The Haunting American Specter: Why #imwithher
The results of dwindling white male dominance in the age of rampant corruption & utter ignorance
While in my first semester of graduate school, I took a seminar entitled “Core Themes in U.S. History”. The thought behind the class was to produce a narrative in which the student would understand the bottom-up, democratic undercurrents of U.S. history while explaining the top-down responses from our federal system. One of the books required was Elizabeth Varon’s Disunion!: The Coming of the American Civil War, 1789–1859. In it, Varon discusses the increase of discontent in word and action from the North and the South, abolitionists and slave owners, and Republicans and Democrats. Much of what she points to as a cause is the stake Southerners and others alike had in antebellum and the romantic past of an unregulated plantation system. From these beliefs, the words produced from those of the time, “…shaped and limited Americans’ political and moral imagination, ultimately discouraging a politics of compromise and lending an aura of inexorability to the cataclysmic confrontation of North and South” (Varon, 2). The rhetoric and verbiage stirred the pot of anxiety prior to the American Civil War over slavery.
In explaining how “historical presentism” is the ultimate fallacy in explaining historical contextualization, Jill Lepore pointed to the result of the 2008 Presidential election being a fiery and ill-informed mass known as the Tea Party. In her book, The Whites of Their Eyes, Lepore explains the Republic could not have survived had there been no slavery, and most Americans and many historians have ignored this fact, thus solidifying the traditional “manifest destiny” narrative. Specifically, Lepore refers to the Tea Party’s success as “historical fundamentalism” as it is a stripped down, bare, one-sided explanation of American history. This has led to a split in understanding of the American Revolution down racial lines as some Americans have a utopian, almost Antebellum view of it, while others, often people of color, view it as ideologically problematic and contradictory to the founding tenants. This division created the mounting frustration and backlash to the progressive 1960s with the neoconservative 1970s and 1980. From here, the slow culmination of anxiety, once a biracial man was elected as president, and the Tea Party became an established right-winged portion of the G.O.P.
The Present Disunion
The Tea Party evolved out of the 2008 election. Over the course of the Obama Administration, it’s successes have been limited to the House and Senate’s takeover in 2010. By 2012, the Congressional approval rating was at 10% when elected Tea Party members began attempting to dismantle the Affordable Care Act and block any initiative presented by Democrats and the executive branch. With consistently low productivity and approval ratings throughout the second term of Barack Obama, the party’s evolution seemed to have stalled into nothing, until beginning of the 2016 Presidential election. The previously outlined explanation of a one-sided American history has left a vacuum for a like-minded group or person to filled the anxious void: Donald J. Trump.
What has fostered this “disunion”? What has fueled this fire? From my own analysis, much of it is derived from race relations. Conservatives have point the finger to the biracial president who has been too outspoken about the plight of the African-American and all people of color. Beyond the misunderstanding of race relations and racism, the angst and anxiety of white America’s history of systemic racism, at a snail’s pace, has dissolved into a dark one-side existence for people of color. Over the last fifty years, the intersection of increasing numbers of immigrants entering the U.S., an increasing of population by people of color in the U.S., and the exporting of blue collar jobs to Asiatic nations all perpetuates the notion of opportunity vanishing before white America’s eyes. A new twenty-first century economy has also stifled an economic rise of white Americans as the nature of “work” and “middle class” is moving toward a more highly educated and technologically oriented type of worker. Recent works like Hillbilly Elegy and White Trash more deeply explain the discontent among white Americans and their choice of candidates, stemming from the election of Barack Obama to the candidacy of Donald J. Trump. Using “it’s the economy stupid” as a basis for understanding white, right-winged angst, coupled with increasing numbers of “others” in their country, has left white Americans out in the proverbial societal cold.
In lieu of what is “disunion” among politicos with the United States and beyond the causes of the chaotic moment that is the 2016 Presidential Election, it is fitting for one to feel required to leave a public explanation as to why the worthwhile cause of agency and enfranchisement, a cause the Tea Party often touts as a worthwhile cause for revolution, should be used to vote for the status quo in this election: Hillary Clinton.
A Mere Object of (Their) Action
I’ve been an educator for almost a decade now. My student-teaching practicum was during the last year of the Bush Administration and since I’ve been a licensed educator under the Obama Administration. Among the hope and hype promised by the Democratic party in 2008, in the mind of many, it has been futile at best. This is not to discount the chaos created by conservatives after the 2008 election. There has been little to no change in our national education system, an economic correction by slightly limiting the capitalist banking system, and the success of striking down DOMA, but not legislatively legalizing, marriage equality. These failures to keep key promises pushed many, including myself, looking for an authentically leftist candidate.
As a Marxist, the theories influence nearly every aspect of my life, including my pedagogy. A new aspect of my life is my role as a parent and all of the rights and responsibilities it brings. Attempting to control the fractious world outside the walls of my house, my hope is to bring my daughter up in an inclusive environment where it is a priority to equally support herself and those who have less than her.
