How We End Up with Trump in 2024
By: Zoe Naz
Tags: Politics, Philosophy, Culture, Love, Elections

How We End Up with Trump in 2024

Why we need to stop labeling right now

(Photo by Josh Hild from Pexels)

My Instagram feed over the last couple of days has been filled with jubilant celebrations reminiscent of some of my favorite late 90s hip hop videos: Champagne bottles popped over crowds, booty-shaking on the streets, and joints passed in cars.

Taglines read:

Democracy beat fascism.

Love beat hate.

Kamala broke the glass ceiling.

Biden broke the age ceiling.

How much change will come when Biden officially takes office is yet to be determined but, if history is any indication we will soon return to our regular programming of COVID blues, retail therapy, selfies, and disparaging the other side.

The truth is, the real tragedy of the U.S. was never Trump.

It’s that we’ve convinced ourselves to believe that if something is deemed wrong, calling it out as such will make its opposite true.

But calling Trump supporters racist won’t bring us any closer to racial equality. Calling wealthy people greedy won’t help the economy. Calling Ivanka a fake feminist won’t help advance women’s rights. And calling Biden our savior sure as hell won’t save our souls.

We need to save ourselves from the desire to label everything. Red or blue. Gay or straight. Normal or freak. Philanthropist or criminal. We aren’t helping the cause, we are merely accommodating it.

Let’s take the subtle wrinkles I noticed creeping up on my skinny thighs the other day. Within 24 hours of the discovery, I purchased a $95 bottle of magical potion to erase it all away.

Instead of drinking more water, exercising more, and asking the tough questions of why I’m bothered by it in the first place, I’d rather give it a name and slap on some “anti-cellulite” cream.

So simple. Such brilliant marketing. A nice way to confirm and perfectly package the answer for me. By giving in, I’ve merely limited my options to “rubbing once daily.”

The current situation in history isn’t much different. A quick look at Twitter and the following insults are used to describe Biden and Trump and their supporters: A fraud. A liar. A cheater. A fascist. A socialist. A cry baby. A snowflake. A dumbass. Unamerican. Low-life. Evil.

Labeling theory states that the “behavior of individuals may be determined or influenced by the terms used to describe or classify them.” By labeling Trump supporters, we’ve alienated and pushed people further in an extreme direction.

Some groups are based on science. Others are based on beliefs. Here’s the thing: neither should solely define us.

In the book, On Becoming Deviant, sociologist David Matza summarizes the effects, “To be cast as a thief, as a prostitute, or more generally, a deviant, is to further compound and hasten the process of becoming that very thing.”

Our two-party system forces people to choose 1 or 2 issues of the hundreds on the table to align the way we view ourselves and our values.

Does a Black person voting for Trump make them a selfish hypocrite or did they just so happen to prioritize another issue above race and vote along those lines?

Looking at early exit polling data cited by the Washington Post, Biden gained support amongst white men from 2016 to 2020. More surprisingly perhaps, Trump gained support among college-educated white women, and Black and Latino voters (even though Biden still won the minority vote by a large margin).

It appears that whether we identify as red or blue plays a more powerful role in defining a group than, say, women or men. But does someone who cheated on a significant other define someone anymore than say, someone who does yoga?

Does red or blue really tell us who someone is? Some groups are based on science. Others are based on beliefs.

Here’s the thing: neither should solely define us.

But the media loves sensationalizing everything into neat labels. Today Melania Trump is a poor, manipulated woman. Tomorrow she is conniving and evil.

With that rhetoric, how will we make the tough decisions to deal with a heavily indebted, divided, and sick America with that mindset?

To stop the cellulite, we need to do a lot more work than rubbing it in once a day. It’s going to require stepping outside of Republican or Democrat “values” and right and wrong thinking.

It’s time we let go of simple, rigidly held views of “one thing defining us” and realize that duality is what it means to be human. That seemingly opposing ideas — a philanthropist Trump supporter who recycles— can be true. We just need to open our minds for people who look, act, and behave differently from us. And frankly, grew up in a different environment.

The idea that we’ve taken to disowning friends and family members based on politics terrifies me more than Trump did himself.

That doesn’t mean we can’t stand up for racism, sexism, and hate but rather than jumping on the anti-Trump or anti-Biden cream, let’s acknowledge how the other side feels. Over the next week, call up someone who voted for Trump and listened to their frustrations or tell someone who voted for Biden congrats and find out why it matters to them. You don’t add gasoline to a fire.

In Dave Chappelle’s somber SNL address after the election, he perfectly sums up what happens when we label and offers a resolution:

“Everyone knows how that feels. But here’s the difference between me and you: You guys hate each other for that, and I don’t hate anybody. I just hate that feeling. That’s what I fight through. That’s what I suggest you fight through. You’ve got a find a way to live your life. You’ve got to find a way to forgive each other. You’ve got to find a way to find joy in your existence in spite of that feeling.”

Because the opposite of what he is describing, the current “with us or against us” mentality, will bury progress and leave resentment and hate in its wake. And that’s precisely how we may as well end up with Trump again in 2024.