I keep seeing people get this very simple question wrong. I expect political pundits in the pages of the NYT to screw it up, but I am surprised that so many people here at DKOS don’t get it.
Trump won because white male privilege.
That is it. That is all. Nothing else mattered. The Russians did not matter. James Comey did not matter. Hillary’s strategy, or message, or policy, or character, or emails, or pants-suit, did not matter. Even money did not matter (just ask Jeb Bush).
America was founded on white male privilege. From its inception white male privilege was encoded into law and tradition. It could be described as the defining trait of the nation.
And every day since the Revolutionary war has been a retreat from that position, as the franchise and rights and privileges are extended to more and more groups.
Trump tells it like it is; he’s going to take our country back; he’s going to make America great again; he’s on the working man’s side. Every one of those chants make zero sense as they are written; but when you insert white male privilege as the subject of each phrase, they make perfect sense. Ugly, hideous sense, but coherent.
After eight years of The Black Man, facing eight years of The Woman, the essential core of America absolutely panicked. They picked the worst, most unfit champion they could find (just ask Jeb Bush), so that the message would be crystal clear: white male privilege is both necessary and sufficient for success in America. If you have literally no other qualities, you can still be President; and you cannot be President if you do not have it, regardless of all other qualifications.
This is the second Civil War; this is the rise of the Confederacy; this is a battle for the soul of the nation. Shall we continue to be a nation founded on, by, and of white male privilege; or shall we not? In the face of this existential question nothing else matters. There are no policies more important, no messages more relevant, no strategy or tactics involved in choosing what kind of nation we will be. This comes first and foremost; it literally trumps all other issues.
If you vote on any other issue, you are tacitly voting for white male privilege. It doesn’t matter if you hate Hillary or Blue Dogs or Bernie, if you vote for the people who do not understand the only issue is white male privilege, you are voting for the status quo. Abortion, global warming, homophobia, national debt, welfare, taxes, Confederate statues, guns, religion: these were only ever vehicles for maintaining the status quo. Conservatives couldn’t care less about those issues in and of themselves, but only so far as they preserve the status quo.
And the status quo they are fighting to preserve is white male privilege. Which is why a completely unfit white man was elected over a qualified woman to destroy the legacy of a brilliant black man. If you don’t understand this yet, then WAKE THE FUCK UP.
