Look Up, Not Side to Side
How Trump won the American election
In 2016, when Donald Trump first rose to power, I was appalled at how this could possibly have happened. Really? I thought. This orange asshole? This reality TV show host, compulsive liar, woman hater? I was, at the time, in a state of complete shock. I had grown up with America right beside me all my life, and had always looked up to them as an aspirational country, cooler and more impressive than Canada could ever be. I had loved the idea of a first female President, and with Clinton’s defeat, I felt so incredibly disappointed to think that America would rather elect someone so obviously narcissistic and terrible.
Since then, my feelings about Trump have not changed. This part remains the same. Now that he has been elected, I vow to direct the same ire to his administration as I have been trying to do with Biden’s. The same goes for Pierre Pollievre, when he inevitably defeats Justin Trudeau next year.
But this is exactly what we on the left had forgotten—that it is structures of power, regardless of who controls it, that must always be attacked when it is failing its populace.
Kamala Harris lost the election because she proved she and her administration were not listening to her people. For over a year, youth and pro-Palestine supporters had taken to the streets to voice their anger with the genocide in Palestine. Despite polls that said many voters would be more likely to vote for the Democratic candidate if they withheld weapons to Israel (34% in Pennsylvania said they’d be more likely, 35% in Arizona said the same, and 39% in Georgia also said they’d be more likely), the Harris campaign chose instead to shout these voters down, and say “I’m speaking” instead.
Significant critiques of the Democratic party included that they are elitist. Yet they were caught during their campaign calling Trump voters garbage. They were criticized for warmongering, yet they decided it would be a good idea to seek out the endorsement of the notoriously warmongering Cheneys, and have Bill Clinton blame the Palestinians for their own genocide. They were aware that the emotional climate of America shows people are struggling to feel optimistic, yet selected “joy” as their slogan. While they may have felt it was a hopeful idea, for many, it likely was invalidating for those going through significant pain. And though many Black men are suffering in America, the Democrats decided it would be a good idea for Obama to use shame as a tactic into getting them to vote for Harris.
This clip of Democrats, covering their ears to avoid hearing the names of murdered Palestinian children after attending a DNC conference that only represented the Israeli point of view, will go down in history as representing the fall of the Democrats. It’s a gross image, which showed how elites would rather pretend concerns of voters didn’t exist rather than addressing voters’ grievances. They failed to recognize that that no party is ever owed votes, regardless of whether or not the other party is “worse.”
We were no different in 2016. Then, we also thought too much in terms of “left vs right.” We felt the left was owed one’s vote purely because the right also sucked. But this style of thinking is deliberately designed to blame one’s fellow voter or opposing party rather than thinking in terms of the people vs the oligarchs. When we are casting the blame from side to side, we do not look up. When we look side to side, we are not actually asking what it means that there is no good choice. The solution is not to attack the opposing party, but to question how the system can be changed. And thus criticism should be directed towards the oligarchs who are in control of how everything works.
Who is America? Those who own everything, or the people and their concerns?
In 2016, after Trump won, we directed our ire at the voters. We were so enchanted by the charming Obama, who bombed the Middle East just as much as his Republican predecessor, that we forgot how powerful and evil Democrats are too. Wow, we superior, educated liberals thought to ourselves. What a bunch of dumb, misinformed idiots to have voted for Trump. What a bunch of stupid, racist, misogynist, backwards asshole voters. How could they be so delusional to think a narcissist like Trump would ever help them?
This judgment was our mistake. We didn’t notice the Democrats did not care about people either. They too are warmongers, who treat human lives as disposable. But we judged the Republican voters, because we could not understand another way to conceptualize what was happening, the corruption that has infiltrated both sides of a once inspiring country. In finding a scapegoat with Republican voters, we would never be able to truly understand. And if we were not trying to really, truly understand, then one could not actually ever prevent Donald Trump from getting elected again.
People do not want to be condescended to. They do not want to be told they are stupid and uneducated. They—left, right, and centre—want to be listened to. They want to be understood.
The better questions—rather than Why are Americans so stupid that they would elect a man like this?—are actually: Why are so many Americans in pain? How Has the System Failed Them?
In 2016, I had tried to understand. I read a book called Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right, but I came away from it still not getting it. In retrospect, I wonder whether this book too was propaganda. Perhaps the person who wrote it did not actually want me to understand, and wanted me to continue thinking Trump voters were beneath me.
