When the Mafia-backed entrepreneur and con man Donald Trump captured a majority of electoral college votes—although, of course, not a majority of actual votes, even before we inquire how the count was affected by “abnormal” Russian propaganda, “normal” Fox propaganda, tampering with voting machines (unproven to my knowledge but plausible), plus “normal” gerrymandering and voter suppression— I went to a local “women’s march” and made my vows to be part of “resistance.”
“Women” and “resistance” are imperfect words to capture the breadth of alienation from Trump. The march I attended was one third male and part of a remarkable worldwide outpouring of anti-Trump revulsion. It mainly included Bernie Sanders types and people even further left of centrist Democrats. By no means did it narrow to “women’s issues” or signal clear support for Hillary Clinton.
Nor did Trump’s mandate reflect a conservative-trending opinion, on the ground, although it obviously boosts power and morale on the right.
I insist that as a mandate, this election represented a relative trend leftward, at least against a baseline of recent past elections. The results register people who are fed up with the weak compromises of Clinton’s centrism and Obama’s hollow rhetoric of hope/change. And it registers Republicans who chose the candidate who spoke more about economic populism than anyone else in their field—at times even more than Clinton.
I take granted that Trumpism was always going to be a bait and switch, a con, in some huge part. Moreover, I can see that Trump was more outspoken in his racism than others in the Republican field. Obviously both are huge issues. But will that really make his policies worse than other Republicans would have been?
One might ask whether Trump was ever seriously thinking about a break with “normal” trickle-down policy—personally, I thought some infrastructure plan was at least plausible, although at best rife with bad compromises— but by the same token we might ask if he was ever going to pursue policies substantively more racist than “normal” Republicans like Ted Cruz, either. Clearly all of these issues were salient-- racism, sexism, and economic populism—but I worry that leftish pundits overplay the racism/sexism analysis when the economic part was at least as decisive.
Now Trump has blatantly betrayed his rank-and-file base on these key points.
So in my mind the upshot doesn’t translate neatly into “resistance.” In part it does. But the left should dial back some of its sweeping contempt for (“resistance” to?) the supposedly monolithic racism of Trump voters—since for starters six million of them earlier voted for Obama—and think harder about tapping into a majority mandate for change.
Tiny Protests Vs. Letters to Politicians Who Won’t Read Them
I also attended several other rallies and vigils. But as often happens in Knoxville, worries crept in about when thee demonstrations dramatized more weakness than strength.
One day when I felt this ambivalence and in any case couldn’t attend, I decided that writing my Congresspeople—all conservative Republicans, each with a self-concept of being thoughtful and principled—was neither a more nor less futile form of "resistance" compared to protesting. It's not that this is a zero sum choice! It's that I decided my efforts to fight the sickening future that Trump represents would include a steady stream of writing to these self-described principled legislators. In part I dovetailed with the project of Indivisible, but mainly I just fell into a habit of sending emails every few days.
I have not shared many such letters with many people, because it has seemed superfluous amid the flood of punditry that we swim in. But I’ve found it personally useful to write my thoughts, which often go beyond the sort of messaging Indivisible promotes (“please vote for Bill XYZ tomorrow”). Part of this value is measured in catharsis, channeling my daily dose of outrage.
The Value of Imagining Respectful Conversations
However, in another part this exercise forces me to imagine speaking to someone who has principled disagreements. It presses me to articulate arguments in a more respectful and pragmatic register than sharing the latest media links of celebrities attacking Trump, such as LeBron James in the news feed today.)
My study and teaching have made me mindful of a dynamic that runs deep. Conservatives welcome (even foment!) disrespectful hostility from the left, especially when this can be portrayed as swinging too wildly. They use it as rocket fuel for their own agendas. There is a fine line to walk between cathartic outbursts that can be used as weapons against you, on one side, and excessive tactfulness shading into passive despair, on the other.
I'm aware this can be a lose/lose dilemma, and I have no magic system to thread the needle. It's largely out of our control anyway, since Fox can always cherry-pick an outlier to quote out of context, even if they can’t find a more representative voice to quote fairly.
Still, I do believe that my practice of writing my Senators has helped me a little on this front. By extension, occasionally I'm tempted to post one of the letters here. Although it risks redundancy, sometimes I feel their quality is on par with published commentary that I read.
Also, since I sometimes get my personal catharsis from reading other people’s catharsis, i wonder if others might benefit if I put mine out there to return the favor?
Such was my thinking about my response to Trump’s budget proposal—his second stage after his (past) opening gambit of tax giveaways for the rich. Now it's time for “us” to regret that “we can no longer afford” anything except deficit spending for the military (plus, in the background, an outrageously overpriced, cruel, and inefficient health care system.)
I will post this as an open letter tomorrow. Today I want to wrap up by underlining how opposing Trump’s budget should be an easy call for almost everyone—undoubtedly including much of Trump’s base, who provided the mandate that put him over the top, and even extending to utterly selfish Republican billionaires who care about their own children.
MBE standard notice: The time I spend on this blog is not in addition to a Twitter and FaceBook presence, but an alternative to it. If you think anything here merits wider circulation, this will probably only happen if you circulate it.