MUST READ: The White, Male, Losers’ Liberator Wins Again

By
Chris Trotter
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51
20

VERY LITTLE on this earth can match the agony of being trapped inside your own skin. To be aware that you are not what those whose opinions you respect wanted you to be. Your parents, your family, your pastor, your teachers, your boss, your friends: all of them at one time or another believed in you; thought you had what it took to succeed. Except you didn’t succeed, you failed. You are not a winner, you’re a loser. A loser trapped inside his own skin.

America is full of losers trapped in their own skins. Angry, lonely, unwell, poor, white and male: and many of them beholden to people they despise. Like the petite, close-cropped, college-educated public servant whose good opinion the unemployed, former-warehouse-worker who never graduated from high-school has to retain in order to remain fed and housed. Like the overweight black woman at the second-hand clothing store who gives him “that look” whenever he enters the building wearing his coat with the confederate shoulder patches. Like the Latino dispenser of the pure “black tar” heroin he’s become addicted to ever since the supply of prescription opioids dried up. These are the people who make up the loser’s cast of “Them”. Until recently, there had been no “Us”.

But things have changed for this American loser. Now he understands the reasons why he failed. Now he knows that it wasn’t his fault. The game was rigged from the start: designed to make losers out of people exactly like himself.

Was it his fault the factories and warehouses either moved offshore or got automated? Was it his fault the badly-assembled scaffolding on the building site failed to prevent him falling and wrecking his back? Was it his fault the big pharmaceutical companies convinced so many doctors that opioid painkillers like Oxycontin were non-addictive? Nothing he did caused any of these things to happen, but he’s the one who was left to pay the price. He lost – but he’s not a loser. Thanks to Donald Trump he’s become something much more acceptable – a victim.

It’s why he loves Trump. It’s why he’s willing to forgive his President just about anything. Because Trump has made him feel free in his own skin. His own male skin. His own white skin. His own straight skin. His own “poorly educated” skin.

What’s more – much more – the President has alerted this guy to the way in which the system has been rigged to the advantage of just about everyone except him. Look at how much help has gone to women and minorities. Look at the way the college-educated have grabbed all the best jobs for themselves and their kids. Look at the faces of these “professionals” whenever you step into one of their bright, airy offices. How do they make you feel? Like you belong to a whole different species – an inferior species? Just think of the way the media makes all this seem right and proper. Think of how the hero of just about every TV series is a woman, or a black, or a gay, or all three at once! And how the bad guys in all these dramas tend to be white, working-class males: rednecks, trailer-trash, deplorables. People just like himself.

That’s why the media hate the President and are always telling lies about him. Because he’s seen through their game. He knows whose interests they serve. He knows who’s picking up the tab. He knows how far they’re willing to go prevent him from telling the Americans they’ve branded losers that they and their country can be great again. When he calls them “enemies of the people”, the people know exactly what he’s talking about.

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Making America great again: that’s what it’s all about. Except Trump has done much more than that. Not only has he transformed the losers into victims, but he has also turned them into Americans again. Real Americans. Small-town Americans who live in the states that the privileged fly over on the way to the “left coasts”. Americans who can strip a car engine down to its component parts, figure out what’s wrong, and reassemble it again all on their own, or with the help of a couple of buddies. Americans who can track a buck through the woods and fell it with a single shot from their daddy’s deer rifle. Americans who still know all the words of the Lord’s Prayer. Americans who served their country in Afghanistan and Iraq. Who looked their country’s enemies in the eye – and pulled the trigger.

In short, what Trump has done is create for the angry, the lonely, the unwell, the poor, the white and the male the “Us” that had been missing from their lives. Not forgetting the “Them” they had always known to be out there but who, until Trump, had been little more than the vague and indistinct shapes featured in Republican Party attack ads. By bringing the losers back into the “Us” and by bringing the “Them” into much sharper focus, Trump has created an extremely powerful political force.

Oh sure, it is possible to defeat Trump’s candidates at the district level and reclaim control of the House of Representatives. But, as progressive America discovered to its horror on 6 November, the real power lies not in the districts but the states. It is the state which is entitled to two senators – regardless of whether it contains four or forty million voters. And, in 2020, it will be the states dispatching their electors to the Electoral College – which chooses the President of the United States of America.

