Defeating Trump is not the end

The second presidential debate fortified my fervent belief that Americans cannot allow Donald Trump to assume the highest office in our land. Trump’s severe incompetence was glaring in the incoherent, rambling sentences through which he attempted to convey uninformed ideas. The gratification Trump seemed to experience when he told Hillary Clinton that she’d be jailed if he was President—quite similar to the satisfaction with which he once uttered the words “you’re fired”—was yet another indication of the megalomania that possesses this man. While defeating Trump on Nov. 8 needs to be the plan in the short run, in the longer term, the country needs to address the widespread anger and fear—primarily found in the white working-class—that has fueled Trump’s success.

Over the past few decades, white working-class males and their communities have experienced significant decline. Due to a confluence of economic and cultural factors, labor force participation rates for white men between the ages of 30 and 50 with no college degree fell from 96 percent in 1968 to 79 percent in 2015. The consequences are economic as these men have less resources to support themselves and their family. But there is also a psychological aspect as these individuals are deprived of the purpose, self-esteem and sense of control that are provided by meaningful work. Cultural institutions in these communities are also weakening. The percentage of men in the above demographic who are married fell from 86 percent to 52 percent in the same time frame (a steeper decline than for any other race). Growing heroin and prescription drug addiction adds to the bleakness and despair that plagues many low-income white communities.

As this economic and social crisis was unravelling, the social justice movement—born from the laudable civil rights and feminist movements that demanded equality before the law—increasingly moved towards a dangerous doctrine of identity politics. According to Charles Murray, this doctrine is guided by the premise that “in a fair society, different groups of people will naturally have the same distributions of outcomes in life: the same mean income, the same mean educational attainment, the same proportions who become janitors and CEOs.” Departures from equality of outcome between any demographics automatically indicates foul play.

Similarly, Jonathan Haidt defines the four tenants of this doctrine as follows: “First, racism and sexism are endemic in American society. Second, victims played no role in arriving at their current state. Third, no differences of ability or interest between any groups. And, finally, affirmative action is good.”

This doctrine has left its mark on public policy. Legislation has enforced quotas, affirmative action, and other regulations designed to produce equal outcomes among different demographics, in spite of the fact that groups differ both in their skills and their preferences.

Even more perceptible is the way in which this doctrine has reshaped social norms across the country. In many circles, anyone who disagrees with a single one of the four tenants described by Haidt is sure to face vicious backlash. Ask Nicholas Christakis who had to endure Yale students’ visceral contempt because he made a case for free speech. Ask Larry Summers who was pressured to resign after he attempted to provide a statistical explanation for the gender gap in STEM. Ask Milo Yiannopoulos who usually offers more substantive arguments than his opponents but is treated like a stupid bigot (while the latter might be accurate, he certainly isn’t unintelligent).

One of the few groups that isn’t protected by these speech codes and political correctness are white working-class males, even though they too have experienced significant hardship over the past few decades. In “polite society,” the term “redneck” is unlikely to raise eyebrows as other racial slurs would. Whereas victim blaming for non-white demographics in poverty is taboo, few people on the Left were offended by President Barack Obama’s remark that poor white voters “get bitter, cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.” While some of this may be true, Obama’s comments highlight, as J.D. Vance says in his new book “Hillbilly Elegy,” the lack of sympathy that white people in poverty get in comparison to other races.

For many individuals in struggling white communities who feel as though outsiders view their plight with apathy or even condescension, Donald Trump has provided, in a twisted manner, the sympathy that has long been missing. The problem is that, in doing so, Trump appeals to their naïve and darker instincts. He endorses their view that American openness (to immigrants, to trade, to refugees) is the source of their problems. His racist rhetoric appeals to these people because it stands in stark opposition to the doctrine of identity politics of which they are so resentful.