{"id":7005,"date":"2020-10-21T02:46:51","date_gmt":"2020-10-21T02:46:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newmatilda.com\/?p=138671"},"modified":"2020-10-21T02:46:51","modified_gmt":"2020-10-21T02:46:51","slug":"what-a-post-trump-america-looks-like-is-anyones-guess","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2020\/10\/21\/what-a-post-trump-america-looks-like-is-anyones-guess\/","title":{"rendered":"What A Post-Trump America Looks Like Is Anyone\u2019s Guess"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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With or without Donald Trump at the helm, the future\nof the United States should concern everyone, writes Stephen Scher.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2016, 63 million\nAmericans voted for Donald Trump, which was puzzling. Why vote for someone with\nthe presentation of a used-car salesman when you could vote, instead, for a\nperson who was one of the most qualified presidential candidates in U.S.\nhistory? The answer, in retrospect, is that Trump played into the anger of\naging white Christians in the \u2018heartland\u2019, into the anti-elitism and distrust\nof government that has long been promoted by the Republican party, and,\ndecisively, into the deep dislike of Hilary Clinton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fine, but an even\ngreater puzzle remains. Why, after nearly four years of watching the\nshenanigans of Donald Trump, who is without doubt the worst, most destructive\npresident in American history, are there still tens of millions of Americans\nwho will vote for him to remain in office? After four years in which Trump has\ndone his best to shred democracy in America and destroy its position of\ninternational leadership, why would anyone vote for him? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, just this past week\u2014during the interview that occurred in lieu of a presidential debate\u2014Trump was described as acting not like the President but like \u2018someone\u2019s crazy uncle\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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(IMAGE: Prachatai, Flickr)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The situation is\nclear: instead of making America great again, Trump has turned the country into\nthe world\u2019s laughingstock, and not just because of its handling of the\ncoronavirus. Trump supporters\u2019 unresponsiveness to the facts leaves one\nwondering whether they are actually sentient. Do their brains still work?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My own explanation \u2014 the\nonly thing that makes any sense no matter how much I read and how much I\ndiscuss the situation with others \u2014 is to invoke the Indian legend about the\ntwo wolves. On the standard telling of the legend, a grandfather tells his\ngrandson that two wolves, one bad and one good, reside within every person. In\nresponse to the grandson\u2019s question about which one ultimately wins, the\ngrandfather says, \u2018The one you feed.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Racism has been part\nof America since its inception, and Trump has done a brilliant job of feeding\nit, and to the extent that nothing else really matters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As originally adopted\nin 1787, the US Constitution included numerous clauses protecting slavery, and\nblack slaves had no specific rights under it. As everyone knows, slavery was at\nthe centre of the Civil War (1861\u201365), and it was only in 1870, with the\npassage of the Fifteenth Amendment, that black men (not women) obtained the\nright to vote. Although women were given the right to vote with the\nratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, the voting rights of blacks\nwere still sufficiently compromised half a century later that fundamental new legislation\n\u2014 the Voting Rights Act of 1965 \u2014 was needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But here\u2019s what I\nthink is the crux of understanding the present political situation. Although\nthe racist history of America cannot be denied, there was also a widespread, public,\nshared recognition that racial prejudice was simply wrong and that judging (or\nprejudging) persons by the colour of their skin was wrong too. It was not that\nthe prejudice was not, in some way, always present, but that it was, insofar as\npossible, to be disregarded and suppressed. In tens of millions of American\nhomes, this sort of prejudice was not just unwelcome, but to be countered and,\nover time, eliminated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The strength of racial prejudice, along with the percentage of persons embracing it, varies dramatically from one part of the United States to another, and across all socioeconomic levels. It is only in the last few months that states in the deep South have been willing to surrender some of the enduring symbols of that region\u2019s rebellion against the North during the Civil War. But some serious prejudice endures even in what are the most civil and enlightened regions of the country. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A #blacklivesmatter march in New York in 2014. (IMAGE: A Jones, Flickr)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Just outside of\nChicago, the village of Kenilworth \u2014 one of the richest in the United States \u2014 retained\nand tried to enforce \u2018restrictive covenants\u2019 (no blacks, no Jews) on property\nsales until at least, as I remember, the middle of the 1970s. And the social\npressure against black or Jewish or even Asian property owners continued at\nleast into the 1980s. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Likewise, in major\nAmerican universities and university communities, both overt racism and\nanti-Semitism were common throughout the same period. Oddly enough, in the\n1970s, when the federal government started to push universities to pursue\nracial equality in their faculty hiring decisions, the persons who most\nbenefited initially were relatively light-skinned Oxford- and\nCambridge-educated blacks who had been drawn to those universities from\nthroughout the British colonies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But despite all of the\nabove, racism was generally considered unacceptable and wrong, no matter what\none\u2019s own baseline reactions might be, by the large majority of the American\npopulation. One must note here, however, that severe, de facto racial\ninequalities have continued into the present. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the general\npopulation\u2019s nominal objections to racism, the impact of skin colour on one\u2019s\nlife prospects remains daunting. The quality of schooling, housing, health\ncare, public safety, and all vitally important social goods continues to be\nlower in communities of colour despite the absence of explicitly racial\npolicies in many locales.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the last four years\nof Trump and Trumpism, we have seen utterly astonishing outpourings of anger\nand hostility against anyone and anything that isn\u2019t white and Christian. To\nreturn to the Indian legend, Trump has fed the bad wolf, and what has long been\nlatent and suppressed has suddenly, for his loyal supporters, become a source\nof angry opposition to the values and institutions at the core of America\u2019s\ndemocracy. Trump has brought out feelings and encouraged actions that are seen\nas way, way beyond the pale by the vast numbers of Americans for whom \u2018America\nFirst\u2019 is American individualism run amok.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump is willing to\nfeed this destructiveness no matter what the cost. He is a malignant narcissist\nfeeding his own ego by bringing out the very worst part of the complex amalgam of\npeople and cultures that we know as America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With good luck, Joe\nBiden will become president on January 20, 2021. And he will surely make every\neffort to feed the nation\u2019s \u2018good wolf\u2019. The question is whether that effort,\nno matter how well-intended and no matter how strong and persistent, will succeed\nin quelling social and political conflict. Millions of loyal Trumpers will\nremain angry and hostile, no doubt, but the hope is that they will be relegated\nonce again to the radical fringe. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One would hope, too, that the recent protests on behalf of Black Lives Matter<\/em> signals new social and political efforts to actually improve black lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Former US vice president and 2020 hopeful, Joe Biden, pictured in January this year. (IMAGE: Phil Roeder, Flickr)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Another unknown is\nwhether the Republicans in Congress and elsewhere \u2014 who have been Trump\u2019s\ncrucial enablers in the last four years, and who have, for the last three decades,\nremained aggressively opposed to social and political progress \u2014 will continue\nto see US politics as a zero-sum game, a fight to the death. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even if the\nRepublicans are in the minority both in the House and the Senate, Republicans\u2019 potentially\nbellicose opposition to the Democrats may help keep alive the fires of Trumpian\nhostility to American values and political institutions, and to America\u2019s\nefforts to regain some suitable, productive role on the world stage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the coming efforts to\nachieve a workable political settlement fail<\/em> (assuming that Biden will,\nin fact, win the coming election), America would remain a compromised country\nand a potentially unreliable international partner, both politically and in\nterms of trade. And even those efforts are largely successful, at least in the\nshort term, the question remains as to how many current Trumpers, even if\nrelegated to the radical fringe, will remain assertively, even violently\npresent in everyday life and politics, and how much such actions will further disrupt\nthe country\u2019s social and political fabric and continue to undermine public\ntrust.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump himself may, or\nmay not, remain at the forefront of such efforts, and even if he somehow\ndisengages from the public scene, others may potentially try to take his place.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In \u2018normal\u2019 times,\nsuch demagogues have failed to generate enduring support. But there may now be\na critical mass just waiting to break out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Everyone I know in America is terrified by the prospects. You should be, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The post What A Post-Trump America Looks Like Is Anyone\u2019s Guess<\/a> appeared first on New Matilda<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

This post was originally published on New Matilda<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With or without Donald Trump at the helm, the future of the United States should concern everyone, writes Stephen Scher. In 2016, 63 million Americans voted for Donald Trump, which was puzzling. Why vote for someone with the presentation of a used-car salesman when you could vote, instead, for a person who was one of […]<\/p>\n

The post What A Post-Trump America Looks Like Is Anyone\u2019s Guess<\/a> appeared first on New Matilda<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":639,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1964,1971],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7005"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/639"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7005"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7005\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7006,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7005\/revisions\/7006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}