Trump’s “Us” may not be as numerous as the “Them” he has created for his followers to hate, but, as he demonstrated in 2016, they don’t have to be. What counts is where your supporters are located and how determined they are to cast their votes. Having freed so many white, poorly-educated American males from the agony of perceived personal failure: having cleared their consciences; restored their pride; and stoked their fears; Donald Trump has the American Republic exactly where he wants it – and needs it – to be.

 

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51 COMMENTS

  1. I do not like Trump, but this post by Chris is being UNFAIR to those supporting Trump.Only a certain percentage of his voters fit the angry victim or loser role. Most just want a simple, clear cut way of American Life, that is serving them and their interests, as it used to be in ‘better’ (easier) times.

    They tend to be white, slowly heading to become the MINORITY in the USA, and that is part of the true story.

    Most certainly they have vested interests, justifiably so, and they want employment, good incomes and security.

    Hence they fall for the easy solutions Trump offers them, no further questions asked.

    • Yet people like American journalist Chris Hedges and academic Noam Chomsky claim that the only way to combat this rise of fascism in America is to satisfy there wants and needs with jobs. But not just any jobs, green jobs.

    • The easy solutions that are working, like low unemployment, booming GDP etc.

      it must be tough for the Americans. I’m sure they want to live in a progressive country like NZ that is randomly shutting down successful industries for the hell of it.

      • Which industries is the New Zealand government shutting down?

        The economy is growing at over 4%. 10 more years and New Zealand prices may catch Australia so which industries do you refer too?

          • You sound like them peak oilers. Mui oil field has only developed half its lease and there’s still 100 years of drilling on the books. And when we’ve finished drilling we can squeeze out the last bits of fracking.

            • The government is not issuing any more exploration permits. This puts people working in that industry out of work

              People like geophysicists, geologists, petroleum engineers

              This is a simple statement of fact

              • Now you sound like them old NZ rail guys limanting the lose of the coal shoveler guy when trains were converted to diesel electric. Now you want to pull the emergency stop because you can’t handle it.

                • I can’t handle it because my mates lost their jobs.

                  Are you completely illiterate?

                  These are people with masters, PhD’s top earners in NZ. Leaving the country for Aussie, USA etc.

                  All caused by our retarded government that exhibit the average IQ of an Oderings houseplant

                  We still need the products created by these people. We’ll just have to pay a shit load more to import it

                • The key difference is that we aren’t replacing the oil and gas industry with anything.

                  There is no alternative on offer, at least currently

                  • Eagerly awaiting Saudis running out of money. Without the cheatcode of oil money the cancer of Wahhabism infecting secular muslim countries would die.

                  • My comment was not posted properly, so a new attempt, NZ Inc has under a former government made too little effort to prepare for the transition from fossil fuels to wind, solar and geothermal energy generation, so this government has made the overdue change of course, albeit only a humble one.

                    Nine long years little was done, business went on as per usual, as if nothing needed to be done, as if we can continue driving petrol and diesel fueled cars and trucks and buses.

                    It is time to stop exploration and drilling for oil, and gas can only be a temporary replacement, we need to hasten a true switch, and people must be educated about the stark realities out there. Carrying on as usual will be a huge crime to the coming generations.

                    While you lament there are no alternatives, we will never have alternatives if people have your mindset and even oppose a change.

                    Rome was not built in a day, and wind generation plants and solar panel farms and so will not be built over night either. More will need to be done, and will be done, just wait and see, Andy.

                    • I have a wind powered car and a hydrogen powered barbeque. They are great, I wouldn’t be without them.

                      I’m going on holiday soon in an electric plane powered solely by solar and wind.

                      I’m building a 700m wind turbine in my back garden to power the telly.

              • With a bit of retraining they can easily employed in other useful jobs and activities. Geothermal energy generation comes to mind, and most will still have jobs for many years to come anyway, in the gas and petroleum industries.

              • So they’re shutting down something that hasn’t started but not shutting down what has started?

                Yes, that sounds like they’re randomly shutting down successful industries for the hell of it.

                • Are you saying that the Petroleum Exploration industry doesn’t exist?

                  Do you drive in a hydrogen powered car or an electric one?

                  I know we have an Energy Minister with a PhD in feminist history, but I didn’t think reality was completely missing in action in NZ

                  Gosh I’d better book that one way flight mighty quick

                  • PLEASE, Andy, book that one way flight right now, and NEVER come back. We do not need more fossil fuel exploration, we need swift transition to truly sustainable, regenerative energy production, not more burning and pillaging of resources that will speed up the climate catastrophe. Fossil brained people are not needed, they are welcome to take one way flights out.

