Now is the time to get angry
There was a lot I could have said, and wanted to say, about American politics these last couple months when I wasn’t writing my column.
I took a hiatus in part because my day job was in its busy season and time was precious. But, if I’m being honest, it was also largely because I wondered, “What’s the point?”
It seemed nothing I said or did would sway someone to vote for the more qualified presidential candidate. No facts I could present, or argument I could make, that would drown out the anger and resentment stirring among Trump supporters. In fact, I felt that anything I said in favor of Hillary Clinton would simply cause people to dig their heels in deeper for Trump. So. I stepped away from it.
I regret that choice now. Of course, I never thought he would actually win. And I’m not a liberal East Coast elitist with my head in the sand, here; I have lived most of my life in the Rust Belt and I understood the mentality of many people in places like Fayette County. The fear. The resentment at all the lost jobs and lost opportunities. And, yes, the racism. I’ve seen some terrible racism from my neighbors who assumed, because I’m white, that I was “on their side.”
I thought I knew what that mindset looked like and could see it for what it was. But boy did I underestimate its power.
So, to the lefties in Trumpland, to the Fayette County voters who now look at your neighbors (and friends and family) and see strangers, I want to say: it’s time to get angry. We tend to be the party of reasoned acceptance, of “giving him a fair shot” now that votes have been cast and the choice made. But now it’s becoming clear that our reason and acceptance, in part, got us where we are right now.
So what do we do?
If someone tells you, “We accepted Obama as our president for eight years. It’s your turn,” ask them, point blank: How, exactly, did you suffer under Barack Obama?
Was it, perchance, the 12 percent increase in the GDP since he took office? The 18 million people who were able to get health insurance? The 15 percent increase in median household income? The 20 percent drop in un- and under-employment rates?
But unfortunately, facts don’t have a place in American politics anymore. So, maybe that anti-Obama person will say something about “PC culture” about the “silent majority.” Here’s the secret: the silent majority has never actually been silenced. And now they are more emboldened than ever.
Do you know Tomi Lahren? If you don’t, she’s a 24-year-old, quite beautiful firebrand with her own internet show that garners, as you’d expect, millions of views. She talks a mile a minute but says absolutely nothing. She puts her pretty face in front of the camera and rails against Black Lives Matter and those who have protested Donald Trump’s presidency, flinging the usual insults about whiny crybabies and leftist wimps.
Just a few months ago, I dismissed Tomi Lahren. I thought, she’s part of a dying breed, the Ann Coulters and Glenn Becks of the world who really had nothing to say but knew how to stir people to anger. Her time, like theirs, was up. A new era of logic and reason was upon us. And Donald Trump, with his complete lack of substance and intellect, was going to drive the nail in the coffin. Or so I thought.
Now, Tomi Lahren’s voice — her anger, her total lack of fact-based reasoning — is legitimized. She is the new mainstream media.
So, for us, now it’s time to get angry back. Logic and facts aren’t enough anymore. Of course, anti-Trump folks are resistant to this, because of a belief in logic and fairness. We praise Obama’s near supernatural ability to stay calm and collected. And the world needed that. But now… we need anger.
Keep protesting. Take to the streets. Call your representatives. Take a knee to protest police brutality against people of color. Speak up. Call out racism when you see it. Don’t be afraid of becoming ammunition for conservatives, because they will find their ammunition either way. They’ll either accuse you of being a whining protestor or they’ll accuse you of being a thin-skinned do-nothing. It’s all the same.
Never forget, these acts of protest are all in service of making our country a better, more inclusive place, and goodness is on our side. After all, 2.5 million more Americans voted for reason, empathy and equality than they did the other guy.
Jessica Vozel is originally from Perryopolis and, after attending graduate school and teaching in Ohio, now works as a freelance journalist and copywriter in the Pittsburgh area.