This Is Who We Are?

SURELY AMERICA, AND AMERICANS, ARE MORE THAN ONE PRESIDENTIAL VOTE

Photo by Anatol Rurac on Unsplash

“That’s not who we are!”

It may have been the most repeated phrase of political speeches — particularly among Democratic candidates — from the moment Donald Trump was officially named the standard bearer of the Republican party last summer.

The phrase morphed, after the recent election, into a new and perhaps applicable form: “This is who we are.” I heard it repeated, on November 6, in anger and through tears.

But perhaps it’s a little early to declare our national identity. Perhaps we’re still, as we have happily been for centuries, an amalgam of shapes, sizes, colors, opinions and origin stories. Even if a majority of us voted to install, as our leader, a man utterly abhorrent to the rest of us.

Does that mean — because he is a vulgar, misogynistic, narcissistic, adulterous felon incapable of compassion or other human virtues — that we are also defined in those terms? That this is, indeed, Who We Are?

I think not.

Whichever way you voted, you’re still who you were on November 5, right? A regular human being full of contradictions and complexities. That holds true for the American citizenry, as far as I can tell. So the rush to define “us” in one grim-group term is, it seems to me, premature.

A recent article in the New York Times bore a headline proclaiming that the victory “tells us who we are.” I respectfully disagree.

Very few Americans voted for Donald Trump because of the characteristics listed above, despite the fact that they are universally known. Here are just a few of the fellow citizens who voted Republican, and why. Some were pictured in the Times story, others are pulled from other reports.

A woman in a hijab believed Trump’s promise that he “will end the Israel-Hamas war.”

A man from storm-damaged Western NC believed Trump will “take better care of citizens who don’t have homes.”

A man in New Orleans voted Republican for the first time in many years, he said, because he blamed the Democrats for letting inflation get out of hand. He acknowledged that he and his wife both held good jobs and were making more money that four years ago (the reporter asked,) but said he felt weighed down by the struggle to get ahead and believed Trump when he said he was “going to fix things.”

A Muslim man in Pennsylvania blamed Biden for enabling Netanyahu’s genocidal actions and thus had to vote for Trump.

A first-time voter in Arizona believed illegal immigrants were going to take away his job, and that Trump would “solve the immigration crisis.”

A woman in Ohio believes that “Ukraine is not our business,” and said Trump “will end that war.”

Another North Carolinian believes Trump will “protect us and keep us out of future wars.”

A woman in Georgia feels vaccine mandates violate personal freedoms.

(Interestingly, I have not yet read of one person who voted Republican out of a desire for a national abortion ban, something I greatly fear.)

Were any of these fellow citizens concerned about our next president’s vulgarity, utter immorality, felony convictions or common cruelties? Just asking such a question would have created hostility in a nanosecond.

But the fact that you and I perceive Donald Trump as unfit and would disagree with most (or all) of the above arguments does not make us ‘better,’ and certainly does not make us ‘right’ in the national eye. It only makes us part of the complicated mix of a democracy.

Democracy really does die in darkness, and it will take all of us to keep the lights on. You and me and every one of the above. Because all together, all of us in the mix — this is Who We Are.

There’s work to do.