      • Never mind sustainability issues, keep plundering the planet, the US is one of the greatest wasters and burners of carbon fossil fuels. But Andy loves it, turn on the global heater.

      • I’m sure they want to live in a progressive country like NZ that is randomly shutting down successful industries for the hell of it.

        Welcome to globalisation, Andy – the twin to neo-liberalism. Where factories are closwed down; relocated to cheaper “labour markets”; and then the finished goods are re-imported back to New Zealand – tariff free.

        That’s neo-liberal globalisation. That’s the very thing you support.

        Good to see it’s finally dawning on you.

  2. Fabulous Post @ CT.
    The ‘American Way’ has always seemed to me to be an abstraction of ‘humanity’. Where ‘greed is good’ and the hallowed perversion for individual ‘ independence and freedom’ is worshipped like a calf and is unassailable. It’s a faux-freedom. It’s just a weakness to be exploited.
    Mind you. The ‘Chinese way’s’ a bit iffy too. So seems the ‘Russian’ way.
    Re drumph? You’re dead right. He understands how to manipulate those you talk about. The Great Unwashed. The Hoi Polloi. The dreaded masses. Is that the inherent flaw in a democracy? Thinkers and creatives becoming tyrannised by the masses as the sociopaths, narcissists and psychopaths manipulate institutionalised ignorance to make money from it all?
    Perhaps, as a friend of mine would argue, all we all need is simply 95% less of us? Mind you? As the old saying goes. Two people? Three agendas.

    • The people Chris is talking about are the ones who (just tipped) Trump over the edge and into the White House.

      They’re the ones who the democratic party (and the Labour Party here) are supposed to support. Of course the reality is these parties are run by educated folk who really can’t stand the sight of the “white trash” that follows Trump.

      I’ve spent enough time in progressive circles to know how true this is. If you can’t be homophobic, racist or sexist anymore there is only one group left to be the ‘other’ that middle class white people despise and that is the white working class.

      The truth of the matter is that the political left is no longer part of the solution for these people, we’re part of the problem

      • If you read the Washington Post article, it shows that only one third of Trump voters had household incomes below the national median of $50,000, one third fell in the $50,000-$100,000 bracket, and one third fell in the $100,000 and upwards bracket.

        The majority of Trump voters are not poor, and the popular narrative that his supporters are impoverished and suffering from economic anxiety is false.

    • This is true. They are Middle Class.

      When the American middle class feel secure, they care for the poor. When the American middle class feel threatened, they become conservative, and act strongly to protect their perogatives. This is only human nature.

      Neo-Liberalism has done a great deal to perturb the middle class. And which party is the great champion of Neo-liberalism? The Democratic Party of course, not the Republicans! The Democratic party is NOT a Left wing party, it is a Liberal party, the two are not the same.

      Reform the Democratic Party, and Trump’s American will disappear like a bad dream!

      Americans are naturally Socialistic, like all people; I grew up in a very Socialistic America. US propoganda is so hard on Socialism because the American people are always very close to Socialistic Revolution – all they lack is education and organisation. A Socialist Uprising could happen in America almost overnight; The New Deal, Occupy and Bernie Sanders proved that. The rise of the Police State in America is a testament to the government’s fear of Socialist Revolution. Only their government and political system, controlled by the Rich is anti-Socialist. Im telling you, Kiwis do not understand Americans at all.

      God help us when these amazing people finally fade into history. If they do, it will be Liberalism that destroys them, not Socialism.

      • I like your post.

        And I want to add – “In God We Trust.”

        America seems to be a far more strongly religious country than ours. Church, synagogue, mosque – even if they only attend once a year. ‘God’ is frequently invoked: God looks after America and Americans. That is what strongly underpins the generosity and charities and trusts in vast numbers. Supported by the American version of ‘middle class’ – which is more income- and ‘college-education’-based, as far as I can tell, than the British version.

        Plus big national celebrations such as Thanksgiving and Veterans Day and July 4. Regardless of colour, those events are celebrated. To not do so is simply un-American. To literally fly the flag (and take it down at sunset) on the front lawn. And there are too many new-come people who don’t or won’t.

        To not work (ridiculous hours) for pay and food stamps, to be so socialist as to join a union (!), to live in enclaves and not assimilate, not strive to join in, speak some version of English, to have your hand out for assistance of some kind – that’s un-American to people of a conservative mindset.

