F**king Mondays: Lessons for Lefties, Let Trump go Wild, and How to Preserve Your Sanity
Liberals need to listen more.
Welcome to another edition of “F**king Mondays”! In the round up today:
The language of the left
In the wake of Trump’s victory, Democrats have been busy attacking each other over what they believe went wrong. This is entirely understandable given the consequences of this election. A Trump presidency is going to be catastrophic for the vast majority of Americans, but the circular firing squad is not going to do anything to combat Trumpism.
One of the biggest lessons the left can take from this seismic realignment is the way the left speaks to and about minorities. Huge numbers of black, Asian, and Latino voters moved towards Trump, and the left desperately needs to understand why. I’ve been talking to neighbors and chatting on Substack Notes with liberals who are convinced Trump’s victory was because America is a racist, sexist country. They believe this was a win for white nationalism and the patriarchy, and that white people have sold other minorities out for their own gain.
The problem with this argument is that a large percentage of non-white Americans voted for Trump too. Just look at the exit poll data on the demographic shift towards Trump:
While black Americans still voted overwhelmingly for Kamala Harris, it is worth noting that John McCain only got 4% of the black vote against Barack Obama in 2008. Trump has improved on that by over 300%.
I’ve asked liberals to account for this, and the reasoning goes something like this:
Some minorities — particularly Latinos — believe they are white and desperately want some of that “white privilege”. They voted for Trump because they don’t think his racist language and policies will affect them
Given I spend most of my time with my wife’s Latino family (some of whom voted for Trump), I would like to respectfully disagree. Latinos are very proud of their heritage and haven’t, contrary to the assertion of (mostly) white liberals, internalized the ideology of “white supremacy”. They voted for Trump because they agree with his policies — even on immigration — and despise the identity politics of the left. They know who Trump is, and prefer his obvious racism to what they perceive to be gender pronoun obsessed woke elitism.
The truth is, white progressives are further to the left than the minorities they often claim to speak for:
It might not be easy to digest for liberals that minorities are quite conservative and don’t subscribe to their views on race or gender, but that is what the evidence shows.
I regard myself as an old school liberal with some sympathies towards the white progressive/woke world view. I do believe systemic racism exists, I don’t believe capitalism is a fair system, and I like living in a country with lots of immigrants (I am one after all). That being said, if the left doesn’t change the way it talks about these issues, then they are doomed to lose more of the minority vote in the coming years.
If Democrats keep telling white working class Americans they have “white privilege” they are not going to vote for them. If Democrats keep telling minorities they are being oppressed, it turns out they won’t vote for them either. This doesn’t mean white privilege is a myth, or that minorities aren’t being oppressed. It does mean that Americans of all colors don’t view the world exclusively through that prism, and they are sick to death of talking about it.
How do liberals repair the damage? The first thing I would suggest is discussing these issues without getting offended, insulting dissenters, or refusing to accept they might be wrong. Democrats need to speak to Americans in a language they understand, and learn to listen without lecturing.
Give Trump free reign?
Jonathan V. Last at the Bulwark has a simple proposal for Democrats that they should not “expend political capital trying to protect voters from Trump.” He writes:
Americans listened to everything Trump said over the last two years. They heard him talk about abandoning Ukraine, imposing massive tariffs, putting RFK Jr. in charge of healthcare policy, and rounding up millions of immigrants and either deporting them or putting them into camps.
A majority of voters affirmatively chose those policies.
So let Trump implement them.
Last then walks through what all of the above would mean, including allowing NATO to break, allowing RFK Jr. to take fluoride out of the water/end childhood vaccine programs, and letting Trump implement his plans to arrest and deport 15 million people. Last argues that Democratic governors can run state programs to protect citizens in blue states from this madness (vaccination and fluoridation programs etc), but the party should under no circumstances try to protect those who voted for Trump from his policies. “Democrats can no longer afford to spend political capital protecting anyone who can’t support them electorally, just because it’s nice or the right thing to do,” he continues.
I have to say, I’m inclined to agree. Americans did not listen to liberals who pleaded with them not to vote for a madman to run the country, so now they must face the consequences.
