The Ugly Truth about the American Electorate

Democracy is a Verb

I have been trying to make sense of the Presidential election and my conclusion is more troubling than the actual outcome.?? I have had to turn off the news and noise of pundits and party leaders trying make sense of the nonsensical and to identify where the Democratic party fell short and why Trump won the majority vote. The fact remains that the real culprit for our nation’s potential slide into lawlessness and fascism is not Donald Trump. That would be far too simplistic and ignores the real source of the problem.?The real culprit is the American voting public and the collective misinterpretation by apparently more than half of the country about what this country stands for and what each of us as citizens is responsible to do.?

As was stated incessantly by VP Harris, her surrogates and countless other pundits, and experts, including former Trump Administration officials, Donald Trump and his running mate J.D. Vance, told us up front and clearly who they are, what they stand for and what they hope and plan to do.?? Top on their list is the mass deportation of immigrants, documented and undocumented. ??This could require the separation of families, once again.? Elon Musk, who will apparently play a dominant role in the Trump Administration, vows to balance the budget, in part, by ending social security and Medicare.? Trump lauded his own role in overturning women’s rights to their bodily autonomy. In many red states, women are already dying as a result. ??Trump and Vance portrayed women who do not have children, either by choice or nature as “less than”, and created a narrative adopted by many men (young and old) who supported Trump, that their identifies as men, and their personal sense of frustration about the direction of their lives, has nothing to do with them personally or with the decisions that they are making, but rather with cultural liberalism that has allowed women and their fellow citizens-of-color to advance, the influx of immigrants who Trump defined as garbage and criminals, and with the growing national acceptance of sexual pluralism, which for most Americans, does not impact them one iota in their daily lives.

While Trump, Vance and their surrogates attempted to wrap these MAGA prescriptions in the American flag and defined them as the true reflection of American democracy, they were, in truth, nothing more than racist, misogynistic hate speech, designed to create fear.? They were spewed by a would-be dictator, elevated and propelled by a fascist movement now overtaking our country.

Harris spoke of her middle-class roots, her focus on building an “opportunity economy” from the bottom up.? She offered plans for small business loans, a living wage, support for unions and collective bargaining and benefits for caregivers and child tax credits. The Democratic Party platform was focused on growing the middle class and honoring the working class.? Meanwhile, Trump rambled on about shark attacks and across the board tariffs. ?He referred to immigrants as garbage, accused Haitians of eating our pets, lied constantly about the state of the U.S. economy (now the strongest in the world because of Biden-Harris policy), the state of crime (now lower than it has been in decades), and the outcome of the 2020 election (which he lost). He also created a false narrative about an ongoing crisis at the border (after he killed a bipartisan border bill).? As a candidate for President of the United States, he referred to his opponent, a sitting Vice President, former Senator and State’s Attorney, as a whore, bitch and “dumb as a rock.” ?He deliberately mis-pronounced her Indian name and repeatedly questioned her identity in order to race bait. ?Trump is a convicted felon, has been impeached twice, was convicted by a jury of business fraud and sexual assault and tried to overturn the results of an election. Rather than being absolutely disqualifying, over 70 million American voters embraced it all and him.

In interviews of Trump supporters following the election, many of them young and of-color, I was struck by the repeated characterization of Donald Trump as “authentic”.? Almost to a person, they stated that they like that he “speaks his mind”.? What they didn’t share, defend or explain is what he actually said and what comes out of his mouth.??Pundits are now arguing that because Trump stayed on message that was resonating with voters, he ran a flawless campaign.? Are they joking?? ???

It takes work to be a good and responsible American citizen.? In a multi-racial, multi-faith democracy, which we are, it also takes empathy and an absolute commitment to be informed and to protect the Constitution above all else. Yet, voter after voter, chose to “throw the dice” on our democracy.? They admitted their silos.? Many young people based their vote on what they learned through a single interview on Joe Rogan and other social media, often of unknown sources.? Older voters admitted listening to nothing more than Fox News or posts on “X”.? Almost to a person, their reasons for voting were entirely personal; citing their problems, their grocery bill, their debt, their 401-Ks, ?and for some, their identities and worth as men.? They mentioned nothing of the collective, of their neighbor or of their community.? They seemed unmoved by threats being made by Trump to the rule of law or to our very democracy itself. When asked, several immigrants who voted for Trump, argued that his hate speech was not directed at them, but rather at current immigrants, who they claimed are now all criminals. They clearly missed a few pages on their citizenship exam.? As long as they felt the vote that they cast addressed their personal interests, to hell with everyone else.

Analysts are arguing that the Democratic party must “meet these voters, and particularly, the working class where they are”.? Where is that?? Based on my assessment, it’s not anywhere ?I think any of us should go.? It’s in the place where there is no empathy or belief in the collective, and where disinformation has taken hold and no one takes the time to listen or to read to anything that does not support their misinformed world view.? No one in the interviews I heard could be bothered investing their time becoming truly informed. Instead, they relied on others to do that for them and gravitated their support to a candidate who threatened to be a dictator, has promised to engage in retribution against his political enemies, and who already tried to stop the peaceful transfer of power, and all because he gave them permission to blame others for their problems. And, then there is the issue of VP Harris’s gender and race, which is whole other “kettle of fish” too ugly and complex to address here, but which is engrained in U.S. history, misogyny and bigotry.

Trump’s own generals warned us all that Trump is a fascist. Healthy societies and democracies elect leaders of character, who reflect the values of the culture.? Only sick societies elect autocrats.

I recall watching the Trump rally at Madison Square Garden where he claimed immigrants would ravage our communities and rape our women, where his surrogates called VP Harris the anti-Christ and said that Puerto Rico was a floating island of garbage.? A few days following, Trump pretended to perform oral sex on his microphone. Standing behind him were his adoring supporters, in their MAGA hats and waving the American flag, belly laughing ?and clapping when he referred to VP Harris as a bitch once again.? These are the American electorate who voted for Trump and who reflect what American society has become

As the democratic party pundits debate what went wrong, let’s be clear, this vote was not a referendum on Biden, Harris or a “Woke” Democratic party. It was a referendum on us.? No political party can force or make voters into good people or responsible citizens who respect democracy and the rule of law ABOVE ALL ELSE.? No political strategy can make men into good men who recognize women as their equal partners, or convince any of us that we each has a responsibility to respect, protect and defend the individual rights of all Americans, regardless of their gender, race, faith or sexual identity. Those qualities and shared beliefs must come from within, nurtured from birth through responsible parenting and education, supported by commonly accepted cultural norms that are reinforced daily in the communities where we live. This is how it once was.? While America has always been a work in progress and never perfect, until now we were headed in the right direction, toward a more perfect union.? Now, all bets are off. History has taught us that a threat to the rights of one group is a threat to us all.

Conservative pundits and Trump supporters are arguing that Trump’s clear majority of the popular vote is a vindication.? In my opinion, it is instead a frightening indictment of who and what we have become as a country, society and culture, and none of it is good.?

May God help America.