        When Somebody ripped up the playbook unilaterally, took all the toys and rewards, reduced the size of the cake – and the access to resources such as coal – there’s bewilderment. The right to work, and prosper, and have a better life than one’s parents – gone, and fading into the past. Who to blame? The people who have led the way in showing the American Dream is possible? Inner conflict – or lose your values and beliefs and strive to be like those people who show that business ‘success’ matters more than fellow citizens? That’s a hard one.

        I have a friend in New York state. He works freelance. His work has been drying up because his ‘fellow Americans’ are buying in the services my friend provides from India – because it’s cheaper.

        I don’t think Trump or the Republicans are going to fix that sort of betrayal any time soon. It makes no business sense to do so…

  4. Time for masses of progressives to migrate to these comparatively sparsely populated states? You would only need so many to tip the balance.

  5. You make an important point Chris, which is that it is the State based electoral collage that determines the presidency. This means that a red state such as Montana has equal rights to a blue state such as California, never mind the difference in the number of voters.

    But I think the results of the mid term elections are more complex than you imply. For instance the Senate seats up for reelection were predominantly Democrat ones where the demographics had shifted heavily towards the profile of Republican voters of the sort that you described. Bearing in mind that Senators are elected every 6 years, a shift in demographics is probably inevitable. This means that the fact that the Republicans won some Democratic states was predictable and unsurprising. Even so the Republicans only captured, what, 3/4 Senate seats off the Democrats.

    Confusing the picture are the results of the state Governor’s elections. Here there was a significant shift to the Democrats. I think they gained 6/7 governorships. The structure of this electoral process was the same as the Senate electoral process – a state by state election.

    Further, I understand that at the State legislative level there was a strong swing to the Democrats.

    So the mid terms have produced a confusing and contradictory result. I don’t believe its as simple as saying because the Republicans did well in Senate elections, Trump will do well in the 2020 Presidential election.

  6. This is lazy, strawman building thinking and sounds like the post of a sore loser by someone who I assume is not even a registered voter in the United States. As long as those on the left cling to this thinking then they have no chance of recovering, and never will.

  7. “The beatings will continue till morale improves” Captain Bligh
    It seems when ever a leftest leaning party loses an election theres a backlash of propaganda against the wining side, what ever their politics, seems they think their way is the only way, their opinion the only valued 1, they forget that we ARE the workers.
    What i see is a quasi religious movement morally bankrupt and dedicated to their own agenda ready to threaten us and use violence at the lest excuse, us deplorables im talkin about,
    So tough luck losers violence is not exclusively a leftest tool, the narrative is about to shoved where the sun dont shine.
    When ya policy’s and ideas are anti-human expect a backlash unlike any you’ve ever experienced.
    There is no global warming,just the opposite, serous science says that the on sett of the solar minimum is upon us all, check the weather world wide, so shove ya one world government population control, ya carbon taxes and your 1080 poison right up your own well stretched ass.
    WWG1WGA is world wide and coming to a town near you SOON,
    The Qanon army is watching you watching us.

  8. Trump didn’t create them. This class you speak of, the American white wreckage was a joint creation of the neoliberal right and the identitarian left. The neoliberal right impoverished them, and the identitarian left refused them a place on their life raft of protected classes because an acknowledgement of their victimhood overturns the narrative that ‘whiteness’ has everything to do with it.

    In that sense, the American left has truly blown its own toes off. If ‘whiteness’ has everything to do with it, these people quite axiomatically wouldn’t be in such a state. The left’s response to the impoverishment of the white working class should have been to bring them aboard. The right would have been buried at the ballot box forever. Instead, they condemned them.

    And now in the form of Trump, they have a candidate who can pay out both of their oppressors while providing great entertainment.

    • No, Socialists created it, you and I. By defaulting on our obligations.

      Placing blame on others is an abdication of responsibility.

      Fascism can never win unless Socialism has already lost and left the field.

      Think about that.

      • I find my explanation more convincing:

        “The neoliberal right impoverished them, and the identitarian left refused them a place on their life raft of protected classes because an acknowledgement of their victimhood overturns the narrative that ‘whiteness’ has everything to do with it.”

        Any socialist failure (and I’m not sure how this is even quantified in the USA) is entirely within this context. But then, I’m not a ‘socialist’ really so it’s not my barrow to push. I’m happy enough with the moderate left if they’ll just get their shit together and stop alienating poor people.

