Kos user “The Geogre” brought my attention the other day to a Wonkette piece that I can’t quite stop thinking about. It’s called, “Trump Didn't Win In Spite Of The Access Hollywood Tape. He Won Because Of It.” But it’s the topic sentence of the final paragraph that struck me, and provides the title for this diary. Here again:
The things the Right truly wants cannot be achieved legislatively.
I’ve been trying to explain that, in various ways, for years, in my seemingly never-ending series on the topic of Why People Vote Republican, even though — or because — Republicans can’t govern.
It’s no secret that selfishness, cruelty, resentment, hate and fear are the reasons why millions of Americans nominated and elected a self-evidently unqualified, vulgar, ignorant, demented racist gangster to be the President of the United States. Not because they “liked” his “policies” (he never really had any), not because they thought he was objectively qualified for the job (viz., had any knowledge, understanding and/or experience in government, law, public policy, military affairs or international diplomacy), not even because they necessarily thought he’d be good at the job, but because he spoke to their selfishness, cruelty, resentment, hate and fear. He told them it was OK to be selfish and cruel, and that they were right to resent whoever they resent, hate whoever they hate, and fear whatever they fear — because he does too.
More and more since der Drumpfenführer was elected, Republican voters of my own acquaintance have been telling me that they vote Republican not for tax cuts, deregulation or a “strong military” but because they’re “sick of political correctness," or they’re “sick of hearing about safe spaces and trigger warnings," or they’re “sick of” the Ann Coulters and Milo Yiannopouloses of the world being “bullied” off of college campuses by “liberal elites”. They vote Republican because “liberals” are chasing Republican lawmakers out of restaurants; because “liberals” hate the police; because “liberals” are being mean to conservative judicial nominees. They’re “sick of” the “gay agenda”, they’re “sick of” #MeToo, they’re “sick of” Black Lives Matter.
But here’s the thing: At the risk of stating the obvious, neither legislation nor administrative action nor anything else elected officials can actually do is going to make any of that go away. As the Wonkette piece describes in great detail, what these people really want is to live in a world where they don’t have to see, hear, experience or be confronted with people and things that make them uncomfortable, that bother them, or that piss them off. Not only that, but voting Republican and electing Republicans doesn’t make those things go away and doesn’t shield them from any of it. Sure, it makes those obnoxious and annoying liberals feel shitty, which for some is the only real goal anyway, but still.
And here’s the awful other side of that coin: Electing Democrats next month and in two years won’t make all the toxic bullshit that elected Trump, that he and the repulsive, vile creature that currently occupies the position of Senate Majority Leader keep spewing onto the airwaves and into the public consciousness, go away either. In fact, and I’ve been thinking about this a lot too lately, Trump himself is never going away. He would not have gone away had he lost the election, and he won’t go away after he leaves office no matter if, when or how that ever actually occurs. We’re going to be hearing from him, absorbing his toxic bullshit, and our media will rush to cover, televise and disseminate whatever pours from his pestilent pie-hole, for the rest of his dreadful, cretinous, taxpayer-funded natural life.
Were we, any of us, naïve enough to think that decisive Democratic electoral victories in 2006 and 2008 would put an end to or ameliorate all the toxic right-wing bullshit of the previous decade? I don’t know. I don’t remember. I’m sure we thought we might get some of the policies we wanted, like a stab at health care reform, a reining-in of financial predators, a move toward green[er] energy, and marriage equality. And we got a lot of that. Which made Republican voters feel shitty. Which gave the GOP an opening to take power right back. By telling their voters that Democrats were doing it just to make them feel shitty.
Are there liberals who vote Democratic just to make conservatives other sundry GOP fans feel shitty? Probably. Almost certainly, there are. But it seems to me that Democratic voters by and large vote Democratic because they prefer Democratic policy prescriptions on a wide range of issues from abortion to the environment to taxes to energy to education to infrastructure to health care — all of which can be accomplished legislatively and are not designed to make conservatives feel shitty. Everyone knows how unpopular (not to mention cruel and destructive) the actual Republican policy agenda (to the extent they have one that can be accomplished legislatively) is, and given the polling and reaction to their latest tax cut it’s no secret anymore that Republicans are there to serve their wealthy donors and no one else.
So Republican voters continue to vote Republican as a reaction to Democratic efforts to improve people’s lives through legislation and policymaking (as in 2010), as a reaction to the rhetorical excesses of the left (both real and imagined, mostly imagined), and just to make liberals feel shitty, and thinking, maybe, that making liberals feel shitty will put an end to political correctness, safe spaces, Black Lives Matter, and gays forcing Christians to cater their weddings. But the thing is, it won’t. Legislation won’t stop it, executive action won’t stop it, and electing Republicans won't stop it, any more than electing Democrats will put an end to racism, sexism, homophobia, religious fanaticism, hate crimes, gun-buggery, or “Lock her up! Lock her up!”
Which leaves us with an interesting question: How do we deal with a political cohort whose dearest desires can’t be accomplished legislatively, whose voting preferences and choices are motivated entirely by a desire for things that elected officials, the people they vote for, even if they win, can’t actually give them?
I don’t know yet, what the answer to that question might be. And the thing that troubles me the most, I think, is that there might not be one. Sure, we can outvote them, but they’re not going away. They’re already voting for people who can’t give them what they really want. Where can they go from there?
