Prelude to Trumpocalypse
A little more than eight years ago, as I looked forward to the election of Barack Obama, I had no idea that our polity still had such a long way to go along the road to rock bottom. Nevertheless, I did have some sense of the deep alienation and hostility that prevailed on both sides of the American political divide. I believed then, as I do now, that we on the Left have tended to underestimate, if we even notice at all, the power of resentment as an organizing and galvanizing force on the Right in American politics. I think our failure to recognize the depth and sheer intensity of this resentment is one of the things that caused the Democrats to blow it in 2016.
Now, on the threshold of the Trump ascendancy, it's more or less impossible to overlook this resentment. We can and will argue about whether the correct response will involve conciliation or open warfare (for my part, I'm inclining towards warfare this week). But, however we proceed in the months and years to come, I'm hopeful that, so long as we manage to survive as a republic (let alone as a life-sustaining planet), we'll be wiser and stronger and thus more effective the next time around.
Now, on the threshold of the Trump ascendancy, it's more or less impossible to overlook this resentment. We can and will argue about whether the correct response will involve conciliation or open warfare (for my part, I'm inclining towards warfare this week). But, however we proceed in the months and years to come, I'm hopeful that, so long as we manage to survive as a republic (let alone as a life-sustaining planet), we'll be wiser and stronger and thus more effective the next time around.
Rereading this today, as we face the likely as not extinction of democracy in America, I find myself regretting that I did so little to make my concerns more widely known and generally to do whatever might have been within my power to make Democrats (including myself!) stop being so complacent in their assumption that hard won progressive victories are final and settled and that the rest of the country will just eventually come around to our way of seeing things. That, to say the least, hasn't happened and it's not going to.... what I'm seeing in the reaction to Palin is the sanctimony and condescension of the Left towards the Right - a condescension that I myself have expressed with considerable exuberance over the years. "Who are these people, voting for idiots who support policies against their own interests. Freakin' morons!" I actually heard myself use the word "yokels" the other day. We in the US are locked in a cycle of mutual contempt. We abhor their reactionary, fearful small mindedness. They abhor our mealy-mouthed pious weakness.
I'm not suggesting that we on the Left should change our positions, or our values, or our beliefs, or even our opinion of people on the Right. But I do think that we need to acknowledge the extraordinary power of the Right's contempt and anger and resentment of the Left's attitude - the "what the fuck is WRONG with these morons!?!?!?!" attitude. They're response is, basically : "Fuck you! We're gonna saddle you with George Fucking Bush for EIGHT years! It may make us poorer and more desperate - but that's a small price to pay for beating your bony Ivy league ass. How do you like them apples, you supercilious sack of shit?"
That's what we're dealing with. These people are so pissed off at us that they're willing to ruin everything - and they half know it! So we need to cool it a bit and give them some respect - or at least pretend to.
I'm all for civility, and I'm committed to treating people of all persuasions with respect, but I'm also through kidding myself. We're in a fight for our lives. We'd better start acting like it.