  9. A few weeks ago I thought Trotter may have finally embraced the survivalist orientated green nationalist zeitgeist, but sadly it seems he’s slipped back into his comfortable old 20th century slippers. His racist use of the word white in this context is not a good look, especially from an aging, middle class, dare I say it, privileged white New Zealander. Whoops, just spanked myself, my guilt about being born white (red faced white brown would be more accurate) has no bounds. Perpetuating such stereotypes just reinforces the US & THEM divide.

    People are people, we are who we are, we’re imperfect animals who happen to find ourselves a top the food chain. Nothing can really be done about this, all the self delusion in the world will not save from the dictates of our primal nature. Of course we can dream all manner of hope evoking & death defying dreams, as that’s about all that makes life really worthwhile.

    Most tolerant societies have been largely inclusive & some ethnic groups or eccentric individuals within them didn’t make a big song & dance about their quirks or points of difference. Some citizens even developed parallel societies within the mainstream, as they felt the only way they could express their individuality freely was among their own. These societies have largely been tolerated by the mainstream & some of the individuals that have emerged from them have become very successful in their own right. Most of these people have never felt the need to go on about the way they differ from the more mainstream others who they’ve climbed the greasy pole of success side by side with.

    Today it is all about a persons point of difference not about the character of the person regards of race, creed, gender or colour. This fanatically divisive way of seeing & walking our world is counter-productive & is becoming extremely polarising. What we need more than ever today is solidarity & unity of purpose, not a society that is largely focused of tearing itself apart over small beer issues that largely result from being who we are; a deeply floored & imperfect species which is devoid of ideas, hope, lust for life, collective will & grasping at straws. Insert big your big dream here…………..?

  10. If Society is failing, and large swathes of the population are left out, irrespective of who they are, it is always our fault, as Socialists. Always.

    We are the only people who even pretend to try and create a just society. No one else claims that purpose.

    So if Trump exists, it can only be because he has filled the vacuum we have created by vacating the field. We stopped caring about jobs and education and inequality and ending poverty; otherwise we would have resolved these issues long ago.

    Perhaps we were persuaded that it is easier to fight for identity and gender rights than it is to fight for class. Maybe we didn’t simply desert the cause, maybe we were repressed, and pushed to the margins. But it doesn’t matter, it is still our responsibility. Because the consequences are the same regardless.

    Stop blaming the victims, whether they be white or male or poor or uneducated. Stop calling them “deplorables” and despising them. They have slid into a dreadful place, but they only precede us. As they go, so we all go. The class war hasn’t ended just because we are no longer fighting it. We will inevitably share their fate. Their destiny is our destiny. Capitalism is not finished with us yet.

    • The breakdown in civil discourse isnt caused by Republicans. Its a tactic used by the left to polarize, resist, shutdown, inflame opinion in order to avoid discussion & argument because they know 100% they cant win discussions particularly the economic debate.

      Trump kind of acknowledged the 2008 global fincaical crises with his anti establishment rhetoric and anti free trade globalisation. Bernie Sanders went full democratic socialism and Hillary and Debie Shaltz couldn’t handle economics.

      The inability of liberal academics and Memebers of senate/congress/parliament across the world, there inability to face reality of 2008 makes them unfit to seek appointments to financial institutions such as The Federal Reserve Bank of America leaving it up to the bankers to run and who screwed everything up in the first place.

      Paradoxically if youre a fembot, person of colour and have been physically or emotionally harmed in your life and suffering PTSD thinking it’s all Trumps fault then you should be cheering every time the U.S. Economy performs poorly.

    • Hi Nobody

      Your words about socialism are true! “We (socialists) are the only people who even pretend to try and create a just society. No one else claims that purpose”.

      Capitalism is about making wealth solely for the individual. As laid down by Ayn Rand, Alan Greenspan, Ronald Regan and Margaret Thatcher.

      Capitalists don’t give a Fig about anything else – just their obscene amounts of money. Trump is Capitalist and acts as such.

      “The Just Society” makes sure that all persons and families will have the means to live healthy, happy, constructive and exciting lives.

      Strangely, capitalists often seem to be a sour lot. Their kids are sickeningly brash and arrogant – usually.

  11. So do the majority of US voters meet this description? Somehow I do’t think so. Trying to marginalise Trump’s support ignores the simple statistical fact that he won the election.

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