I find it hard to grasp why there is so much hatred in the political realm. Hear me out; I’m going to embark on a bit of deconstruction here. Given that what I typically write, I’m sure, is considered by many as highly partisan or inflammatory, my first statement may seem way off. We live in a chaotic system right now, some even calling for civil war. Certainly, there are radical theorist among us and yet the vast majority of people of differing beliefs want many of the same things even when they act extremely partisan; food, shelter, health care, a vacation, a family, these are what most people want from both sides of the divided aisle. When the topic of ‘freedoms’ are entered into the equation, things start to get sticky. ‘Public good’ comes up, then the oppressed and things quickly crumble into ideological war. Nevertheless, this viewer lens is simplistic because it doesn’t take into account human relationships and quite importantly, class.
Human relationships are difficult in any arrangement or institution, but these cause irreconcilable differences when, for example, ethnicities historically hostile to one another declare they cannot co-exist. Political parties create artificial boundaries between people because the parties themselves are constructs that represent competing ideas. To make it more difficult yet, those sets of ideas being embraced are rapidly changing even within each party structure. Therein is the stage for all out ideological war being set in our current political scene.
The singular American political bifurcation of our times is becoming Trump vs. all others, Trump vs. anti-Trump. By that, I don’t mean that Trump the individual is taking on the entire world; it is the eighty to one hundred million people that now believe in the set of values articulated by Trump (and will continue to believe after he’s gone). Trump, for whatever reason, tapped into and became the identity of a class of people that have forever been unwelcome or excluded from the halls of power. Conversely, Trump’s opposition is quickly coming to represent the powerful, the rich, the self-identifying brilliant, the educated. It is a class war.
This explains the huge understated historical migrations occurring right now among the political parties. In the twentieth century, Democrats claimed to represent the working class, now they despise the working class, passionately. Republicans owned corporate America; now, your career is toast if you aren’t woke. Hollywood was afraid of government in the age of McCarthyism and now, they are McCarthyism, cancelling anyone that doesn’t tow the woke Democrat line. Same with Big Media; they used to stand up to government and now they are its willing supine propogandist. Racial minorities used to give Democrats a crushing automatic advantage and many of them, especially Hispanic, are now rushing toward their Republican former rivals. In the twentieth century, college professors and students organized, protested and, and even rioted against ‘establishment’. Now they come onto major media outlets and praise the FBI using Gestapo tactics against their political rivals.
It is a common myth to say that Trump is the problem, that if only Trump would go away, we could all go back to living in a Kumbaya world in which we could all get along. That myth has no precedent in American or any other political context. The only satisfactory explanation for the off-the-charts hatred, fear, and loathing of Trump is the explanation of class. Democrats across the board do indeed feel brilliant compared next to their own self-generated caricature of the class(s) that supports Trump. Afterall – in their mind – they sat through 3 humanities courses in college 12 years ago, live in a better neighborhood, get their news from the august NPR, and order kale salad paired with their chardonnay. Of course, the Trump class and the anti-Trump class are far more complicated than this simple description; the point is, that this is functioning at a level far deeper than basic politics. It is a serious class struggle that has a tribal element to it, and like tribal conflicts, it is going to get far worse before it gets better. It goes far deeper than Trump and if Trump leaves the stage, if anything, it’ll get even more adversarial.