Trumpism began when Pearly, the black maid at my working-class grandparents’ house, was no longer required to use the back door and to call five-year-old me Mister Paul. I don’t know exactly when that change occurred – not before I was grown, though. Whenever it was, it felt to white Protestants of limited means, such as my grandparents and parents, like a marauding enemy had burned their houses down, taken their jobs, destroyed more than they could identify, and made them feel like refugees in their own country. They were assaulted by Brown v. Board of Education, then the election of a Catholic President, then the Civil Rights movement, and any number of identity-crushing events since. They were easy pickings for Donald Trump’s demagoguery.
The division that is tormenting America now is not new. When I was a child, African-Americans, other minorities, Jews, and women were actually marginalized and abused in the way right-wing white Christians imagine themselves to be now. But the underclass during the forties and fifties had no voice like that of MAGA, Fox, and the web. White Protestant dominance was so great back then, the country’s polarization went relatively unremarked.
As America has begun to find its way to realization of the multicultural, multiethnic, egalitarian way envisioned, however incompletely, by the founders, the birth pangs are about to kill us. It’s as understandable as it is regrettable.
When I was a child, if you were poor and had small expectation of changing your situation for the better, having people to look down on was as necessary as breathing. The tranche of America I was born in simply had to be populated by minorities and Jews who were referred to by the most insulting epithets and “Mescans” and N…s who were often tantamount to chattels. And though women had a similarly low status, they seemed either to accept subservience as the price of being looked after by men, or if they didn’t like it, they didn’t push back much publicly or politically.
In the view of working-class whites today, the old way – real America – is being destroyed by hordes of “wetbacks” who work cheap, George Soros and all those Jews on the evening news, and the appointment of a black woman to the Supreme Court. So, MAGA is a refuge with almost irresistible drawing power.
Right-wing media feeds their sense of victimization and causes it to fester and grow, until reality itself loses meaning. Elections are stolen. Democrats run child sex operations. Covid vaccinations contain microchips. Global warming is a hoax. Such craziness is the metastatic outgrowth of Pearly being allowed to use the front door. It grew uncontrollably when that smart, well-educated, articulate, good-looking black man was elected President.
To make our division even greater, mindless all-purpose anger has leaped the bounds of class. Many quite well-off people have joined the ranks of the poor-white reactionary loonies. It does not matter that middle-class MAGA followers are high enough in the pecking order so that their self-esteem does not require a group they can look down on; change itself is their enemy. Think mask requirements, gun regulation, measures to slow climate change, universal health care. Mean-spirited (and short-sighted) selfishness masquerades as personal liberty.
With another election coming in the fall, Democrats are asking how to win the votes of people who are manning the barricades against a fairer, more inclusive country in which the common good is given respectful consideration. But with voter suppression, gerrymandering, and the anti-democratic electoral college and Senate, none of the strategies I’m aware of seem likely to succeed. I fear nothing will work very well until many more Americans welcome the tectonic change that started when Pearly was allowed to use the front door.
If that takes too long, there will no longer be an America.
Well stated, and similar to my own experience: working class white, living through changes that we viewed as positive, only to find that others don’t share our views. I can’t help but recall my years in California, where field workers (all Mexicans) labored long hours in the hot sun, providing the produce enjoyed by the rest of us. I guess the MAGA supporters think that “white boys” are [un]willing to do that work.
You are SO right,
Your post is incredibly timely given the recent shooting at the Tops grocery store in Buffalo. Many challenges with no easy solutions.
As product of the Deep South, having grown up in Arkansas in the 50,s, I too have had multiple encounters with Pearly. Impoverished and uneducated my family fought the fight against the perceived threat that those ni——-ers posed. Looking back at my life, I’m grappling with the remorse and feelings of guilt that my perception at that time was that all of this was “normal”. My God, we are still locked in the 50,s. Thanks Paul for your insight
Perfectly stated, Paul. I grew up where you did and remember all the Pearlys and the reactions to changes in their status. As you said (and Kris Kristofferson sang), everybody has to have somebody to look down on. During slavery, poor whites might be starving and ragged, but they were free, and they weren’t Black. And so it goes, generation after generation. I keep hoping the next generation will do better, but I haven’t seen much evidence yet.
Thanks for all your posts. They cut to the chase and make me think.
Excellent column Paul, and it underscores the fact that Trump didn’t create the ultra right wing of the Republican Party, he just recognized it and harnessed it to achieve his own goals — including tax cuts for the rich.
But as JD Vance’s recent win in Ohio illustrates, poorly educated, low income white people have been hurt by globalization and loss of manufacturing jobs and have legitimate grievances, that the Democratic Party has largely ignored. I think a winning Democratic candidate has to figure out a way to talk to and to attract these voters again.
My God! My God! Why hast thou forsaken me!!! Fellow Geezers, our only hope is Pray, Pray and Pray; trust and believe in the ONLY one that WILL help us!! As he did to the Israelites, when Pharaoh continued to persecute His people regardless of the many plagues he’s thrown at him and, sadly, some of those same people. Until, he decided to show Pharaoh who is God. He told the people who followed and believed in him, to kill a lamb; get ready with your staff and sandals on your feet and be in readiness to flee as is. But, before you do, make sure you mark your doorposts with the blood of the lamb so that when I pass thru and see the mark, you will be spared while every other home that’s not marked will be wiped out! Majority followed the instructions and was lead to the promised land! Pharaoh was finally either captured and/or died with his charioteers when God parted the Red Sea! We will prevail, but it’s going to be very, very hard! JUST DON’T GIVE UP!!! When you hurt the least of my people, you hurt me.
This is outstanding, one of the most perceptive analyses of Trumpism I’ve seen.