1 week Ago By Una Mullally
This last-minute feeling about Harris may also have been down to a projection of my own Irish experience that women would turn out in huge numbers on the issue of abortion. Many did. But huge numbers of white women voters went for the misogynist.
It’s time to get real. There are also lessons about not ignoring the faultlines in any society. Trump’s extremism is part of the attraction.
A lot of people love Trump. They knowingly buy into the scam he’s peddling, and consume a poisonous media and online diet. Authoritarianism isn’t just about leaders – awful people trying to gain traction will always exist – it’s about the conditions that trigger those predisposed to authoritarianism to act on their worst impulses.
We are in an age of rising authoritarianism. The response from the so-called “centre” (in reality, an enabling force that facilitates the kind of descent we’re now witnessing) is empty. New thinking is needed.
The die has been cast for a long time. Some Americans seem willing to cede to authoritarianism, and any analysis that is not rooted in how and why authoritarian movements take hold is lacking. At the Trump rally near Lititz, Pennsylvania on the Sunday before the vote, the energy was dark.
Stephen Miller, in particular, was a sinister orator at the podium before Trump. When Trump arrived, chaotic and rambling as usual, he mused about journalists getting shot. It was fascinating how many in the crowd were clearly in on the “joke”.
By that, I mean they know he’s lying, but it’s shock-standup. The outrageousness is part of the point. I sensed a far more intuitive grasp of semiotics and semantics in the audience than many people give Trump’s supporters credit for.
Much like the format of scripted reality television from which Trump emerged, you know it’s fake, but you still get invested. And then at some point, you forget about the fakery and believe the plot and characters as though they’re real. This gap between authenticity and lying is where many of those gathered appeared to be placing their desperation, anger and grievances.
He’s their guy. They know he’s a clown, but people sure like rolling up to the circus, even when the energy is dark and depressing. Trump is an authentic fraud.
He paints a grim picture of society that many people feel reflects their resentment, personal bigotries and hugely emotional irrationalism. He also says he’ll put more money in people’s pockets. Back in Lititz, in a crowd of people with worn-out shoes and old jackets, that mattered.
After leaving that rally, I spent the rest of the day nursing a familiar feeling. It’s a feeling I’ve felt upon leaving anti-immigrant marches in Dublin. It gets under your skin.
It is a sadness about where people are putting their anger, how they’re being duped, led by grifters, and fed this toxic, macho, empty, racist, resentful rage that has nowhere to go. It ultimately boomerangs as part of a process of self-destruction. At Harris’s rally in Philadelphia last Monday night, the huge production stacked with celebrities drew tens of thousands of people.
When Harris arrived, I thought she would seize the moment, say something meaningful, deviate from the ChatGPT of her stump speech to offer something – anything – authentic. She didn’t. A lot of people who told me they voted for Harris said they didn’t believe in her either.
[ Maureen Dowd: Democrats and the case of mistaken identity politics Opens in new window ] Harris spoke about “joy”, but you cannot tell people how to feel. You cannot declare a feeling exists when it isn’t authentic. She ran a tonally positive campaign without substance.
The “promise of America” she often cited does not exist for so many as she framed it. In the end, it felt vapid. The Democrats did not lay out a coherent message nor a plan for people that would free them from the grind.
Instead of building a movement, their campaign sought to carve off slivers of undecided voters and status quo conservatives. It was a failed strategy. Piecemeal policy and conflicting messages did not rise to the gravity of the moment.
But again, this is about the growth of authoritarianism. Last Thursday evening, I went to see the play Hothouse by the young Irish theatre company Malaprop at the Irish Arts Center in Hell’s Kitchen in New York City. It’s a brilliant piece of work, rightly earning plaudits.
There’s a line in it that speaks to not condemning people, but “an evil situation”. During the campaign, lines from the poem on the Statue of Liberty were occasionally cited by liberals as a reminder of America’s welcome to others coming to the country: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” The problem for this nation is that so many of America’s tired and poor are voting for Trump.
The “hope” part now, for the rest of us, is that many voters rejected Trump’s anti-vision, and are devastated by the result. The vast majority of black women rejected him, with only 6 per cent voting for him. A new form of movement-building for the Democrats must come from the grassroots, and it must be real.
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