Trump will take office with virtually no restraints. He has the House, the Senate, and the Supreme Court on his side, and his administration will be packed with the most grotesque toadies imaginable. He has an explicit mandate to govern, and we will find out just what that means. Red states in particular are going to learn very quickly what it is like living in a country with no environmental regulation, easily preventable childhood disease, drastic cuts to public education, spiraling health care costs, lack of insurance, and extremely expensive goods after Trump’s tariff plan is enacted.
This will obviously have an impact on those who voted for Harris too, but Democrats need to be utterly ruthless moving forward if they want to take back power. Obstructing Trump will only give him excuses as to why his policies failed, so Democrats must let Trump run wild. Then, they can sit back and watch the system collapse while the very stable genius pours gasoline on what is left.
It won’t be pretty, but Trump cannot be protected from his own mistakes, and neither can his voters.
Mental health check
I’ve spent quite a lot of time checking in on people over the past week because I know how awful they are feeling after the election. It isn’t a lot of fun waking up to a world where a woman-abusing, criminal madman gets to rule over our lives for the next four years.
Having gone through the horrors of 2016, I mentally prepared myself for what I believed was the highly unlikely prospect of a Trump victory in 2024. As election night unfolded, a familiar knot in my stomach developed, and a sense of despair began to set in. By midnight, I knew the election was basically over and that I had to mentally prepare myself for another four years of utter chaos. My mind would constantly veer into dark places and I couldn’t stop thinking about what this meant for women, Ukrainians, poor Americans, and the environment.
Then I remembered that this was exactly what Trump and his fascist movement wants. They want the left to give up hope, to give into despair, and to resign themselves to the right’s deranged version of reality. So I decided not to give them the satisfaction. More than anything, that meant refusing to allow Donald Trump or the MAGA cult to dictate my mental state. I won’t allow them to make me sad, or angry, or feel despair.
I spent the next few days playing with my kids, going out on walks, and checking in with friends. It was actually a pretty good week, and I plan on having more of them.
So yes, the election was terrible and the prospect of a Trump second term horrifying. But Trump has taken enough from me already, and I refuse to give him any more.
Have a great week!
If you enjoy The Banter, please consider becoming a paid member. You'll get access to our weekly Emergency Meeting Podcast, all member-only articles, and exclusive chat threads. We're immensely grateful to our readers for making our work possible.
Listen to the latest episode of The Banter Roundtable Podcast (free):
For Banter Members:
Harris never talked about pronouns, never scolded white voters that they had "white privilege," didn't make a big deal about her gender or race, supported the bill in Congress that would toughen border restrictions, y'know, the one that Trump tanked. Why would voters be listening more to the progressive Left, made up of people who have very little actual power, than to Harris, who proposed policies designed to help small businesses and people having families or taking care of their elderly parents?
It's the right wing propaganda system that is so pervasive in this country that has created a gigantic straw man of evil progressives out of a small group of people who say the word "Latinx." A group that has maybe read some history and that understands that systemic racism and misogyny will indeed limit the opportunities of women and non-white people, in spite of the fact that those same people might want to believe otherwise (I admire their optimism).
As a trans feminine person (I avoid the term non-binary for myself but don't judge others), I feel the community as a whole needs to stop dying on the following hills: bathrooms, sports, pronouns, and prisoner surgeries. Schools: there are SO FEW trans kids per capita, if they can't designate at least one gender-neutral bathroom per facility, then give the kids a pass to use the teacher's lounge. Sports: case by case basis and if the trans athlete is far off the grid in terms of athletic ability, just say NO. Pronouns -- enough of this BS, honor them when you can and we need to LET IT GO when people slip up -- and if we don't let "misgendering" be an easy dagger for them to stab us with, they'll eventually give up. My closest friends use my preferred terms with me and I could care less about everyone else. My kid, on the other hand, has different pronoun rules every week. Prisoner surgeries -- NO, NO, NO (to quote OMD's Tesla Girls). If we have that many trans criminals in the system, I'm sure the for profit correctional industry can figure out some way to monetize it and provide appropriate accommodations. Since prison reform is off the table for the next few decades and the prison pipeline will only ramp up, I highly recommend that trans people lay low, don't commit crimes, and do their best to not get brought in on avoidable charges often used to target at-risk communities. That won't save everyone but will hopefully reduce the prisoner count. Most trans people just want to live authentically and fit in, and sadly, society is going to take a much longer arc to even meet us half way.