Reflection on the Election: What Was I Missing?

By Ron Young

December 2016

In the months leading up to the election I spoke-up quite a lot, mostly with family and friends as, together, we conspired nervously to reassure one another about the election’s likely outcome. Since the election, I’ve been more silent than outspoken. The shock I feel is deep and hasn’t worn off yet. It may not. Rather than diminish, the shock may grow as the Trump Administration seeks to implement his campaign promises. Reflecting on the election campaigns and how shocked I am by the outcome, I’ve asked myself, “What was I missing?”

The basic reality I was missing is how many and how much people across the country are hurting, fearing the future, feeling that the “American Dream” has died, and how frustrated and angry people are about the political do-nothing deadlock in Washington. I was missing the unique positive possibilities and very real dangers in the present situation as reflected in the unpredictably wild primary campaigns. Bernie Sanders, sounding sometimes like a Socialist, challenged the Democratic Party establishment, declared the need for a “political revolution” and mobilized millions to support his candidacy. Donald Trump, sounding sometimes like a fascist, rallied millions of voters and trashed sixteen other candidates, decidedly defeating several favorite sons of the Republican Party establishment.

 In this volatile context, no matter how inspired and spirited her slogan of “stronger together” and no matter how rational and realistic her policy plans, Hillary Clinton’s campaign couldn’t compete successfully in enough counties in the country to win the election. To Clinton’s credit and thanks to the moral wisdom of a majority of voters, she won the popular vote.  Whatever our views of the Electoral College, and I’m for reforming or abolishing it, we all knew and certainly all her politically sophisticated, highly paid political advisors knew that winning the popular vote would not be enough to win the Presidency. I failed to recognize serious weaknesses in Clinton’s campaign strategies. To many voters, who previously may have voted Democratic, Clinton seemed like “more of the same old, same old” in a year when a vast majority of people wanted some sort of, and many wanted almost any sort of, “BIG change.”

Polls suggested that Bernie might have done better than Hillary against Trump, but this hope would have been severely tested and probably crushed by the fear-filled negative ads that everyone expected would be aimed against him.  Sadly, we’re still deeply scarred by racism and the Cold War, so that a candidate’s hateful racist rantings frighten fewer people than a candidate being accused of being a “socialist.” 

And that reveals a second important reality I was missing, at least in part because I am a privileged, native-born, mostly hetero-sexual liberal (or progressive) white Christian man. I initially missed and didn’t want to believe how Donald Trump’s racist, anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, homophobic, misogynist rhetoric would swell support among many potential voters and would be shamelessly ignored or discounted by many decent folk who desperately, even if dangerously for themselves and others, wanted the most outrageously outsider anti-establishment candidate to win the White House.   

I also missed or underestimated how, if you believed Ronald Reagan in his first inaugural address when he declared, “Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem,” then Trump’s lack of any personal record of public service and his apparent appalling ignorance about the substance and complexities of important domestic and foreign policy issues could conceivably be viewed as positive qualities. People who voted for Trump got what they wanted, at least for now. Particularly related to helping working people, no matter how we voted, we all need to do more than track Trump’s tweets. We should track Trump’s promises. Does he keep or break them.

(See the NY Times Editorial 12/5/2016, “How to Help Working People.”)

The election revealed deep divisions among us, but also divisions within us. I missed the capacity of the same people just a few years apart to make very different political choices. Missing or forgetting that quality about us tempts us toward a more satisfying but misleading and all too simplistic understanding of our society and politics.

Taken together as a people, psychologically and politically, we are a schizophrenic nation. How else to explain our voting two terms for George W. Bush, then two terms for Barrack Obama, and now choosing Donald Trump? How else can you interpret Republican voters in 2012 decisively choosing Governor Mitt Romney, an experienced moderate centrist, over a primary field of more radical candidates, while in this election year they chose the most radical, unpredictable, and least experienced candidate? And how do you explain the finding that 10% of people who voted for Donald Trump in 2016 voted for Barack Obama in 2012?

So, where are we and what might I (or we) be missing now? I’m not missing the sickening sense of shock at Trump’s victory or the fear and foreboding I and many people are feeling about what a Trump Administration might do in the next four years. And I’m not missing how extreme rightwing political forces, including the Klan, anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim groups, Alt-right and Breitbart may now have a choke hold on the Republican Party, as reflected in President-Elect Trump’s choices of  Steve Bannon, Michael Flynn and Jeff Sessions for major posts in his administration.

