So, I read this story in the Washington Post. Go read it — it won’t take long.
OK, so just in case you didn’t actually go read it, the TL;DR of it is this: A woman in a Trump town who had spent her whole life as a Republican and who had no outside influences on her just…spontaneously decided to take a closer look at things, switched to being a Democrat, and went on the Women’s March.
There’s a lot of talk about how to reach out to those Trump supporters (a majority, I hope) who were gulled into voting for him, who don’t really understand the stakes or the issues, who were seduced by easy talk and fake news. But that’s a mighty tall order. Almost by definition, “they” don’t live where “we” do. “They” don’t read, watch, or otherwise consume the same sources of information as “we” do. It’s a tough nut to crack.
But this woman… All on her own, without any sort of outreach, without a person in her life saying, “Hey, have you considered looking at things a different way?”, she just looked around and thought, Wait. This doesn’t make sense. This doesn’t seem right.
Well, damn.
Maybe there’s hope after all.
I work in a library and love your books and I am also a middle aged woman from rural Missouri. I agree there is hope but only if we treat each other with respect. I voted for Hilary but I understand why others in my community voted otherwise out of frustration. There is such a tone of condescension in your post. That has got to stop before we can work together to unite our country.
Hi Debbie!
I’m genuinely confused as to what you find condescending. I am impressed as hell with this woman. She did one of the hardest things for a human being to do — changed her mind — and she did it on her own. That gives me hope!
Is it my use of the word “gulled?” I stand by it. When you have someone like Trump and the entire machine lined up behind him to convince people of things that aren’t true and to vote against their own best interests, well, they’ve been fooled. I don’t think that’s a pejorative, nor is it condescending. A lot of people were fooled, and you can see examples of them now saying, “Hey, wait! That’s not what I voted for!”
For example, if someone voted for Trump because they hate Obamacare but love the ACA (and many did), then, yes, they didn’t understand the issues. They literally didn’t get that Obamacare and the ACA are one and the same, and I’m not sure pretending otherwise helps. If someone makes a mistake, first they need to understand they did so before they can avoid it in the future.
I think I lay the blame quite squarely on Trump and the tentacles of his noxious outreach. He lied to people; they were susceptible to it; they swallowed it. They never should have been told those lies in the first place.
Thank you for commenting. And thank you for your library work, which is sorely needed, and for your kind words about my books.