I get that many of them are voting their wallets and their hatred of all things Clinton. I get that many of them are what I would generally consider good folks who carefully considered their options and then came down on the other side of the political line from me. That's their prerogative in this fine country.
I also think that deep down in some small corner of the psyches of some of these people, they are ashamed of their association with Trump. Or worse, that they know they *should* be, but they aren't. Because deep down, they care less about people who aren't able and straight and Christian and white and male (don't even get me started on white women here) than they should, and they know it. So when they get called out for voting Trump, they get disproportionately offended.
Here's how I see it: you may not have voted Trump because you agree with all of his loathsome personal beliefs. You may have supported him because of his economic policy or smaller-government leanings or outsider status or whatever. But YOU SUPPORTED HIM. That's the bottom line. You helped put that man in office. So, now, here's what you need to do. Assuming that you actually care about people who aren't ablebodied Christian white males, anyway.
You need to actively, vocally stand up for the immigrants, the people of color, the women, the LGBTQ, the nonChristian, all those whose enemies have just been validated and invigorated by these election results. Otherwise, no matter why you voted Trump, the generalizations apply to you too.
Yep!
ReplyDeleteI'm not letting people off the hook - not writing them off as deplorables. I'm still holding them accountable to be good people.
And this is where my privilege as a middle-aged white woman comes into play. I get to have those conversations and not be generally personally attacked (though the misogyny is so strong and I need to come up with some good comebacks on that).
The defensiveness is so interesting - I hear a lot of "what a nation of pussies we have, everybody is so easily offended!" - yet, challenge their candidate and suddenly they are so offended.
Well, they better get used to being offended because I'm just getting started with the challenges.
But here is also this: that post that I put on FB about expecting even my Trump-voter friends to stand up as allies? A lot of the people who "liked" that post were Trump voters and Gary Johnson voters. That gives me hope. Maybe they will stand up to him. They damn well better!
I loved that FB post BTW. And the one I had a few days ago...the women who said they voted Trump really are good people. Even speaking for myself, it's a tough time to be a moderate Republican in this country. :( What really saddens me, though, is the almost total silence of my male FB friends on any of these posts. As you say, misogyny runs so deep. :(
ReplyDeleteMen have been silent for so long I've noticed. I have a few male friends who speak up against misogyny ... they are mostly millennials of color and mostly gay.
DeleteIt's time for us to start pushing on men to speak up. Just as it's up to us to challenge racism due to our privilege, they need to challenge sexism due to theirs.
Amen. Could not agree more. Many of my friends are older white men; my work is cut out for me. Luckily in many cases I can solve puzzles that they cannot and do things that they physically cannot, so I don't get much crap from them in general. The prejudice runs deep though. :(
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