"Whitelash"

My Facebook feed this morning is full of wild-eyed posts lamenting the outcome of the US election. An American colleague, who did not himself vote for Trump, apparently finds the same. He writes, “Sadly, my FB feed is filling up with HATE messages from Clinton supporters.” Apparently, to hear them tell it, Trump’s victory was a win for racism, for misogyny, for homophobia, for assaulting women, and for Fascism.

Stop here a minute. This means these people actually believe that a huge proportion of the American public, perhaps a straight majority, are racists, misogynists, homophobes, women assaulters, and Fascists. A “basket of deplorables.”

You can see right here why so many felt compelled to vote for Trump: the “elite” with their hands on the levers of power clearly hold the common people in contempt. Or perhaps, it is just a gambit to hold power: if anyone disagrees with them and their agenda, they do not engage in any discourse. They try to shout dissenters down with insults like racist, misogynist, homophobe, abuser, or Fascist.

If you do not vote for an obviously corrupt Hillary Clinton, and the obviously corrupt Democratic establishment that nominated her, you are a racist, misogynist, homophobe, abuser, Fascist?

Despite the fact that Trump actually did better with blacks and Hispanics than Romney did?

Obviously, such a prejudiced, dishonest, and self-serving ruling class must be rooted out. Trump, for all his apparent awfulness, was and is the medicine. Perhaps the medicine is rough. But this attitude is the disease.