Over 59 million people voted for Donald Trump. I don’t know a single one of them—or, at least, I didn’t speak to anyone who was willing to admit it beforehand.
I’d be willing to bet—despite my eroded confidence in my own gambling abilities—that many of my college-educated, city-dwelling friends are in the same boat.
This is a bad thing. How are we supposed to change anyone’s mind if we never expose ourselves to alternative viewpoints in the first place?
I’ve lived in “red” states. I grew up in Kansas City. I’m sure there are people that used to be my friends who voted for Donald Trump. I purposely culled those people from my Facebook years ago because I thought they were obnoxious.
Could I have made a difference if I’d been more thoughtful, respectful, caring, tolerant, patient? Maybe, maybe not. But I certainly didn’t change any minds by isolating myself. Just like global isolationism isn’t the answer, neither is isolation from our fellow Americans.
We really are all in this together. Because let’s be honest, the people that are disappointed in the Trump win aren’t going to leave the country en masse or secede into the People’s Republic of California. And at the same time, those jobs that the predominantly white, rural middle class seems so anxious about nowadays—those jobs where you could raise a family and earn a pension without much in terms of skills or education—are absolutely, unequivocally, never coming back to America.
The knowledge and service economies are the path forward and the old manufacturing hubs aren’t built to be on that path.
And here’s a really ugly truth: liberal values like diversity and tolerance take a backseat if you can’t put food on your table. So if someone comes along promising to make it easier to do that, it’s probably pretty easy to overlook his sexism, racism, bigotry, and xenophobia.
So what’s the answer? Well, I don’t know. I suppose it’s worth noting that I thought Trump’s victory speech last night was surprisingly gracious—maybe we should give him the benefit of the doubt? At the very least, I think we can do a better job of recognizing that there are a lot of different structural disadvantages affecting a lot of different groups in America. I’m lucky (read: privileged) enough to have experienced almost none of them.
And then we can start having difficult conversations about those structural disadvantages. We can stop hiding in comfortable little bubbles, curated echo chambers on Facebook and Twitter. We owe it to ourselves.
It’s hard to imagine a path forward, I know. But we can probably start by setting aside hatred, suspicion, and name-calling—including all of the “-isms” that it would feel really good to throw around right now. The idea of the “shy” Trump voter actually gives me a little bit of hope. The reason that they were shy is because, deep down, they know that the offensive things that Trump has said and done aren’t right.
But they may have set aside their better nature in the ballot box. There’s a reason people talk about “appealing” to our better nature, though: it takes a fight. We are all base, self-interested creatures. All of us. But we can be better.
Progress happens in fits and starts. But the arrow of time only moves in one direction. Let’s try to do better going forward.
