President Obama was correct in saying, “What I think is scary is a president who doesn’t know their stuff and doesn’t seem to have an interest in learning what they don’t know.”  President Obama also said, “This choice actually is pretty clear…even though a bunch of them (Republicans) knew they shouldn’t nominate him—the guy they nominated who many of the Republicans he is running against said was a con-artist and a know-nothing and wasn’t qualified to hold this office—this guy is temperamentally unfit to be commander in chief and he is not equipped to be president…”

     According to CNN exit polls, 53% of white women voted for Trump while 94% of black women and 68% of Latino women supported Clinton. According to Edison Research exit polls, college educated White women voted 51% to 45% Clinton over Trump while Non-college educated White women voted 62% to 34% Trump over Clinton.  White men overwhelmingly supported Trump.  College educated White men voted 54% to 39% Trump and non-college educated White men voted 72% to 23% Trump.

What motivated White women to vote overwhelmingly for a misogynist who objectified his own daughter?  They were born into the world of white privilege. They voted as White over their being women.

          On August 6, 2008, The New York Times published an article by Matt Bai entitled “Is Obama the End of Black Politics?” The premise of the article was that in 2008, 60 years after Strom Thurmond left the Democratic Party over the issue of integrating the armed forces and 45 years after Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, the Democratic Party delivered its nomination for the nation’s highest office to an African-American, and this somehow signaled the end of black politics. 

Other pundits developed the narrative that with the election of Senator Barak Obama as Americas 44th President, America had truly become a post-racial melting pot. Performers like Pharrell Williams were mistakenly talking about “The New Black”.  A fictional world where “The New Black dreams and realizes that it’s not pigmentation: it’s a mentality, and it’s either going to work for you or it’s going to work against you. And you’ve got to pick the side you’re going to be on…”

The election of Donald Trump makes it clear that the politics of ignorance, bigotry, misogyny and hatred played well in a fictitious “Post-Racial” America.  Trump’s racist, xenophobic rhetoric resonated with his white working-class and college educated supporters because racism has been a tenet of the conservative narrative. It has been the covert sub-text to mainstream Republican dialogue, particularly since the election of President Obama.  Trump took the Republican covert sub-text and made it overt presidential racist and misogynistic politics.

As members of the Tea Party spat on Congressman Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO), called Congressman John Lewis (D-GA) an nigger and Congressman Barney Frank (D-Mass) a faggot, members of Republican leadership such as Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and former Congressman Eric Cantor (R-VA) did not tell the Tea Party that there’s no place in the American political dialogue for such bigotry and hatred.  Why? Because they did not want to risk alienating those voters. Those voters took control of the party and are now celebrating President-elect Trump.

Trump called for surveillance against mosques and said that he was open to establishing a database for all Muslims living in the U.S.  His presumptive nominee for Attorney General, Rudy Giuliani has called the Black Lives Matter movement”inherently racist.”  Giuliani was also the architect of the Stop and Frisk program. In New York police officers were empowered to detain and search people for often-vague or non-existent pretexts. The program was eventually held by the court to be unconstitutional.  Giuliani has promised, “What I did for New York, Donald Trump will do for America…”  That will not bode well for people of color.

Trump’s presumptive nominee for Secretary of State Newt Gingrich is the same person who called President Obama a Mau Mau in the White House, “What if (Obama) is so outside our comprehension, that only if you understand Kenyan anti-colonial behavior can you begin to piece together (his actions)?”  Gingrich went on to call President Obama a conman, “This is a person who is fundamentally out of touch with how the world works, who happened to have played a wonderful con, as a result of which he is now president.”

This recent election was as much a repudiation of the “Obama legacy” as a rejection of Hilary Clinton. After eight years of an African American man in the White House 53% of White women and 63% of White men decided they wanted their country back.  To take it back they voted for a man who according to Tony Schwartz, ghostwriter of Trump’s The Art of the Deal, “…just couldn’t stay focused for more than a few minutes at a time.”

In a representative democracy, why would so many Americans vote for an ignorant, bigoted, misogynistic, hate-filled man to represent them?  Simply put, because in this fictional “post-racial” America, too many Americans are ignorant, hate-filled, misogynistic bigots. The Civil War is still being waged.

 

Dr. Wilmer Leon is the Producer/ Host of the nationally broadcast call-in talk radio program “Inside the Issues with Leon,” on SiriusXM Satellite radio channel 126. Go to www.wilmerleon.com or email: wjl3us@yahoo.com. www.twitter.com/drwleon and Dr. Leon’s Prescription atFacebook.com

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