So... What Now, America?

The United States has a new president. If you were to create a decision tree — a chart to help you pick and model the role you want to play in American democracy, starting today, this is the only fixed piece: Donald Trump is our commander in chief. From there, you could build outward, drawing a diagram that would outline the various avenues available to you, depending on how you feel about the election result.

FOR THE TRUMP VOTER

If you’re in support of Trump, your path is relatively straightforward, though not perfectly linear. It is clear now, looking at the numbers, that Trump wasn’t simply elected by the vicious opponents of civil liberties that were profiled on The Daily Show. He was also elected, as economist Thad Beversdorf pointed out to us in June, by people who’d lost manufacturing jobs and felt left out of the system. People who were, as Killer Mike put it this morning, “poor and angry.”

Trump’s words about women, Mexicans, Muslims, and other minorities were vile by any metric. But the vitriol both obfuscated and underlined the fact that his voters felt like they were the disenfranchised, the downtrodden, the forgotten populace of this nation. So the decision tree for a Trump voter would likely spread out in one of two directions, based on their responses to a single question:

Are you in support of what the president elect said while campaigning?

If your answer is “yes” then you likely hope that he will keep those promises — by building a wall across the Mexican border, initiating an “extreme vetting” system for Muslim Americans, or putting forth a nationalist/authoritarian regime. Your primary option at this point becomes “wait and see.”

If your answer is “no,” if you found yourself repelled by Trump’s words, but supported him because you believe that he provided the best path forward for you and your family, then you’re left in a trickier spot. Perhaps you’ve awoken to feelings of cognitive dissonance between what Trump said about women and minorities vs. what you feel. Here again, “wait and see” is an option, but there are other, more active choices at hand.

Let’s say that you voted for Trump simply because you felt disenfranchised economically. That being the case, now would be the time to get involved as an ally for human rights issues as we all move forward in Trump’s America. Will you educate other members of the voting base on the reality of the transgender experience? Will you fight for the religious freedoms that the conservative-beloved constitution vows to provide for everyone? Will you strive to empathize with the anger and sadness that minorities across the country are feeling, then work to ensure that those minorities, panicked about the loss of basic human rights, will have a place in this new world order?

Most of all, will you be brave enough to have conversations with both the alt-right and the far left? Because you, the Trump voter who rejects hate (even when it was displayed so brazenly by your chosen candidate), represent perhaps the most viable bridge for re-connecting our fractured society. (If that’s the path people decide to take at all, a question that deserves its own branch on the post-Trump decision tree.)

The fact is, Donald Trump is about to have a lot on his plate. He was chosen as a political outsider — the only president to never hold either a high ranking military post or a public office of some sort prior to being elected. Meaning: His situation is completely unprecedented. He has his own decision charts to worry about. So if you’re on board with Trump’s stated goals about trade and manufacturing, but don’t agree with the vice president elect’s idea of LGBTQI conversion therapy, now would be the time to say so. Loudly.

If you elected Trump on the premise of “he’s not perfect, but he’ll fight for the disenfranchised” then this is the exact moment in history where you, as his base, can at once broaden the idea of who is disenfranchised, and narrow the definition of who or what you’re fighting against.

This is where you say, “We elected you for ___________ Mr. Trump, not for ______________.” And you have to be able to fill in those blanks. Because so many people who followed the election don’t know what goes into those spaces. And they’re terrified of those unknowns.

FOR THE TRUMP DISSENTER

If you did not support Trump, if you voted or campaigned against him, your decision tree probably feels like it was struck by lightning. Are you going to move? Are you going to revolt? Are you going to hold everything Trump does for four years in complete scorn?

If there was one single problem that the election results illustrated about the liberal agenda, it was that it is, above all things, insular. How many times last night did you hear pundits talk about “rural voters” in a state of complete shock? And yet, those voters were visible all along — in the labor participation rate numbers, in the states that lost manufacturing income since 2007, even in the geographical breakdowns of Trump’s base.

Last night proved one thing unequivocally: Liberal disdain for these voters wasn’t enough.

The New York Times, the Washington Post, The Atlantic, The New Yorker — never before have legacy media companies railed against one candidate so emphatically. And they failed. The Facebook status updates that so many liberals shared and re-shared day after day were simply a form of self soothing. They didn’t change minds.

While Trump drew crowds in the ten thousands, like he was putting on a modern-day tent revival, Democratics stayed online, offering pleas to the universe. These words mattered, as all words spoken from conviction matter, but they didn’t cross the divide between Trump voter and Hillary voter. They didn’t even draw in the extreme protest voters (who also have decision trees to make today, based around the question: “So…um… what was our endgame?”).

Assuming that you’re not planning to move or overthrow the government, what does the future look like for the defeated Democrat?

1. Wait it out.
2. Continue to focus on the liberal base — reading the same outlets, sharing the same stories, passing around the same dramatic headlines. Believe it or not, this tactic might prove fruitful for human rights-minded liberals… in time. There are indicators that media — which is largely liberal and therefore influenced by liberal thought — is indeed changing the face of our nation.

https://twitter.com/EByard/status/796317753749729280

But it won’t happen overnight. That was proven.

3. You can decide that you will be be an active part of the political process over the next four years — perhaps a more active part than you’ve ever been, because you recoil from the ideas Trump’s candidacy espoused.

Here, on the very largest stage, it was proven that at the present moment liberal disdain is not a powerful political tool. So a liberal, plotting a decision chart, has to at least consider leaving the confines of the left wing echo chamber and mixing it up again. Meeting people who think differently and talking to them. Sharing concerns and listening in return.

The question must be asked? Do you care enough to take one of your precious few days off to march, rally, or petition? Will you write to congress? Will you pay to support advocacy groups? Will this be the force majeure that ignites a new era of civic involvement in your life?

If you are a liberal, or a democrat, if you are a Hillary supporter or simply a Trump hater, you have a choice on your personal decision chart about how to be involved in the next four years of our nation’s history. You could lead a return to 1960’s-levels grassroots political engagement. You could push forward a seismic shift within your party or help bolster the legitimacy of third parties in general.

Your decision chart is influenced by all the other decisions you’ve made and witnessed in your life. They say insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. If you are a liberal, last night was a referendum that your scorn for the “other” is not an effective political tool. Your choice then, your most logical option as you plot your next move, is to get involved. To be the change you want to see in this country and to continue to fight for the values which you hold dear.