.  Nevermind that a vast majority of terrorist attacks on US soil since 2002 have been perpetrated by US born citizens, and that you’re hard pressed to find any non-US born perpetrators who came here after they were 10 years old.  Nevermind that the terrorist attacks since 9/11/2001 are dwarfed in their number of victims by mass killings determined not to be terrorism.  No, these Muslim immigrants are the problem.  Many on the Left were shocked and enraged and thought, surely, surely this would indicate to the rest of the country that he couldn’t possibly be fit for the Presidency and the candidacy would falter… but it didn’t… and his supporters backed him.

Weeks before the general election, a tape came out that many on the left believed would be his downfall.  In it, Trump can be heard discussing his behavior toward women, which the left critiqued as sexual assault and his supporters considered “locker room talk” and the thought of the actions described as, while not necessarily appropriate, also not terribly wrong either.  Yep, the media and the left thought this was the end… but it wasn’t… and his supporters backed him.

Bill O’Reilly (I’m sorry, let’s take a moment to consider this came from O’Reilly… how far do you have to be from the beaten path of conservatism to have O’Reilly try to take you down) took his stab at Trump in early February 2017, pointing out that Putin is a killer and questioning the President’s respect for Russia’s leader.  Trump’s response was “There are a lot of killers.  You think our country’s so innocent?”  At this, media and the left thought, surely, surely now people will understand the concerns we raised about his ties to Russia… But they didn’t… no, his supporters backed him.

That’s why, upon brief consideration, I was neither surprised nor particularly disheartened when I heard the comments made by our President in response to what popular culture considers the ubiquitous villain… nor was I surprised when the media attacked him and called for the denouncement of white supremacists as an obvious move that should have been taken… nor will I be surprised if his supporters continue to back him.

The Republican leadership in the House and Senate called for a stronger response, but they have called for him to behave differently in the past, they have backed away somewhat on their support for him and then come back to his side.  The attack on President Trump surprised me, but within minutes of hearing about it, it made sense and it fit the narrative we’ve had for the last year.  

The emboldening of racists, of nazis, the villain we love to see our heroes go up against, this has been coming for a long time.  Our President has helped it along substantially and given this enemy aid and comfort.  But none of this is particularly new to the equation and so I don’t believe this will have a true impact on Trump’s presidency.  It will, however, have a real impact on the citizens who have to live in the midst of this crop of racists…. but that’s a post for another time.