I live in a political bubble. A lovely, liberal, northeastern bubble. The majority of my friends and family are Clinton supporters, and the rest favor Bernie. One or two Republicans I’m close to voted for Kasich in the primaries. I’m pretty sure there are a few closet Trump supporters in my life — and on my Facebook friends list — but as long as they stay in the closet, we’re good. It’s what’s outside my bubble that keeps me up at night, especially now that Donald Trump has been anointed the presumptive Republican nominee. It’s what keeps me writing on and on about this election. I have to thank Mr. Trump for opening my eyes to the American ugly I didn’t want to see. I needed a wake up call…. [W]hat I didn’t understand until this election, until I started paying closer attention to the voices of ordinary Americans, is how terrifying it is to read what some of them write on public forums, or to hear them say out loud what they really think about other Americans. The racists and bigots of America have always been out there. There have always been hideous trolls on the Internet. But now they are emboldened in a big way by the bellicose Donald Trump. He’s opened Pandora’s box, and nobody can shut it.
For the past 30 years or so, we’ve entertained the collective delusion that we live in a post-racial society, that racism is over, and that equality reigns throughout the kingdom. It’s an easy delusion for White folks to engage in; we’ve never been the ones having to deal with the business end of racism.
Then came the internet, and slowly but surely, it’s democratizing nature became apparent and useful to those who previously lived far beyond the margins of polite society. Suddenly anyone with an ax to grind had a medium available to them allowing for the dissemination of whatever odiousness and unpleasantness added meaning and purpose to their lives. Racism, sexism, misogyny, men’s rights activism, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and all manner of hatred, bigotry, and exclusion became far more accessible, to the point of almost becoming mainstream. With the “mainstreaming” of such negativity, those who shared such thoughts became emboldened, crawling out from under their virtual rocks and basking in the sunshine. Once they realized there were others like them out there, they become emboldened, determining that the world needed to hear their message.
The came the 2016 Presidential campaign, when the remaining restraints came off and the dark side of humanity truly came to the fore. Thus far- and primary season isn’t even over yet- we’ve seen religious bigotry, homophobia, racism, sexism, misogyny, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, etc., ad infinitum, ad nauseam broadcast from sea to shining sea as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. For some, it is.
Sometimes I wonder if the mothers of these trolls know what they’re doing…or if they’re the ones who taught them to hate in the first place.
Imagine if you will, for a moment, being Malia Obama this week, thrilled to be going to Harvard, excited about the prospects of a gap year. She’s a 17-year-old high school senior, doing what millions of other 17-year-olds — like my own daughter — are doing now. They’re deciding on schools and making plans for their futures. They have big dreams, and an optimistic outlook. I just hope Malia didn’t read the comments following the story about her college plans on Fox’s website. It got so bad Fox had to shut down the comments section.
They called her “little monkey,” and “little ape.” One poster hoped she would get AIDS.
“I wonder if she applied as a muDslime..or a foreign student..or just a Ni@@,” wrote another poster. That one got the most likes.
This example is hardly unique. Indeed, it’s the sort of ugliness that’s become almost passé. It’s become such a frequent component of our culture’s background noise that it barely attracts attention anymore. All one need do is to examine the racist abuse directed at Barack Obama prior to and during his Presidency to understand that racism is alive and well. I don’t recall anyone spreading pictures of George W. Bush with a bone through his nose across the Internet.
The late Rodney King asked, “Can’t we all just get along?”…perhaps not fully understanding the patently self-evident nature of the answer- “NO!!!” The dividing lines have seldom run deeper. Whether it’s race, religion, sexual orientation, gender, yadayadayada…there are plenty of knuckle-draggers ready, willing, and able to demean and degrade those they’ve chosen to define as “less than.” Left unanswered, of course, is the question of what criteria it is that makes them ipso facto superior to other demographic groups. When you’re part of the White majority which has ruled America since its inception, it’s easy to presume unalloyed and unquestioned self-superiority…because it’s always been thus.
I’m going to write this again and again, right up until Election Day. You cannot view this election solely as a choice between two platforms, two parties, or two personalities. This election is about much bigger issues. It’s about the way…we look at people, and talk about them, and care for them. It’s about the soul of America and its relationships to the world. If you care about that, you cannot vote Trump, or stay home, or vote for a third party spoiler.
How can this man, who has fomented so much anger and hate, represent the United States to the world, and to its own people? How will minorities feel safe in the U.S. if he is president? How can this country stand to be even further divided? The chasm is already too wide.
There’s no credible or possible way to unite a people by dividing them and implicitly declaring one group to be superior to the others. You can’t build something up by tearing it down. While Trump during his victory speech in Indiana declared that “we’re going to love each other, and cherish each other,” he didn’t say how he’d accomplish that after wallowing for months in hatred, bigotry, and exclusion.
The truth is that this election is far less about which candidate we decide gets to sit behind the big desk in the Oval Office than it is about who we want to be. Do we want to be a nation of sheep, led by a man steeped in misogyny, hatred, and bigotry? Do we want to see a Men’s Rights activist who views women as collectibles taking the oath of office? Are we really to be OK with being a nation of haters, people willing to run down those we dislike and fear simply because elevate ourselves over those we define as “less than?”
Try as I might, I just can’t force myself to believe that Americans could so readily accede to the representative of the lowest common denominator, an intellectual and moral midget unable to play well with others or conduct himself in a manner not reminiscent of a petulant child. Yet that seems to be the direction we’re headed.
I’m not going to leave the country if Donald Trump is elected. I’m not about to hand America over to someone who’d be perfectly comfortable leading a country populated by goosestepping angry White men wearing brown shirts. I don’t want to give up my country without a fight…and when I say “my country,” I mean the America that belongs to ALL of us, not just White Conservative Christians.
We should be better than this…and I can only hope that Election Day will bear that out.
