America, we need to talk.
Great job on the voter turnout, but I need to check in with 71 million of you.
Well. This post has gone through several iterations, initially starting as something last Wednesday titled, “No matter who wins… America, we need to talk” but then Saturday morning happened and I granted myself at least a day for more breathing room and to think.
The short of it is, I still don’t know how to address the 71 million people who voted for Trump in 2020. Arguably, in 2016 he was a political unknown, and some votes were for something different/not the Establishment or Clintons/etc. This time, however, we have ample evidence of what a Trump administration looks like, and policy examples from when he had both a favorable House and Senate. I do not know how to tell you to care about people. No one bit on my feed request for Trump voters to explain themselves and how they can accept the negatives, but a friend from my hometown had a similar post so with some apologies to D, I’ll crib from the responses she got. In brief people didn’t like being told they were racist (and didn’t think they were), but felt that Trump was good for the economy/didn’t want to pay lower taxes/are anti-abortion.
~speechlessly gestures at monitor~
Because it was a friend’s post and not mine, I didn’t try to rebut (because hey, it’s a safe space for them to be open), but the absence of care for the various human rights violations and conflicts of interest is loud. It almost feels like I could write a thing for each of these individual topics on why we should not look for another four years of horrific immigration policy, lack of expertise, and denial of rights for LGBTQ+ citizens, but ultimately it wouldn’t matter because it does not affect them personally so why should they care?
This is why, despite allowing time for celebrating Saturday, the work is far from over. Even if their man lost the election, that’s still 71 million people who intentionally decided this was their choice. Whether they put flags on their truck or shrugged and were like, “but my [imagined] tax bracket rate”, they looked at the last four years and decided things were okay, great even.
“Be a gracious winner; don’t you remember how you felt four years ago?” some have pled. Four years ago, I had a breakdown wondering if I needed to buy a gun to protect myself, even though I don’t want to own one because of my history of depression. My emotions in November 2016 were based on fear: fear that racists would be emboldened (which happened), fear for my trans friends’ existence (which is a legit concern). Biden is a compromise candidate; if I had to think up someone to potentially pick off independents/conservatives he’d probably be what I’d conjure. I wish he were the radical left bogeyman that Republicans paint him to be, but it’s going to take a lot of pushing for him to even consider policies like that.
If I knew what to do with Trump voters, I’d probably have a job as a policy wonk instead of putting my thoughts into a glorified blog. From my science communication training, the information deficit model does NOT work, but then you need to figure out how to make people care and… obviously that’s something I’m still struggling with. Anecdotally, I know being open about my abortion experience and an advocate for choice has moved the needle on the opinions of some, but it’s very hard to measure. (and honestly, it’s not the smoothest method: a few days ago someone said I “didn’t understand” Christianity but they’d pray for me and thought we could still be friends… all in the same sentence).
Anyway, politics isn’t over (because politics influences everything in our lives and if you believe it can be ignored then… it’s because you have the luxury of ignoring it!) and neither is the pandemic, so thinking about how to approach people is something to consider as we move into the holiday season. Stay safe, y’all.