Based on the last two presidential elections, there is clearly a failure in reporting, polling and understanding of almost half of America. Perhaps liberals would simply like to govern and run for office by only mobilizing their half of the population and overlooking that other half, but I would imagine this country won’t get closer to equal opportunity with that type of thinking. It’s true that much of the divisive language comes from Trump supporters who seems to enjoy Trump’s deplorable approach to life and politics. Does that embody every single person who voted for Donald Trump in the last two elections? If you think that, then you are as lost as the narrow reporting and polling I have witnessed during the last four years.
My life has brought me across the lives of many other people, which has allowed me to understand the viewpoints of both sides in a more personal and complicated way. I’m a former pastor, and my favorite family in one of my churches was one that actually attended a Glenn Beck rally. Do you realize how kooky you need to be to travel from Massachusetts to Washington, D.C., to attend a Glenn Beck rally as a family? Yet I have nothing but warm feelings for them: Best family in the church by far. They were close to each other, kind and down to earth — and as far from me politically as anyone I have ever met. My least favorite family was full of hate, judgment and self-righteousness — yet I agreed with them on every single political issue. In fact, that liberal family is the sole reason I left formal ministry.
As a high school teacher in a predominantly first-generation and low-income Latino community, I noticed something very interesting. First, my fellow teachers, who were naturally very educated, very liberal and quite talented teachers, and usually came from serious financial privilege, barely survived the Trump presidency emotionally. In real life their lives didn’t change a bit. They still went to Europe during the summer, went out to eat all weekend, shopped at Whole Foods and lived in the heart of expensive liberal-bastion neighborhoods like Cambridge and Somerville. In fact, I bet their financial lives improved during the Trump presidency, or at least their parents’ lives did. Continue reading.
