Rose Bialk/The Mossy Log
Over the past few weeks, months and years, an unbridled anger has been growing inside of me — a rage that has long ago boiled over the pot, spreading scalding water onto surrounding surfaces. I am angry. I am angry at our current administration, at Congress, at state legislatures, at the Supreme Court, and I am angry at the group of voters that made up a solid majority to put President Donald Trump in power last November.
How could such a large group be so apathetic to the lives of Americans endangered by the proposed policies of the MAGA agenda? How could they be so selfish? How could they be so stupid? This painful loop of questions has wounded me, cutting into any sense of patriotic pride I once held. I question how its people could betray their supposed values of “freedom and liberty for all,” disregarding them in favor of the rising tide of fascism.
This is why, when I heard the reports of the growth of supposed “MAGA voter regret,” among a notable chunk of Trump voters, I laughed at first. “This is what they deserve,” I thought. “Let them feel ashamed for what they did. How dare they vote with such a blatant lack of empathy?” I would not accept them, I told myself. Instead, they should be continually mocked, all for some sense of self-righteous moral high ground I thought I possessed.
I am not alone in this feeling of total detachment from the repentant MAGA voter. I have heard many of us at Lewis & Clark express resentment for anyone who has ever supported Trump and a continual distrust for those who did, even after their realization of regret. I understand it. We feel angry and powerless, hungry for someone just as weak as us to take it out on: our fellow citizens.
However, I think we should ask ourselves: How many of us have known a Trump supporter intimately? If you, like I, have family members who voted for Trump, who live in places like the rural, poverty-stricken areas of western Pennsylvania, where my mother’s family is from, how do you rectify that? I cannot sit here and laugh and continue to hate my great aunt, a life-long Republican, who voted for Trump, not because she agreed with all of his politics, but simply because she had always voted that way and was not about to stop now.
I distinctly remember talking to someone on campus shortly after the Nov. 5th election. I was expressing my outrage at Trump’s victory, and as a response, the person I was talking to said, “You know, it’s because of all the poor people that Trump won.” I found this statement quite ignorant and out of touch. It was careless of the conditions of the poor and to an implied extent, rural communities, for the political propaganda they have been subjected to, along with the chain of events that have led these demographics towards their current political affiliations.
For decades now, Democrats and Republicans alike have abandoned blue-collar and rural communities. The only difference between the two is that one continues to pander to them while the other ignores and mocks them. I will let you guess which one is which. Democrats do not have posterboys like J.D. Vance and his “Hillbilly Elegy,” who lather in their artificial authenticity all while leaning on their millions and Ivy League educations. In fact, Democrats have effectively given up on relating to rural people since the age of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s “War on Poverty” in the ’60s. The Democratic Party has instead decided to focus its energy on a more urban, wealthy and educated voter base. The left likes to emphasize a message of intellectualism — a message that alienates poorer communities with less access to education. It is an elitist tendency that only pushes people further to the right, toward a Republican party equally as void for the care of the poor working-class. The right, however, at least pretends to value these people in their central messaging.
Trump promised a return to normalcy on the campaign trail. To impoverished communities, he promised a drop in the price of eggs and vowed he would make the US economy stronger and more competitive through foreign tariffs. He pretends to be a man of the people just like he pretends to be a Christian. He said it best in his campaign slogan of the past nine years: “Make America Great Again.” He seeks to fix all social and economic issues by having someone else to blame — someone else to punish. In our American culture, so devoted to caring only for self-interest, these campaign promises made Trump ideal. I am not saying this justifies the support he has received in any way, but I do believe it adds depth to the conversation. It creates an image of the Trump voter who is not simply a thoughtless villain, but a human being, susceptible to the cultural and environmental factors that surround them just like anyone else.
It is an unfortunate reality that many in the United States do not have access to sufficient education and resources that are required to understand the systemic corruption of the US government as a whole. For example, a survey conducted by Pew Research Center showed that Trump overwhelmingly won over non-college educated voters by a 14% lead. Not only is this reality favorable to politicians, but it is also designed this way. We operate in a state whose political elites benefit from keeping its people ignorant and distracted. We can see aspects of this intention throughout the political spectrum. It is seen through the attempts to defund access to public education, in the gerrymandering of state voting districts and in the bitter division sown between the Democratic and Republican parties, fueled by senseless class wars and elitism.
We receive a constant stream of information through online algorithms and 24-hour news channels catered to keep our eyes glued to our screens and outrage us into continual doomscrolling. We are distracted by political scapegoats like “trans women in sports” or “dangerous immigrants,” all while the forces in power move to exploit us all — cutting funding for programs like Medicaid and environmental protection initiatives in Trump’s so-called “Big Beautiful Bill.” The truth is that neither sect of our political giants can save us. We are not dependent on them; they, however, rely on our collective voice.
Yes, I know that any person’s choice to vote for a Trump presidency was unwise, selfish and ignorant, and I understand the anger at those who did. I understand the frustration and distrust toward those now claiming to regret their voting decision. All of this is valid, and yet, we simply do not have the energy and time to hold onto this feeling of resentment against those just beginning to wake up from their fascist indoctrination. Our choices are these: We can continue to lavish in a schadenfreud-esque “I-told-you-so” attitude, or we can draft more people into the movement, garnering our joint outrage against the greater enemy, reminding the state what “we the people” really means.
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