Hillary Was Right: Real Talk About the Deplorables | Ms. Magazine
A curious common wisdom seems to have taken hold of the Democratic Party which insists that the President’s base can—and must—be won back. Trump voters, folks insist, are not really racist, or sexist, but rather misunderstood and dislocated by “changes.”
There are some notable exceptions, such as the veritable breaths of fresh air that are New York’s Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Boston’s own Ayanna Pressley, but even progressive stalwart and presidential hopeful Kamala Harris appears to have quaffed this particular Kool-Aid.
“Over the last 10 years in our country, at least, we’ve seen an incredible amount of change,” she said in an NPR interview after a query about Trump’s victory. “People are reading about ‘the browning of America,’ and ‘the immigrants are coming,’ and we had Barack Obama as president, and then we had a woman running as president, and we had a Jew running for president, and gay people can marry and ‘oh my God, oh my God.'”
Others, such as perennial Presidential wannabe Joe Biden, have offered similar sentiments as they position themselves as having enough of the right stuff and the common touch to successfully challenge Trump in 2020.
But is it “understandable” that people feel “displaced?” What makes them wonder about “where they fit in,” or about “their relevance?” What makes them ponder whether they are “obsolete?” Why are they “resentful of this change?” What does it say about a group of people if they are angered by inclusion and diversity, or by movements toward more racial justice? Why are those changes not greeted with celebration?