There are countless explanations and analyses as to why Donald Trump, a twice impeached, convicted felon found liable for sexual assault who incited the violent Jan. 6 insurrection, narrowly won the White House again. Many political observers believe the election outcome had more to do with voters’ anger at post-pandemic high inflation that has defeated most incumbent politicians around the world, than any broad-based embrace of Trump’s racist, hateful and pro-authoritarian rhetoric.
But it’s worth remembering that after Trump’s first electoral college election victory in 2016, an army of corporate media reporters descended on midwestern diners to talk with Trump voters to better understand why they’d supported the real estate developer and reality TV star. Most of what was reported focused on some vague notion of economic grievance, mostly ignoring the obvious white backlash to the Obama presidency and attraction to Trump’s angry attack on immigrants and communities of color.
Wajahat Ali is one writer who did his best to understand the motivation of Trump voters in 2016, but is now fed up with the idea that half or more of America must once again reach out to empathize with Trump supporters. He believes most of those who voted for Trump this time around clearly understood and accepted the toxic message of their Hitler-quoting, white supremacist, misogynist candidate. Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Ali, author of Go Back to Where You Came From and creator of The Left Hook Substack newsletter, who discusses his recent column titled, “When Will Trump Voters Be Asked To Reach Out and Understand The Rest of Us?”
WAJAHAT ALI: Yeah. You know, sometimes you write something and you realize you’re not the only one it touches a nerve. And I’m glad that one did. For the last nine years, ever since Trump won. Remember he won, folks, in 2016. We have been told by nearly every magazine, every corporate newspaper, every cable news show to reach out and understand the economic anxiety of the Trump voter, to go to the Rust Belt and talk to Chet.
But in nine years, even in 2016 when he won and in 2024, when he won, nobody, not a single institution, not a single newspaper has asked Trump voters to go understand the grievances of the Urban Diner. The rest of us, you know, the 48 percent who voted for Kamala Harris or the 81 million who came out during a pandemic for Joe Biden, or the fact of the popular vote went to Clinton.
They have never reached out to us, to understand us. Right. To heal the divides. It’s always one-way relationships, completely not reciprocal. I’ve been married for 12 years. I know something about reciprocity in relationships. It requires good faith efforts on both sides. This is like a type of Stockholm syndrome where we are forced to love, the violent force that hijacks us, right? That demands civility, but gives cruelty that once only safe spaces for themselves, but only gives us meanness and uncivility and, you know, ridicule and misogyny and somehow we’re supposed to perpetually, take care of their grievances, but they never care about our grievances.
In fact, they relish in our misery. Right? It’s all about “owning the libs.” So I said, I’m not one to engage in an unfair relationship where there’s no reciprocity.
When there’s no reciprocity, that means that’s abuse. And I, for one, am not a masochist. I don’t know about you, Scott, so I have no business or no concern or no care anymore to reach out and understand the side that has voted for a criminal vulgarian who has not changed his stripes in nine years. He’s revealed more of himself and of his voters.
In 2016 I was a little bit more sympathetic. Maybe people didn’t know they wanted a change in the establishment. 2020, I’m like, you got four years of chaos, what more do you want? This guy lied to you during a pandemic. Literally told us to inject bleach. Was a complete cluster F. You still voted for him. And now that he’s a criminal and incited the insurrection, you’re telling me that you would rather vote for a criminal who quotes Hitler than a competent black Indian woman?
I’m done. I don’t need to understand you. I don’t need to reach out to you. I don’t need, to solve your grievances, your perpetual rage. I’m going to take care of myself, my family, my communities and the majority of Americans who had the good sense either not to vote for him or who voted for Kamala Harris.
And I think that is what we should concentrate concentrated on. About 65 percent of America. I believe, Scott, that thanks to the Disinformation Network, I said this before on your show, I think we have lost about 35 percent of Americans for the rest of my lifetime. I don’t know about you, but I’m done reaching out, especially when there’s no reciprocity.
Let them reach out. That’s the gist of it.
SCOTT HARRIS: In your media work, you cover disinformation now widespread on social media and in the podcast sphere. Legacy media is dying and local journalism and newspapers are dead in a growing numbers of cities and towns. And the concern here is that we need a strategy to break through the disinformation bubble that is influencing a critical number of voters. And my concern, of course, is that even this dying legacy media is going to normalize Trump’s next four years in office.
I’m not sure you can offer anything to give me hope, Wajahat, but, do your best.
WAJAHAT ALI: You know, they’re going to bend the knee. And so what people have to realize, as you mentioned before, is people are leaving legacy media, corporate media, because people are tired of the lies. They’re tired of an establishment that refuses to reform. They’re tired of people bending the knee and kissing Trump’s butt. They want the truth and they want people with a little bit of fire in their belly.
And I think the people who give them the truth and and show the fire, like you and others, I think they will be rewarded. I refuse to reach out to the Trump voter. I go into these right-wing spaces to debate. I only do it to disrupt, but you can’t win them over, right?
Instead, I say build out your own. Build out your own community. Take care of yourself. Inform yourself. Remind people that this man has never cracked 50. He is a highly divisive person leading a very divided country, right? Build out the liberal progressive media ecosystem. There’s a lot of us, folks. We’re going to have to build it out from the grassroots. The Avengers aren’t coming. And also, I want to remind you that a lot of people switched from Trump to Biden. Back to Trump, right?
There are these voters who just want something different. So if you give them something different, if you give them a better message, if you give them a better story, and if we do have free and fair elections, we can win over enough people. And finally, I’ll say, you know, Michelle Obama, God bless her when she said, “When they go low, we go high.”
I have always rejected that. I say when they go low, you put them in a kneebar and you take them out, which is a valid legal UFC move. Forget the civility police. We need fighters. We need a new breed of fighters and the Democratic establishment, anyone who is still willing to play by the civility rules and brings a pencil to a knife fight. You can fire them into the sun. Forget them, reject them. Move on.
A new generation of fighters has to rise up. Might as well be us and this new generation. Why not? We got to save ourselves.
Listen to Scott Harris’ in-depth interview with Wajahat Ali (17:12) and see more articles and opinion pieces in the Related Links section of this page.
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