2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: As a black loyal Democrat, I say SCREW the white working class who insist on voting Republican [View all]EffieBlack
(14,249 posts)if you are on the receiving end of the damage that racism does, it doesn't really matter what is in someone's heart. I don't care if Trump voters personally feel that I am inferior to them. If they decided to line up with those who do feel that way to vote for someone who has made it clear that he feels that way and will use his power to impose and enforce policies that will do great harm to minorities, it doesn't matter whether they personally agree with those views. They are making it possible for them to be perpetrated and the result is the same.
So, claiming that they are not personally racist, that they voted for a racist for reasons other than race, falls flat to me. They knew and know good and well what the results of a Trump victory will mean to people like me and they voted for him anyway. THEY are responsible for the damage that is going to be done and all of the "yes, but I'm not a racist because I have black friends and I voted for Obama"s in the world does not absolve them of responsibility for this.
And for what it's worth, I'm also sick and tired of the "rejection of establishment" argument. These people don't oppose the "establishment" at all. They're all about the establishment - or else they wouldn't have voted for Donald Trump, one of the most "establishment" candidates the most "establishment" GOP party has ever run. What they DO object to is when too many women and minorities find their way into the "establishment." Then suddenly they become "anti-establishment" and want to blow it up. Interestingly, that's the argument they use AGAINST minorities and women - they don't have enough "experience." And the only experience that ever counts requires that they become part of the establishment. But when they do, they're attacked for being too "establishment.""
Don't believe me? Remember when the big knock against Hillary Clinton was that she didn't have enough "experience?" She hadn't been a Senator long enough, had not been a governor, had ÖNLY been First Lady and a lawyer and an activist. Not good enough Hillary. So she dug in, forced her way into the "establishment"- she became senator, major presidential candidate and Secretary of State. And when she did, those same people then attacked her for being part of the establishment.
On the other hand, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders - two white men who were so deeply entrenched in the establishment that no one seemed to even notice any more because, after all, they are white men - were able to present themselves as änti-establishment.""
It's a setup that women and minorities face all the time. "You can't come in the room because you haven't been in the room. Sorry."
"Wow, you got in the room. Too bad for you. We need people who aren't in the room. Sorry."