"And we’re gonna take this country back for people like us, who don’t just think about things."
- Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson
By Alisha Giampola (writer/performer)
They don't care anything for us
And we will eat sweet democracy
And let them eat our dust."
Reality television has a simple and deeply watchable formula. You get a handful of very different people into a house, or on an island, or on opposite teams, and then you gently poke at their insecurities and fears. You manipulate footage to make it seem like people are instigating fights, and then you let those inevitable fights play out. You ask leading questions and then sit back and watch as the building burns. Donald Trump looked at the America we live in today and he saw a brilliant opportunity. He saw immigrants, Muslims, an LGBTQ community with recently acquired human rights, women tired of a system that punishes both ambition and procreation, black Americans scared of corrupt police officers, non-corrupt members of the police tired of being blamed for the actions of others, genuinely down on their luck white people tired of feeling like all the assistance and attention goes to people of color, people of color confused but yet utterly resigned by the fact that white people can't see how racism is still so deeply ingrained in the system, liberal elitists alarmed at the dangers we pose to the environment we all live in, religious conservatives tired of being blamed for the extremist behavior of a few, and veterans who feel underappreciated by their government all while struggling under the constant wars our country has been engaged in since the Bush administration. Ideal reality show fodder. Toss in two political parties falling apart at the seams, and stir!
Make no mistake, Donald Trump is deeply uninterested in actual governing. He has no interest in doing the boring stuff Presidents do in the not-remotely-guilded-enough oval shaped office he will now have to occupy, as little as he wants to be there. And that, more than anything else, is what I am worried about. He's a self-interested, thin-skinned, businessman who is wildly unqualified for public service. He simply saw an opportunity to premiere the ultimate reality show, complete with the edge of your seat promise that he may or may not accept the results of the election. Last Wednesday he accepted America's metaphorical rose, and immediately started handing off responsibility to the DC insiders and usual suspects he vowed to remove, backed way off of the dramatic and TV-worthy promises he made but knows he won't fulfill, and is clearly ready for the next 4 years to go by as fast as possible. He has gone from having nothing good to say about President Obama to recognizing the need to utilize his help learning what his job is, as he apparently has been surprised by the scope of it. He and his team weren't even aware that they would need to entirely restaff the White House. His civic knowledge seems lower than that of your average viewer of The West Wing.
And is it really a surprise? Trump will be the only person ever elected to the presidency with absolutely no prior elected office or military experience. Donald Trump didn't invent the hateful feelings he has encouraged, and it's giving him far too much credit to suggest that he did. It's very possible he doesn't even really hold those hateful opinions himself, deep down, but encouraging something is exactly the same as subscribing to it. My wise Momma used to tell me when I was little that by not making a decision, you're making a decision. You don't get to instigate racism, xenophobia, misogyny, and other assorted hate that bubbles just below the surface of our society through tweets, vaguely threatening comments, evasive answers, and refusal to state your position. You don't get to toss matches like that into a building and then run away. He knows his followers were yelling racial and homophobic slurs at his rallies and he refused to speak against it before the election. My alarm at Trump’s winning is not equivalent to a conservative voter's alarm at Obama’s win 8 years ago. Obama, regardless of whether you agree with him about policy or not, never encouraged hate speech, radical ideology, or conspiracies. Obama felt the need to address the nation the day after the election and remind us that our democracy promises a peaceful transfer of power, a statement only necessary because the new president-elect frequently suggested that he may not accept the results of the election if he had lost.
A lot of Trump voters are confused about these liberal fears because they have received the exact reverse of the confirmation bias we all got. We saw the racism and xenophobia of his supporters, and what they saw was angry liberals whining about dumb, uneducated white people with guns. A really interesting perspective that can be gained from all this was written about very intelligently in this article, a relevant sound bite of which is: "I say 'racism' and mean 'a system, built up over centuries of American history, that privileges white people over everybody else.' Many rural whites hear 'racism' and think it means, 'You’re a bad person who hates black people,' when they believe they’re not actively discriminating against anyone because of race. And that goes for plenty of other terms as well — 'privilege' or 'rape culture' or even 'feminism.' There’s a communication gap, and there has to be a way to bridge it."
Now that he has won, Trump was asked on 60 Minutes if he would speak against the offensive rhetoric of many of his followers and, after insisting such a thing surprised him, he looked into the camera and said: "Stop it". But that's not how reality television works, and Donald Trump knows it. He has riled up a group of people who are afraid of a diversifying nation. He has poised a political party that before Tuesday was splintering and has just spent an entire presidental administration doing practically nothing other than obstructing policy, to now represent every branch of our government. We are deeply in need of checks and balances. Those who tell you this is politics as usual and "you win some you lose some" are misinformed. I mean, Glenn Beck and I are starting to have weirdly similar opinions on things, which is surely a sign of some sort of apocalypse. One of Trump's very first acts has been to nominate Steve Bannon (vocal anti-Semite, white nationalist, anti-woman founder of alt-right "news" source Breitbart...look up literally anything about this douchebag) as his chief strategist and senior counsel. When approached by journalists, neo-Nazi and former KKK leader David Duke (who, like his choice for president, enjoys ranting about things on Twitter) praised Trump's choice of Bannon, which is pretty much all you need to know about Bannon. And, in a twist of hypocrisy so ridiculously ironic that you would consider it a case of sloppy writing if it was a plot point in a legal drama, Mike Pence is now in the middle of his own withholding-email scandal.
