Listening to Trump Nation
A really disturbing article on Vox over the weekend, about taking Trump voters' concerns seriously. In the CNN / MSNBC / NYT versions of that narrative, we wring our hands about how precarious their jobs are, how their income stagnation has left them behind, etc. All very satisfying to tell ourselves.
All wrong.
The message this research sends is very, very clear. There is a segment of the Republican Party that is opposed to racial equality. It has increased in numbers in reaction to the election of a black president. The result was that an anti–racial equality candidate won the Republican nomination.
I'm not going to sugar-coat it and I'm going to shorten it here: The core Trump voter is a straight-up racist. The white nationalist strain of the Trump campaign is the only one that actually exists, and it does not represent the wishful thinking of CNN, MSNBC and the NY Times.
Taking it seriously means, doing the hard work of starting to educate one possibly educable person at a time. And hoping that changing demographics finally smother rather than detonate those who cannot be educated.