If the Donald Trump win taught me anything, it’s that I have to become more open-minded about what is going on in our country.
Two of my four children were huge Bernie Sanders supporters, and I told them while he had good ideas, he couldn’t win, and therefore it was better backing Hillary Clinton. That even though it was very obvious throughout the Democratic Party’s nominating process that the this process was indeed rigged, she could win, while Sanders appeared too much to the left.
When Donald Trump won a few early primaries for the Republican nomination, I told my son, this often happens – that someone comes out of nowhere and wins a few early primaries and that soon fade, and that I myself, liked Marco Rubio as a possible Republican nominee.
Then Trump won the nomination and my son, who’s a comedian and often performs at LOL in Times Square, which caters to many out-of-town tourists, told me that when asked of the audience, these patrons were in great majority going to vote for Trump. He told me that Trump would win, and I responded, “No way.”
Meanwhile, my 86-year-old mother has been harping on how screwed up the country has become. She told me how elected officials keep giving themselves raises, and seniors on social security, such as herself hasn’t received even cost of living raises for several years. She also told me how the middle class has been decimated in the past 20 years.
Then I heard and railed against Donald Trump’s racist, bigoted, xenophobic and sexist language and those with the same views that supported him. I wrote how Clinton was very flawed and untrustworthy, but anything was better than somebody, who in my view, appealed to our nation’s worst impulses.
What I did not recognize and was closed minded about was the pain that these disenfranchised voters my son was seeing in comedy clubs were going through. Ditto, for my mother’s continued warnings that this country is in deep trouble, because government had become too far removed from the people it governed.
And now, as the unthinkable has happened and we have President-elect Donald Trump, I can only agree with Sanders and try to live by his statement recently sent to the KCP editorial team:
“Donald Trump tapped into the anger of a declining middle class that is sick and tired of establishment economics, establishment politics and the establishment media. People are tired of working longer hours for lower wages, of seeing decent paying jobs go to China and other low-wage countries, of billionaires not paying any federal income taxes and of not being able to afford a college education for their kids – all while the very rich become much richer,” said Sanders.
“To the degree that Mr. Trump is serious about pursuing policies that improve the lives of working families in this country, I and other progressives are prepared to work with him. To the degree that he pursues racist, sexist, xenophobic and anti-environment policies, we will vigorously oppose him.”
As for the Democratic Party, if they have any chance of regrouping, they must work doubly hard at reforming their own political process, and becoming a party of open ideas with multiple views. I note the Republicans had 16 candidates running for president, and the Democrats had but two.
That has got to change as well.
