Sorry, But I Don’t Care About Trump Voters’ Feelings
By: Dr. Thomas J. West Iii
Tags: Election 2020, Biden, Trump, Politics, Society

Sorry, But I Don’t Care About Trump Voters’ Feelings

Until they show some sign of contrition or acceptance, Biden supporters have no reason or imperative to reach out to them.

I distinctly remember the day after Election Day in 2016. I had to teach that day, and while I desperately wanted to cancel class, I went through with it anyway. Even though it wasn’t a class on politics, the issue of Trump’s victory came up, and it was immediately clear that many of my students were not happy about it. One student in particular said that she broke down crying when she heard the news, because she knew that her birth control was going to be in danger. It broke my heart to see these young people so terrified of the age to come.

That student’s admission came back to me yesterday, for no sooner had Joe Biden been declared the winner of the 2020 election than a chorus of voices rose up asking (and sometimes demanding) that Biden voters show magnanimity in victory. On Twitter, Ian Bremmer wrote: “Now is the time for every Biden supporter to reach out to one person who voted for Trump. Empathize with them. Tell them you know how they feel (you do, from 2016). Come up with one issue you can agree on.” John Kasich, notable for being one of the Republicans who spoke at the Democratic National Convention, expressed a similar sentiment, calling on Biden and his supporters to look to the 70 million people who voted for Trump and to try to understand them.

My response to all of this?

NO.

For one thing, this is an apples and oranges situation. Or, to put it more bluntly, it’s more like an apples and orange clown type of thing. As my student’s confession reveals, those of us who lost in 2016 mourned for very legitimate reasons. After all, Trump had already made it clear that he would institute policies notable for their cruelty and caprice (the Muslim ban came very shortly after he was elected) and that he would push for the all sorts of policies that would damage the most vulnerable. We knew what was coming, and it wasn’t long before we were proven right. Time and time again, Trump provided fodder for white supremacy and right-wing extremism, whether it was saying there fine people on both sides at Charlottesville or telling the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by.” Day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, Trump made America’s racial problems worse, and his defeat — which owes a great deal to Black women in particular — has given all of us a chance to breathe easily again.

And, given the horrors that Trump has unleashed in the past 4 years (the children separated from their parents and thrown into cages; a pandemic that still rages uncontrolled; unrepentant fanning of the flames of white supremacy; and on and and on and on), you’ll excuse me if I’m not feeling particularly gracious toward those who voted for 4 more years of this nonsense and terror. Some could, perhaps, be forgiven for taking a gamble with Trump in ’16 (though I’m very hostile to that line of argument), but at this point they knew exactly what they were getting. The big takeaway from this election is that 70 million people saw the rise of authoritarianism and white supremacy in this country and decided that they wanted more of it. This wasn’t because they were afraid; it was because they wanted to punish all of the people that they saw as other, as un-American, as dangerous: BIPPOC, trans and queer folks, disabled folks. They didn’t vote for Trump despite his cruelty; they voted for him because of it. As I never get tired of saying, and as Adam Serwer put it so potently, the cruelty is the point. The misconstruing of this central fact, whether witting or unwitting, is dangerous.

Furthermore, Republicans like John Kasich can take several seats for the foreseeable future. I will acknowledge that people like Kasich and the Lincoln Project did the right thing by throwing their full-throated support behind Bide. However, let’s be clear about one thing. This was an act of atonement for the damage they wrought during the Bush administration and afterward, subtly fanning the flames of white supremacy and homophobia and transphobia, doing everything in their power to obstruct and neuter the Obama presidency, turning a blind eye (and sometimes making use of) the toxic power of the Tea Party and other extremist far-right groups. Helping to get Joe Biden elected was the very least that they could do, and now their job is to continue giving the ground support that we need to get things done.

And, of course, there is also the fact that Trump and his allies continue to cast doubt on the legitimacy of this election. As I put the finishing touches on this piece, Lindsey Graham was on Fox News saying that this was an illegitimate election, having earlier proclaimed that elections in Philadelphia — a key part of Biden’s electoral victory in Pennsylvania, though far from the only one — were as “crooked as a snake.” The ever-spineless Marco Rubio went on record saying much the same thing. And these are the same people that we are supposed to listen to, to offer a helping hand to, in the aftermath of a Biden victory?

Again, I do not think so.

Now, make no mistake. I do think that in the days ahead we are going to have to do some important work when it comes to binding up the wounds that have shattered this country. However, the way to do that is not to simply offer empathy where it is not deserved and where, in fact, it might be rejected even if it’s offered. Don’t get me wrong, I understand the impulse of many well-meaning liberals who want to get to the work of healing. But true healing, not just a band-aid, requires a genuine mea culpa, and so far I don’t see any sign of that in Trump, his supporters in elected office, or his supporters on the ground.

More to the point, it’s quite frankly not Biden supporters’ jobs to do the heavy lifting when it comes to offers of forgiveness and empathy. That’s Biden’s job, and so far he’s done a marvelous one. Eventually, of course, we’ll be able to reach out and welcome them back into the fold, but in order for that to happen they need to be able to acknowledge their wrongs and accept some responsibility.

Until that happens, I can only quite Melania’s infamous sartorial eloquence: “I don’t really care. Do you?”