At this point, here is what I would most appreciate: those who voted for Trump and only paid attention to the news sources that supported their opinions, who possibly think all this white nationalist support of Trump is being overblown by the media, I would beg of these people to actually look into these white nationalists and their views. Read and listen to the actual words of Donald Trump and the responses he encourages. Decide what it means to you and your idea of democracy that the world leader most excited about a Trump administration is Vladamir Putin, and that his state-controlled news channels all favored Trump winning. Decide how you feel about a state-controlled news channel (this is a Fox News article that confusingly seems to praise Putin's imaginary approval ratings, while reporting on the fact that he has those approval ratings simply because he controls the media). After actually looking into these things, I would beg of those people to be appalled at the viewpoints of those who they must now align themselves with. That they, as supporters, demand that Trump take responsibility for what he has instigated (including the acts of violence against minorities perpetrated in the days following his election) and to distance himself from these people. Because so far he hasn't. So far he's only embraced the divisiveness that got him elected by choosing divisive people to advise and surround him.
I personally have overlooked the violations of my fellow American's human rights for long enough. Many friends of mine who are people of color, Muslim, and other vulnerable minorities, were not particularly surprised on Tuesday night. That I am surprised at all by the outcome of this election reveals the insane amount of privilege I have in my life. That the Democratic party is surprised by this outcome is an indication at how unaware they were that running an unpopular, if immensely more qualified, candidate from a Washington political dynasty was exactly the opposite of how to play the game of politics against an unpredictable antiestablishment "maverick", as Sarah Palin might say. I'm also deeply sad for the people who saw a Trump presidency as their only option. I'm sad for those who are uneducated and uninformed, who are disappointed in lack of consistent access to quality healthcare, lacking basic resources like safe drinking water, and struggling to even sustain themselves in our incredibly wealthy country. I am saddened that they were desperate enough to believe that a vulgar billionaire obsessed with ratings would actually have their interests at heart, or even have an interest in governing at all. For me, comedian John Oliver voiced it best when he pointed out on Sunday: "While some are arguing that Trump may not have meant all those things, that leaves us with two devastating options, either we just elected a president who didn't mean a single word he said, or we elected one who did."
Peaceful acts of protest in cases like this are not only appropriate, but necessary. I have personally become inspired to get involved beyond simply voting. It's been easy to be comfortable, even apathetic, for a long time- but now we must take our share of responsibility for the governing of our country and those in the electorate who saw no other options for their future. Donate to the ACLU, to Planned Parenthood, and organizations like KIND whch offer pro bono legal aid to immigrant and refugee children. Learn about the members of our Supreme Court and why the decisions they make are so important, write to your representatives, call your senators and congressperson and tell them your concerns, vote with your dollars (find out what businesses do or do not support homophobic/anti-refugee/anti-environmentalist groups); donate to charities that directly affect at risk and LGBTQ youth, the refugee crisis, the homeless in your community. Volunteer at a soup kitchen, a VA hospital, a women's health center, or with a fantastic local organization like The Uprising, which was started by a wonderful friend of mine and supports youth education and quality of life here in NYC.
Also, if you haven't already been vetting your news sources to make sure they are actual journalism- well, now's the time to start vetting. Work on a local level to support a third party you care about. So many people disliked both candidates, but ultimately only one of the two major nominees was going to win. Bernie Sanders, an independent, understood he would make a bigger difference running as a democrat. If you want a third party, work to strengthen it year round and not only once every 4 years. Remember that ultimately 947,584 (and counting) more people voted for Hillary than for Trump, and thousands more voted against him via a 3rd party candidate...and yes, in our government, the popular vote is not how U.S. elections are decided. Only half of those eligible to do so even voted at all, which is such a shame because that means those people forfeited having a choice on our congress, the senate, and many ballot initiatives. I am well aware that writing this on an artist's blog means I am mostly howling into that echo chamber I spoke of earlier, but it's specifically to ask that you take stock of what you can do that is active and meaningful, and to pledge that I will do the same. Here's a simple list of more suggestions to get you started and to give you some inspiration. Most importantly, educate yourself about history and do what you can to help educate the young people of our nation as well. As George Santayana wrote (although it is oft misattributed to Churchill, in an instance of truly meta-level irony): "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." It's up to the American people to make sure that this is a Trump reality show that runs no longer than 4 years.
ALISHA GIAMPOLA is an NYC based actor/teacher/writer who thinks the supermoon was pretty amazing, actually.
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