What I fear we may be missing now is carefully weighing the value and effects of engaging in amorphous disruptive protest, marching with signs saying, “Resist Trump” or chanting “Not Our President” versus strategizing politically and preparing to protest and resist actual policies that harm lives that matter, whether the lives are women, LGBQT’s, blacks, browns, immigrants, Muslims, Jews, Middle East refugees or white men. If Trump acts to implement half of what he threatened to do, there will be plenty to protest and resist. The FBI already reports a significant spike in verbal and violent attacks on communities Trump threatened. It may feel necessary and right for now to march and shout “Resist Trump.” For the long haul, however, we’ve got to come together to build alliances and prepare for the battles ahead.

Let’s all get ready. If Trump activates his threats to deport millions of Latinos, possibly including young “dreamers,” municipalities and religious congregations should offer them sanctuary and many of us need to be ready to be arrested for physically blocking their deportation.  If Trump tries to implement a National Registry of Muslims, Christians and Jews, especially clergy, as well as followers of other religions and no religion, should declare, “We are all Muslims,” and demand to register.

In January on the day after the Inauguration we all should participate in the “WOMEN’S MARCH ON WASHINGTON, or in a local Women’s March. This period is also a time locally for reaching out to neighbors to initiate and strengthen relationships, especially with more vulnerable people and communities, to prepare to act politically, resist nonviolently, and help KEEP HOPE ALIVE!

Between now and 2018, when 38 governorships are up, it’s a time for lending our voices and support to realigning the Democratic Party in ways that make it able to appeal more effectively to millennials and to a broader, inclusive constituency, while not weakening support for women and vulnerable minorities.

I want to share one more thought about what I/we might be missing now.  in his White House press conference before leaving on his last foreign trip, President Obama movingly reflected qualities of realism and grace. Responding to one question after another about Donald Trump’s temperament and threats to Obama’s legacy accomplishments, the President spoke calmly, realistically and graciously about huge differences between the rhetoric of campaigning and the reality of governing. Obama said, “This office has a way of waking you up. Those aspects of his (Trump’s) positions or his predispositions that don't match up with reality, he will find shaken up pretty quick because reality has a way of asserting itself."

The President illustrated how reality will assert itself related to the Affordable Care Act and the Iran Nuclear Deal. He emphasized the huge difference between rhetoric promising to “repeal Obamacare” and dealing with the reality of 20 million Americans who now have healthcare who didn’t have it before, and he graciously pledged his support for any reforms Trump might advocate that would provide better healthcare for more Americans. On the Iran Nuclear Deal, Obama appreciated how we had a vigorous national debate over “pros” and “cons” of negotiating a deal with Iran, but said it’s a very different situation now that an agreement was achieved and all the evidence so far indicates that Iran is implementing everything it agreed to do. .

President Obama said that on some issues finding common ground may be possible, but he also acknowledged deep differences he has with Trump “on a whole bunch of issues” that relate to core American values and rights guaranteed in the Constitution. There certainly are some issues, including use of torture, women’s and LGBQT rights, treatment of Muslims, immigration and refugee policies, energy choices related to Climate Change, and nuclear weapons policies on which in addition to appeals to Congress and to the Courts to block dangerous and harmful policies, nonviolent resistance may be necessary. Even in these situations, I hope we can follow Obama’s example of being realistic and gracious. We should work hard to avoid labeling other people in simplistic negative ways, but instead, seek opportunities to listen, to try to understand, and communicate with people with whom we disagree, for some of us that may need to start within our own families. 

May we in our practice of politics, and even in our acts of nonviolent resistance be realistic and gracious, and may we help everyone to KEEP HOPE ALIVE!

Martin Luther King, Jr.

On the steps of the Capitol in Montgomery, Alabama

March 25, 1965

“I come to say to you this afternoon, however difficult the moment, however frustrating the hour, it will not be long, because truth crushed to earth will rise again. How long? Not long, because no lie can live forever. How long? Not long, you shall reap what you sow. How long? Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.”

Today at 74, compared with when I was 23 years old in Selma in 1965, I understand that the arc of the moral universe is a lot longer than I thought, and I understand better how our lives together with the lives of those who have gone before us and those who will come after us are a vital part of the arc’s bending toward justice.