Yes, We’re “Dumping Trump,” But the Pain of These Years Will Be With Us For a Very Long Time

We all need to admit that the great rift that has been created in American society–and then wedged wide open–is not going away anytime soon.  There was a time when there was, at worst, an uneasy but acceptable level of tension between the people who read the New Yorker (see illustration) and the white working class.

Along comes Trump, who correctly assesses that almost half the country is quietly seething in the anger of stagnant wages and jobs going overseas, the fear of immigrants absorbing resources and committing crimes against U.S. citizens, the frustration of a bloated government bureaucracy enriching itself and its corrupt donors, a resentment of scientists’ telling them how to live their lives, and, for many, a deep but then-covert hatred of people with brown skin.

His message, swallowed whole, “I alone can fix this.”

Trump, working in concert with the extreme right-wing media, also got one more thing right: the core of these people have weak skills in critical thinking and data evaluation. Thus the concept of “alternative facts,” like a stolen election (for which there is no evidence) is perfectly plausible.

Four years later, we have a really intractable situation.  There are still people in our neighborhood flying “Trump 2020” flags.  When, if ever, will they bring it down?  Their message, like the one scrawled on Nancy Pelosi’s desk, “We will never back down.” That, right there, is what I mean by “intractable.”

I’m writing this almost exactly 24 hours before the Biden inauguration, and I carry the hope that no violence will erupt and that this situation can slowly go through a détente, until we find ourselves back in that uneasy but tolerable relationship with one another.  Yet there is no guarantee.

Let’s pray that we eventually get through all this and reach a certain point where we may be in a position to provide better public education, higher wages, affordable healthcare for all, perhaps, dare I say it, a society deserving to be called a 21st Century democracy.