The Elitist Double Standard on Trump Followers

Marjorie Romeyn-Sanabria

Society, Americas

The media fail to see what's right under their noses.

The American milieu, both Democrat and Republican, loves to hate Trump supporters.

They’re an easy target. Many of them are poor, uneducated whites who live in rural areas with little opportunity for upward mobility. Their communities are crippled by substance abuse. They’re erratic churchgoers who take more from the government than they contribute to it. They scream racial slurs in public, hit black people with glee, and shout obscenities at women and members of the LGBTQ community. At least, that’s the story the cameras and Twitter brawls and op-eds tell us. It’s a facile narrative, one that flattens real people with deep-seated issues into caricatures for public consumption.

In this election cycle, the term “Trump supporter” has become a euphemism for “white trash.” It’s a safe label that allows the educated to observe how the other half lives with voyeuristic pity. But as Trump retains his lead in the polls and maintains the trust of so many Americans, this cultural fetish had turned into panic. How can so many people vote for someone who is so clearly wrong for the country? How can belligerent ignorance carry the day when professionals toil tirelessly to solve the world’s biggest problems? These are difficult questions, and to answer them properly, the educated elite may have to start by looking in the mirror.