Trump channels something — the rage and desperation of a people who know they don’t matter anymore. Whose lives and wellbeing have become a blight, an embarrassment, who are now disposable. Yes, they have may been a privileged people once, knowing the order of the world arising from the great struggles of the first half of the 20th century was arranged for them, and may be struggling for privilege again, but they also know politics has told them — economically and socially — “lie down and die.” That they are white, and crude, and prone to brutality and violence, frequently not very compassionate or empathetic, all-too-often confused by the world, and that their religion is simplistic and mostly idolatrous, all that makes it hard to sympathize with them. (I find it hard.) But you leave people behind at your peril. You can tell them to “lie down and die,” and some will. But many won’t.
And if there are enough of them, well…
I think Trump supporters get there is no longer a common social good which includes them. They no longer live in America that values them. (I know I don’t.) I’ve said before in this blog I do not believe in the common good. I don’t. Instead, what I see is a rhetorical trick on the part of the powerful to make the powerless pay the price for something they did not necessarily want or support while the powerful walk away with all the benefits, having made no sacrifices of their own. Common good is “watch the birdie” language. It’s empty and hollow, the calming words to disarm before the looting and the beating.
Trump says he can will us into a better world. I doubt that very much. Instead, his is the last gasp of a people losing their position and their place in a society where they will soon be only a plurality. And then just one more minority. Demographic change in America is a slow motion civil war, and Americans are trying to do something I’m not sure human beings have ever done without violent struggle — rewrite the rules of society to change who benefits, and elevate those who were and are on the wrong side of the rule. Maybe it can be done. That it hasn’t, though, suggests it cannot be done. Like any war between peoples over a slab of shared land, there will be little mercy shown and little magnanimity when the conflict is over.
“Lie down and die.” We will surely die. But we don’t have to be silent about it.