This week. The MSNBC show All In with Chris Hayes did a special program, where he talked to a group of mostly Trump voters in Kenosha, Wisconsin. The only political guest he had was Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.
What happened was pretty amazing. No, they didn't follow Bernie out of the building in a pied piper line. But they did listen to him. And they applauded many of the things he said. You could tell he was reaching them, some just a little and others significantly.
It convinced me that had the Democrats nominated Bernie Sanders, they would have won. I know. Nothing is certain. I'm sure Republicans would have done their best to demonize him. An old Jewish Socialist seems ripe for the picking. But who knows? Trump voters didn't have any trouble with their narcissistic con-man being a puppet of a communist dictator.
Most importantly, it told me that the Trump voters were not as monolithic and as racist as portrayed. Some of them, particularly in the rust belt, could have been influenced by other things.
Some who voted for Trump dismissed some of Trump's more outlandish and undemocratic ideas as mere rhetoric and something they believed was completely undo-able. A Muslim ban? That wasn't going to happen, not in this country. They seemed to be confused by his cabinet choices, but in the end thought it was still outsiders that would shake things up.
Trump voters in Kentucky, one of the few Southern states to fully embrace Obamacare, seemed to be oblivious to the fact that their vote may take away the care they've become dependent on. Kynect, the state name for OBAMACARE, is extremely popular. They weren't completely ignorant of the connection, they just don't believe that Trump and his Republican allies would really take it away.
Others voted for Trump because they were tired of military intervention and wanted us to focus more on home. I don't believe that is what's going to happen. I actually don't know what's going to happen. What we do may depend on who the last one in the room talking to him has to say, or whether he's offended by what a leader of another country had to say, or how they've effected his business enterprise. The only sure thing is that we will operate in the best interest of Russia. Some of his people want a war with Iran. His relationship with China will be dangerously belligerent. If a Trumpeteer voted for isolationism, they may be sorely disappointed.
So everything depends on Trump voters slowly waking up, gradually realizing, for one reason or another, that they've been conned. Most people who fall for the carny wake up sooner or later. And when they do wake up, their wrath is powerful to behold.
Optimistically, this wake up call will deliver anywhere form three to six Republican Senators who will defy the party and align themselves with Democrats for different causes. Lindsey Graham and John McCain may help stop Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson from becoming Secretary of State. Susan Collins and Jeff Flake or others may stop the total demolition of Obamacare. There may be enough Republicans with common sense to stop the elimination of Medicaid and the privatization/cutting of Medicare and Social Security.
Politics in America has been cyclical. The extremity of Trump and those surrounding him should cause conversion of enough Trumpeteers that our elections may become competitive again. To do this. Democrats MUST abandon that corporatist attachments. They MUST once again become the party of the middle class and working poor.
My most optimistic point of view is that this will lead to what I believed for a number of years now - that we will have a true Progressive Majority in 2020, a majority that will last at least a generation. We will have true universal health care. We will fight global warming. We will have a livable minimum wage. We will be able to have free public college.
A significant plurality of the popular vote went to Hillary Clinton. As I write this she has a lead of 2,864,974 voted. That's a larger margin than many winners have received. It takes adding to that coalition a larger percentage of white working families, and it's a done deal, particularly if they're added in the rust belt. We are the majority, if we show up to vote EVERY YEAR EVERY ELECTION. We have to fight voter suppression. We have to start dismissing fake news. We have to focus on what's truly important to us and our loved ones and our communities and our country and our planet.
The path to get there will not be easy, and it is by no means a certain thing. My faith tells me that love will triumph, that the more of us who follow the way the more likely we are to bring the kingdom of heaven to Earth.
I am scared to the perilous, uncertain path we tread. But I have always been a short term pessimist and a long term optimist. I weep at how dark things may get. But I have to have faith that, in the long run, we will come out better.
In the face of madness, what else can you do?
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