All of us bear some responsibility for the results of this election.
Beginning with the faults of my side, one can point to two main ones: a lack of empathy for those distant from ourselves culturally and geographically, and allowing identity politics to turn toxically divisive.
It has always amazed me that we allowed manufacturing to shrink as much as we have. All the arguments about globalization and automation making the decline of manufacturing inevitable are seductive, and may have evidence to support them, yet have never rung completely true for me. We let those jobs disappear in large part because keeping them was not a priority, and as the putative defenders of working people, Democrats should have shown the most outrage at the hollowing out of American manufacturing. But we were indifferent because we coastal liberals have been able to adapt to globalization. Professorships of Media Studies are not, for the time being, going to be outsourced to Mexico (though who would mind?). Foreign competition has put downward pressure on wages, when it hasn't wiped out entire industries. Whether Trump is able to deliver on his promise to renegotiate NAFTA or not, at least he directly addressed the issue, which Hillary Clinton did not do in convincing fashion. That cost her the election as much as anything.
Let us be honest with ourselves. Liberals can be intolerant towards those not like themselves. Ask a liberal Democrat or Green Party supporter to name one good thing about Southern Baptists, for example. To be sure, I believe intolerance tends to be more intense on the Republican side, but those who see hypocrisy and inflexibility in liberal rhetoric on law enforcement and religion are not entirely off the mark.
I don't identify as a half Scots-Irish, half-Jewish American, but only as American. Personally, I respect your right to 'identify' (note how this has become an intransitive verb in recent times) as anything you want. I also recognize that it is not so easy for some people just to call themselves 'American.' This said, identities have unfortunately become fiefdoms in recent years, to be defended with verbal and various other forms of non-physical violence. This goes against one of the fundamental American notions, namely that our identity as Americans is our primary one. Though I have found identity politics frequently obnoxious, and at times quite deleterious to our nationhood, I thought Hillary Clinton had the best chance to unify us. Yet I can't dismiss out of hand the cultural alienation that led my fellow citizens vote for her opponent.
There is a third thing for which we all must take some blame: the coarsening not only of our public discourse, but of life in general. Baby Boomers, many of whom are now registered Democrats, thought that by obliterating bourgeois culture they would usher in a kind of paradise of personal liberation. Some people would have us believe that prejudice goes hand in hand with strict personal standards and veneration for institutions. This is the worst kind of intellectual laziness. I believe that drug use should not be legal, but should only involve the criminal justice system when it is a matter of large-scale narcotics distribution. This said, the entry of drugs into mainstream culture has been calamitous for the social fabric. The same goes for our decades-long undermining of institutions like school and marriage.
Trump got away with the outright indecency of much of his campaign because as a culture, we long ago decided that 'decency' was an arbitrary notion and therefore had no validity. Acceptable language and behavior would be whatever we thought they should be. That idea must have seemed well intentioned at one time, but has in fact proven immensely damaging. We have jettisoned any kind of universal standard for what is shocking, so as dreadful as Trump's behavior was during the campaign, it is not a convincing argument to say that he should have adhered to common notions of propriety when no such notions exist any longer.
The internet was a kind of cultural weapon invented by those who thought that upending all the hierarchies of knowledge distribution would give humanity unfettered access to the ways of enlightenment. Instead, you can make a convincing case that people know far less since the advent of the internet than before, and are much less inclined to seek out new ideas. The internet and its multifarious offspring manipulated voters; it did not inform them, all told. As much as NAFTA was vilified this election, did anyone take the opportunity to learn more about its actual provisions, as it is surely possible to do nowadays? As others have already commented, people chose instead to use the means provided by the internet to wall themselves off from uncomfortable facts, and frequently from truth altogether.
This is what my part of the political and social spectrum has to answer for. However, Trump supporters will be judged very unkindly by history. They voted for a sexual predator who made overt appeals to racial division and whose core supporters frequently behaved disgracefully, that is when they were not utterly horrifying. They should have been able to see that although their concerns may not have been addressed in a satisfactory way by Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump is a dangerously flawed figure who could, in a thousand different ways, harm their interests, as well as cause irreparable damage to our political traditions. Liberals are right to say that racism and sexism are resurgent in America. We should be ashamed, but instead many of us are defiant. I have every sympathy in the world for the predicament of Trump voters, but none for the choice they made on election day.
