Who’s trying to screw me over??

Hi. In case you forgot, Donald Trump is president. A lot of people are really upset about it. Not a lot of people are upset about it in a productive way.

Like it or not, a large minority of Americans (nearly 50% of voters) like Donald Trump. They follow the president on Twitter, fully embracing and believing the things he says. Let me cut right to my main point: I don’t think it’s productive for our country to write off all of these millions of people as “deplorable” or “nazis” or whatever makes it easier to ignore them. The fact is that they are our fellow countrymen. And if you want the best for your country, it’s essential to put your best foot forward to understand each other.

Something Trump loves to say is how “America is being taken advantage of.” He repeats this phrase over and over and over again, deeply ingraining it in the brains of his fanbase to the point where they truly believe it. This is in particular his favorite phrase when talking about NATO, trade with China or with Europe. In any case the message seems to have really resonated with a huge portion of America’s voters. And it’s no wonder. Nobody likes being taken advantage of. And there is some sense of immediate gratification in pointing your middle finger right back at whoever you think is screwing you. My question is how does that mentality impact this large piece of the American public? How does the idea that they have been “taken advantage of” affect their psychology and their behavior?

Ever heard the phrase “tell a lie a thousand times and it becomes a truth”?

One thing I know about politicians is that they lie. A lot. But if a politician is consistent enough with his/her lies, they slowly become indistinguishable from the truth. So it doesn’t even matter if Trump voters were actually being taken advantage of because he’s said it so many times that people believe it regardless. But why is this message particularly dangerous? Because it implies that the situation is out of their control.

Let’s talk about a psychological phenomenon called “learned helplessness”. It’s a mental state that people, along with dogs and other test animals, have been proven to adopt when faced with a stressful situation over and over again. Eventually those people and test animals decide that it’s out of their control completely. And so in the end they stop trying to fix things, even when good opportunities present themselves. So when rural America feels helpless because they think they’ve been taken advantage of and the man with the red hat is the only one talking to them, you bet your ass they’ll follow his lead. These people aren’t deplorables. Case by case, maybe some of them are bigots. But when you look more deeply at the core issue, they’re just helpless—too helpless to think anything other than “who’s trying to screw me over this time???” It’s what they’ve been spoon fed by their new “daddy” for years after the rest of America turned their backs on them.

So I recently went to a lecture given by Bryan Stevenson, a famous author, lawyer and social justice activist. I really enjoyed his talk and the key message he kept returning to: proximity is the cure. Stevenson insisted that the best way to help our impoverished communities is go into them and be proximate to our countrymen in need. Being a man of color himself, Stevenson mostly focused his speech towards impoverished black communities. But what about “Trump country”? There are vast portions of America where it’s largely white people that are living in poverty after losing their jobs to automation and their loved ones to opioids. What about proximity to those people? As far as I can tell, most Americans choose to turn their backs and simply pretend they aren’t there. Maybe it’s because they’re not historically oppressed like people of color. But they exist. Oh yeah, they exist. And now they have a giant orange haired megaphone convincing them they’re being screwed over and that they should be angry about it.

If you don’t have any sympathy for your countrymen just because of who they voted for, so be it. But don’t forget that their anger is real and growing, fast. On the other hand if you have any sympathy at all for your suffering neighbors, don’t keep your back turned. Get up close and personal. Do it even if you consider them your enemy. Because you know what they say— keep your friends close…

Filip, again.