Trump voters now face their first big test
The millions who elected Donald Trump must condemn hate and cruelty now, or forever be defined by it
This week on the campus of DePaul University in Chicago, two Jewish students were attacked by mask wearing thugs. On the campus of Texas State University in Austin students carried signs that said women, slaves, and land are property. Across social media, young women are getting targeted with posts saying, “your body, my choice.”
Donald Trump’s long courtship with hatred has poisoned many young Americans.
As I wrote here, Mr. Trump has not earned the benefit of doubt as he prepares for a second term. But his voters are a different story. There is no evidence that most of Trump’s voters hold these ugly views. One of the tests of the legitimacy of any government is whether it delivers on the promise of a good life for its citizens. Our government has slowly walked away from that promise since the 1980s. Most of Trump’s voters feel this in their bones.
Although I vehemently disagree with them about the choices that brought us here and about policies that will fix our country, there cannot be any doubt that voters rightly hold legitimate grievances against the leadership of a democracy that has allowed so much of the nation’s wealth to flow into so few hands. The majority in America is right to demand change.
That good will does not extend to hate.
The was the scene on Monday at Texas State University in Austin, Texas. Photo Credit: CBS Austin.
Trump’s supporters are Americans not so very different from those who voted the other way, folks who want little more than a chance at a better life for their children. But they now shoulder a burden the rest of us do not have: the haters in their midst.
I won’t waste words calling on Donald Trump now to condemn the hatred he has done so much to countenance. But Trump’s voters are a different story. If they hope to move the country forward, they must make perfectly clear that there is no room in our nation for the kind of hatred and cruelty we are now seeing.
It took just one day for the first big test to confront the majority that elected Donald Trump. If they do not condemn this behavior in the clearest terms, they will end up being defined by it.