Donald Trump is a bullshitter and decades-long con man, and much (but not most) of the country fell for it. How to bring people who voted for him around? “Expose and educate.” Create a place for them to go when they realize Trump and his Administration doesn’t give a shit about them, and never did.
The press takes [Donald Trump] literally, but not seriously; his supporters take him seriously, but not literally.
– Salena Zito, The Atlantic, September 23, 2016
I feel as if this is a vote against the future, and the future is going to happen anyway.
– Gloria Steinem, WNYC Interview, November 9, 2016
Trump’s mindset can change at a whim, but he’s already telling people in his “Thank you” post-election rallies that he was never serious about jailing Clinton, or “draining the swamp”. He was bullshitting them. The Daily Show covered this well.
Trump’s brief political career has been based on racism, sexism, and claiming to be anti-Establishment. His team is almost entirely Establishment people, even worse, C and D-listers in the Establishment. Scrubs so low-rent that even the George W. Bush Administration would likely ignore them.
Not all Trump voters are sexist or racist, but all sexists and racists voted for Trump. What about reaching out to the other people? People who have some amount of sense, but got tricked or are “low-info” or ignorant about national matters?
Sam Harris had a good discussion with Paul Bloom, Psychology Professor at Yale. Among the many good points worth listening to, Bloom said that people may support “Building a wall” or “Lock her up” or a Muslim registry not as a serious point, but as a values signifier. Meaning they don’t think of it with any depth, it’s a quick statement they can make that shows they are “Boo… to Obama” or “Boo… to Hillary”. In short, people may be irrational on national or international matters, but more sensible on local matters, or on a personal level. Say, at a town meeting having to do with funding roads they may find more in common with other people along the political spectrum, that they have given the local matter more thought, than when they yell or smile at chants of “Lock her up!”
Longtime Bill Clinton campaign strategist James Carville had a mantra at a recent event shown on BookTV. (He opened by asking the crowd: “How many people are scared? How many people are very scared? Well, you’re not scared enough! It’s a disaster! Our President-Elect doesn’t know the first thing about the first thing.”) His mantra: “Expose and educate.”
Carville points out that the Trump/Pence Administration will have a lot of power, and will run roughshod, but do not have the power of the will of the people. And that is what we need to build up.
There will likely be times when we don’t have the ability to talk things out first, we need to fight first to protect people. Maybe we need to sign ourselves up for the Muslim registry, along with Muslims. Maybe we need to tell an empowered racist to shut the fuck up in person at the J.C. Penny store when she yells at Latinas (or better still, ignore the racist and express support to the people being picked on).
But realize that George W. Bush left office the least popular President in the 70 years it had been measured (22% approval rating). And that came after he won the popular vote in 2004 (maybe, Ohio votes were a scandal). Many Bush voters came to dislike the person they voted for. Expose & educate. Many Trump voters will be slow, but may come around to disliking the bullshitter con man they voted for. Expose the public to what is happening. Educate them on what to do with that knowledge to raise hell to effect needed changes. Do more than post on Facebook. That will build more people power, people power needed to balance & battle against the Establishment elites running the Trump White House.
