An open letter to Trump supporters:
Your anger is understandable. The unwritten agreement Americans lived by for decades is broken: If you follow the rules and are willing to work hard, you’ll be able to support yourself and your family.
Not anymore. The economy changed and the rising tide did not lift all boats. The American Dream is only achievable for some. The rich get theirs and we get the scraps.
Being middle class is no longer the safe refuge it once seemed. Upward mobility is not a given. The middle-class compact said, “You might not get rich, but you certainly will never be poor. You’ll do better than your parents, and your kids will do better than you.”
Welcome to the Age of Disillusionment.
A relative few have cornered most of the wealth and done outrageously well the last three decades (a single generation) whereas the rest of us have declined (adjusted for inflation). Meanwhile, the reckless greed of the financial industry (aka “Wall Street”) caused the Great Financial Meltdown, for which we’re still paying the price.
I sympathize because most of us are in the same boat — the ship of stagnant wages and lost jobs. You’re not alone. I’m angry too. A lot of us are.
I also get that you feel powerless, and you’re looking for Captain America to make everything right again, a no-nonsense strongman who isn’t afraid to tell people to go to hell. I get that identifying with him makes you feel powerful again. You want a bully on your side for a change.
The problem is, he’s not really on your side. Captain Un-America is the poster child for a dangerously-unregulated free market, an economic house of cards that came tumbling down in 2008.
As president, Donald Trump would serve only the elite. He is the elite. He certainly doesn’t care about you — or if he does, it’s only until he fools you into voting for him.
You blame the government, but the government is only to blame for not properly regulating the high-stakes gamblers in the financial industry who caused your present predicament. If you put Donald Trump in charge, he’ll regulate them even less.
He’s not going to bring back all those manufacturing jobs. He’s not going to deport all those immigrants. He’s not going to make America safe from diversity.
Winners and losers, remember? Donald Trump’s favorite game. You think you’re angry now? Hell hath no fury like a Trump supporter who is about to be scorned.
He’ll say anything he thinks you want to hear just to sell you something of no value, looking down on you with contempt even as he tells you he loves you, appealing to your darkest biases instead of your better nature.
Donald Trump is America at its worst.
But there is another vision of America, one that can rebuild what you’re grieving the loss of: A strong middle class; a marketplace that benefits the majority, not just the upper class; government that works more efficiently and makes life better for the average American; an economy that is no longer the enemy of the ecology; a system of checks and balances that prevents unfettered capitalism from stacking the deck against us; a nation made up of inclusive and cooperative communities instead of walled medieval fiefdoms. This America survived the last 35 years and will eventually thrive. This America is a place where good people work hard to improve not only their own lives but everyone else’s. They are not exclusive. They are America at its best. You belong in that America.
Donald Trump’s vision of America is the United States of Himself. Trump’s America has no room in it for you. You have already been deported from his America.
No wonder you’re so angry.
But anger is exhausting — and rage is deafening. I know you’re too pissed off to hear what I’m saying, but when you get tired of venting, maybe you’ll recognize that Donald Trump and the 1 percent are not the answer.
They’re the problem.