Beginning with the faults of my side, one can point to two main ones: a lack of empathy for those distant from ourselves culturally and geographically, and allowing identity politics to turn toxically divisive.
It has always amazed me that we allowed manufacturing to shrink as much as we have. All the arguments about globalization and automation making the decline of manufacturing inevitable are seductive, and may have evidence to support them, yet have never rung completely true for me. We let those jobs disappear in large part because keeping them was not a priority, and as the putative defenders of working people, Democrats should have shown the most outrage at the hollowing out of American manufacturing. But we were indifferent because we coastal liberals have been able to adapt to globalization. Professorships of Media Studies are not, for the time being, going to be outsourced to Mexico (though who would mind?). Foreign competition has put downward pressure on wages, when it hasn't wiped out entire industries. Whether Trump is able to deliver on his promise to renegotiate NAFTA or not, at least he directly addressed the issue, which Hillary Clinton did not do in convincing fashion. That cost her the election as much as anything.
Let us be honest with ourselves. Liberals can be intolerant towards those not like themselves. Ask a liberal Democrat or Green Party supporter to name one good thing about Southern Baptists, for example. To be sure, I believe intolerance tends to be more intense on the Republican side, but those who see hypocrisy and inflexibility in liberal rhetoric on law enforcement and religion are not entirely off the mark.
I don't identify as a half Scots-Irish, half-Jewish American, but only as American. Personally, I respect your right to 'identify' (note how this has become an intransitive verb in recent times) as anything you want. I also recognize that it is not so easy for some people just to call themselves 'American.' This said, identities have unfortunately become fiefdoms in recent years, to be defended with verbal and various other forms of non-physical violence. This goes against one of the fundamental American notions, namely that our identity as Americans is our primary one. Though I have found identity politics frequently obnoxious, and at times quite deleterious to our nationhood, I thought Hillary Clinton had the best chance to unify us. Yet I can't dismiss out of hand the cultural alienation that led my fellow citizens vote for her opponent.
There is a third thing for which we all must take some blame: the coarsening not only of our public discourse, but of life in general. Baby Boomers, many of whom are now registered Democrats, thought that by obliterating bourgeois culture they would usher in a kind of paradise of personal liberation. Some people would have us believe that prejudice goes hand in hand with strict personal standards and veneration for institutions. This is the worst kind of intellectual laziness. I believe that drug use should not be legal, but should only involve the criminal justice system when it is a matter of large-scale narcotics distribution. This said, the entry of drugs into mainstream culture has been calamitous for the social fabric. The same goes for our decades-long undermining of institutions like school and marriage.
Trump got away with the outright indecency of much of his campaign because as a culture, we long ago decided that 'decency' was an arbitrary notion and therefore had no validity. Acceptable language and behavior would be whatever we thought they should be. That idea must have seemed well intentioned at one time, but has in fact proven immensely damaging. We have jettisoned any kind of universal standard for what is shocking, so as dreadful as Trump's behavior was during the campaign, it is not a convincing argument to say that he should have adhered to common notions of propriety when no such notions exist any longer.
The internet was a kind of cultural weapon invented by those who thought that upending all the hierarchies of knowledge distribution would give humanity unfettered access to the ways of enlightenment. Instead, you can make a convincing case that people know far less since the advent of the internet than before, and are much less inclined to seek out new ideas. The internet and its multifarious offspring manipulated voters; it did not inform them, all told. As much as NAFTA was vilified this election, did anyone take the opportunity to learn more about its actual provisions, as it is surely possible to do nowadays? As others have already commented, people chose instead to use the means provided by the internet to wall themselves off from uncomfortable facts, and frequently from truth altogether.
This is what my part of the political and social spectrum has to answer for. However, Trump supporters will be judged very unkindly by history. They voted for a sexual predator who made overt appeals to racial division and whose core supporters frequently behaved disgracefully, that is when they were not utterly horrifying. They should have been able to see that although their concerns may not have been addressed in a satisfactory way by Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump is a dangerously flawed figure who could, in a thousand different ways, harm their interests, as well as cause irreparable damage to our political traditions. Liberals are right to say that racism and sexism are resurgent in America. We should be ashamed, but instead many of us are defiant. I have every sympathy in the world for the predicament of Trump voters, but none for the choice they made on election day.