But now I think I really do understand. People chose Trump because they suffered, and no one in power was helping them. And the only way to express your dissent when this happens is two things—your soft power—your ability to influence and change culture—and your vote. These are the only ways this flawed political system gave their populace to express dissent. So they gave it, and we condemned them for expressing it rather than trying to figure out why people are unhappy.
After the election, when I went in to work, several people called it a “sad day.” They were referring of course to Trump’s re-election. They asked, “how did this happen? Why is this happening?”
But many liberals do not actually want the answer. When I responded—when I said, “it is because they lost the Muslim and Arab voters, and the vote of the youth. It is because they didn’t listen, and because of what is happening in Palestine,” I was met with complete silence. It was followed by a sudden change of subject, because this was not the comfortable answer that was desired.
Many people on the left are only comfortable having a political discussion when it is criticizing Republicans. It’s a safe zone, where we can designate the other side as the villains and not question the system itself and the people who own it. Many liberals do not actually want to understand what is happening, because it’s sad and scary to acknowledge. That they—the pro-gay, pro-women, pro-choice, pro-diversity party—can also be capable of extreme evil. Due to the culture we’ve had for the fifteen years or so, we on the left are uncomfortable when we cannot be on our high horses. All we can do is see what the other side is doing wrong. We do not try to understand our fellow voters that vote conservative. We reject them, call them racist, roll our eyes, ignore them. But this does not mean they go away. The issues remain. The people remain. The pain remains. Their votes remain.
There is much that the left has forgotten. We should not look side to side. We should look up, regardless of whether they identify as left or right. We on the left were never actually supposed to focus purely on identity politics. Being anti-war, for instance, is not actually left or right. And core policies of the left are typically meant to target class struggle and economic inequality, corporate greed and big finance, economic redistribution, and criticism of capitalism itself. These protests have become uncommon. Recall the leftist Occupy Wall Street movement, which faded into nothingness. But this movement accurately attacked the real villains of the world, which includes corporate greed, big finance, the Federal Reserve, and the effect of Zionism on the world. If this had been successful, who knows how people would have benefited, on both the right and left. This would include the minority demographics that leftists often focus on, including racial minorities, women, queer people, and everyone else. When the majority of people are supported, the left is supported too.
Many people have said, these next four years are going to be hard. This much is true. I anticipate the biggest news of our lives will arrive in the coming months and years. But this is not because of Trump alone. Trump is a symptom of an ailing country and ailing world, but he is not the cause. It is time for us on the left to no longer think purely in terms of right vs left, but people vs oligarchs and systems of power that are supposed to serve us. Look at the Rothschilds and Rockefellers and BlackRock and JP Morgan Chase, and why the same people should own everything while the populace suffers. Look at those who own banks, and the darkness behind America’s propaganda arm that manipulates our opinions through media, and at three-letter agencies and administrations that influence events and cast doubt on foreign elections across the globe. Look at elites, and those that are actually in control.
For pain to reduce, left and right must think of each other again as fellow civilians with common grievances. Elite structures deliberately disseminate ideas about civil war because they want you to be fighting each other. Because when we are blaming each other for our problems, we turn to powerful people to help us, instead of putting pressure on them to change. When you don’t look up, elites are the ones who escape.
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Writers and articles I’ve been reading on Substack:
Those who refuse to fight in wars are the heroes by JM Smith
Donald Trump Is Not Your Friend by Caitlin Johnstone
A true story that happened to me yesterday ! by Mohammed Mohisen
The “Greater Israel” Project Is Now in Full Swing and Israel is Using Palestinians as Livestock by Euroyankee
Tel Aviv Maccabi fans attack Amsterdam by Declan O’Mulrooney
Holocaust Harris deserved to lose by Council Estate Media
Former CIA Official: “Israel is Carrying Out a Flatout Ethnic Cleansing Campaign That’s Being Supported by the Full Weight of the West. It’s Extraordinary.” by Ken Silverstein
You make excellent points, Eleanor. We need good, old fashioned solidarity so we in society can have our actual needs met and so that we can live fairly and peacefully among other countries of the world.
And, I agree with you, talking about a campaign based on joy as the USA was funding and arming Israel as it committed genocide was beyond tasteless.
I'm guessing you've changed your mind about Hillary since 2016?