All the things I'm upset about right now
Nov. 9th, 2016 08:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chocolatepotThere's been this narrative going around for months that Trump voters are mainly rural, white, and working-class, and Clinton voters are urban, white, and upper-middle class. It's been super obnoxious to me the whole time because OBVIOUSLY there are many more demographics than that. There were plenty of middle class ruralites supporting Trump because they're close-minded bigots and certainly plenty of poor people in cities supporting Clinton because liberal/progressive policies help them. I've been rural my whole life, apart from the two years I lived in NYC, but my experience doesn't count? Whatever. And just going by numbers, there aren't enough rural, white, working-class voters for this election to be mainly about them.
But the thing that really gets to me about this narrative is that it goes along with a proscription of blaming said conservative voters for their choices. I saw it with Brexit and I've been seeing it for the past few months in the US. The assumption is that
a) you are criticizing because you live a comfortable, affluent urban or suburban existence and cannot comprehend what it's like to live in a vast rural hinterland
and
b) there is legitimately no way for this demographic to make their problems known except to rear up and ruin everyone else's lives every so often
and these are so obnoxious to me because a) they obviously don't apply to everyone and certainly don't apply to me, and b) they're false. It's false because it ignores the influence of wealthy conservatives who induce them to fear things they don't need to fear and to associate their legitimate grievances away from actual attempts at solutions put forth by liberals (e.g. UNIONS, raising the minimum wage, increasing social programs, helping local businesses and entrepreneurs instead of national chains that outsource production), and it ignores the fact that a bunch of their grievances are really just that they're not the main consideration anymore, that the privileges they counted on to keep them on top despite being poor and living in the middle of nowhere - being white and straight - are being discussed rather than accepted as the default or moral high ground. Also, c) the implication is that this one specific disadvantaged group is allowed to be cruel and lash out, but the others are obliged to be endlessly forgiving and not comment on that.
I've been annoyed with the way both the news media and the non-news media handled the general election. The former obviously deserves a lot of blame for focusing on her ~scandals and holding off with their true opinions on Trump's danger/lying until it had already become clear that he could win, but the latter isn't that much better for treating Trump like a funny joke and Hillary like a bad candidate until the same point.
There's more I'm upset about obviously, but I just have to get this out of my head.
EDIT: Some more things that have been upsetting me.
- The people (who I'm assuming are third-party voters) defending third-party voters by saying that they wouldn't have voted for Hillary anyway: that's not an excuse! It still makes you pretty awful, that you fetishized the idea of voting just to stick it to the man/held such bad views that Johnson or Stein was actually more in line with your thinking. It's still your fault, as it is Trump voters. We're not talking about pirating Game of Thrones here - the logic is not the same.
- I didn't realize how many people stayed home until this afternoon. LITERALLY BREXIT. I can't wait to hear from Google that people were searching "what is donald trump's platform" yesterday evening after the polls closed. And the interviews on the news from people who say they didn't vote/voted for Trump because they didn't think this would happen.
- Knowing that Trump's RWW-C voters are still going to get screwed over, and are not going to make a change in their voting habits later on. Because they are mainly attracted by the idea that the problem is that we're giving too much to those who aren't straight, white, and Christian (see: this place, last week), and it's always going to be their fault when things go bad.
- The narrative that the problem is that we didn't have a candidate who's a showman. WTF? For one thing, this is the one place you let practicality beat idealism? For another, this seems like a way to weasel out of responsibility for not making healthy choices.
But the thing that really gets to me about this narrative is that it goes along with a proscription of blaming said conservative voters for their choices. I saw it with Brexit and I've been seeing it for the past few months in the US. The assumption is that
a) you are criticizing because you live a comfortable, affluent urban or suburban existence and cannot comprehend what it's like to live in a vast rural hinterland
and
b) there is legitimately no way for this demographic to make their problems known except to rear up and ruin everyone else's lives every so often
and these are so obnoxious to me because a) they obviously don't apply to everyone and certainly don't apply to me, and b) they're false. It's false because it ignores the influence of wealthy conservatives who induce them to fear things they don't need to fear and to associate their legitimate grievances away from actual attempts at solutions put forth by liberals (e.g. UNIONS, raising the minimum wage, increasing social programs, helping local businesses and entrepreneurs instead of national chains that outsource production), and it ignores the fact that a bunch of their grievances are really just that they're not the main consideration anymore, that the privileges they counted on to keep them on top despite being poor and living in the middle of nowhere - being white and straight - are being discussed rather than accepted as the default or moral high ground. Also, c) the implication is that this one specific disadvantaged group is allowed to be cruel and lash out, but the others are obliged to be endlessly forgiving and not comment on that.
I've been annoyed with the way both the news media and the non-news media handled the general election. The former obviously deserves a lot of blame for focusing on her ~scandals and holding off with their true opinions on Trump's danger/lying until it had already become clear that he could win, but the latter isn't that much better for treating Trump like a funny joke and Hillary like a bad candidate until the same point.
There's more I'm upset about obviously, but I just have to get this out of my head.
EDIT: Some more things that have been upsetting me.
- The people (who I'm assuming are third-party voters) defending third-party voters by saying that they wouldn't have voted for Hillary anyway: that's not an excuse! It still makes you pretty awful, that you fetishized the idea of voting just to stick it to the man/held such bad views that Johnson or Stein was actually more in line with your thinking. It's still your fault, as it is Trump voters. We're not talking about pirating Game of Thrones here - the logic is not the same.
- I didn't realize how many people stayed home until this afternoon. LITERALLY BREXIT. I can't wait to hear from Google that people were searching "what is donald trump's platform" yesterday evening after the polls closed. And the interviews on the news from people who say they didn't vote/voted for Trump because they didn't think this would happen.
- Knowing that Trump's RWW-C voters are still going to get screwed over, and are not going to make a change in their voting habits later on. Because they are mainly attracted by the idea that the problem is that we're giving too much to those who aren't straight, white, and Christian (see: this place, last week), and it's always going to be their fault when things go bad.
- The narrative that the problem is that we didn't have a candidate who's a showman. WTF? For one thing, this is the one place you let practicality beat idealism? For another, this seems like a way to weasel out of responsibility for not making healthy choices.