It is over the course of the last decade I, like others, have concluded a socialist agenda does include an inherent feminist agenda. Thus, feminism is a representation or byproduct of socialism and vice versa. The breakdown of this, I find, is the connection between traditionally commercialized femininity and cause of authentic change for an equal society: equal pay, paid parental leave, contraception, etc. In an article for The Jacobin, Nicole M. Aschoff writes:
…The politics of feminism is complicated by the historical nature of capitalism — the way sexism is integrated into both processes of profit-making and the reproduction of the capitalist system as a whole is dynamic. This dynamism is very apparent today when a female presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, is the top choice among US millionaires. But the divide between socialism and feminism is ultimately an unnecessary one.
Aschoff goes into detail of how women are in the position to either passively or actively receive or take power in American society. As it pertains to my daughter, my wife and I intend to iterate this to her, thoroughly. Aschoff closes her piece out with a final plea of understanding how socialism and feminism are intrinsically tied:
This anticapitalist strategy is one that contains the possibility for the radical change that women need. Ultimately the goals of a radical feminism and socialism are the same — justice and equality for all people, not simply equal opportunity for women or equal participation by women in an unjust system.
One of the most important pieces of political advice Marx gave was, “For the bureaucrat, the world is a mere object to be manipulated by him.” It’s very clear that both candidates are looking to better their position and status, and neither look genuinely have the people’s interests at heart. Even with all the character flaws in both, I do in fact feel compelled to take part in a flawed system, full of flawed people, candidates, and motives. As it pertains to this election, my understanding of feminism, socialism, and the United States, there are no reasons to elect a capitalist bigot, nor is there a good reason to elect a traditional Democratic politician. Regardless, stuck between not sitting out, not voting my conscious, and neither of my choices being ideal, I will still vote in this election.
Resolution: A Pedagogy for the Oppressed
As part of my day-to-day life, I am a high school policy debate and speech coach. Part of policy debate is understanding structures and paradigms in which the impacts, magnitude, and time dictate the success or failure of a proposed policy plan. Invariably, and partially encouraged, my debaters’ outcomes rely on nuclear war (possibly multiple nuclear wars), thus creating a larger, more intentional impact for the judge to evaluate.
This process is “calculating the impact”. Part of being a coach is being a judge, as well. In evaluating the impact of a plan or argument, you learn the of option to base your judgement on or off of ethical or moral reasons which come from the “ontology” or “deontology” theories. Ontological arguments usually deal with numbers (i.e. deaths, wars, nuclear bombs) or what makes us tick. Deontological arguments are moral arguments or why we tick the way we do. Both are forms or reasons and both define a judgment. Judges may be influenced in either way. In reasoning, I don’t believe you can say humans make wholly ontological or deontological arguments. I think there are moments where it may seem decision making is based wholly on numerical or moral impacts, but it is arguable all decisions have at least a tinge of both. As it pertains to the impact of either candidate in the 2016 Presidential election as explained in the above case points, Secretary of the State Hillary Clinton appears to be the least harmful choice.
With the conclusion of choice being made in this election, there is also an understanding of “why” as well. Beyond the choice is the privilege of a choice. I have a serious attraction to the policies of Senator Bernie Sanders and hoped he would be the Democratic candidate for the election. As primary after primary waned in Secretary of the State Clinton’s favor, my intentions of voting for Sanders held strong; voting my conscience was proof my vote would reflect my voice.
Once Senator Sanders was not going to be part of the two party system and after nearly a decade of being an educator, my thoughts turned to those who I have taught over the years. A former student brought it to my attention I have a privilege in choosing to vote for a third party candidate. As a bourgeois Latino, I’m stuck with the choice between voting for Secretary of the State Clinton or writing in for Senator Sanders. I no longer have the privilege to vote for Senator Sanders if I’m honest in evaluating my choice.
For people of color, like nearly all of my students, there is no privilege and virtually no choice in who they and their parents vote for: it’s Hillary Clinton. In short, voting for Donald J. Trump leaves people of color in a free fall with vague threats of violence, deportation, incarceration, or likely to never be supported economically by the state. Voting for Senator Bernie Sanders with the privilege I have leaves people of color with the very real possibility of Donald J. Trump as president and in the aforementioned state as voting for a third party would split the liberal end of the ticket. Voting for Secretary of the State Clinton, I believe, leaves people of color no worse than they are now.
It’s seriously unfortunate that my vote will be not be that of faith and good conscious, but it will be for more useful for those who have far less privilege for me, which means more than my own musings. The Brazilian educator Paulo Freire said, “If the structure does not permit dialogue the structure must be changed.” The only chance for the dialogue to gain power is to make the choice to support my students and those are not part of the dialogue, yet. This is why #Imwithher.
Postscript
I believe I could have written a book on this topic and probably should have published this sooner, but taking care of a 2–3 month old involves a large amount of time not being productive in personal endeavors. Lastly, it’s near impossible to forget or not mention the magnitude of a female not only being a Democratic nominee (once a party of secession), but also the point that she will likely be the President of the United States. This point will NEVER be lost on my daughter as she grows. There can never be enough women to point to for admirable lives and positions in life.
Suggested Readings
- The Folly of the Protest Vote
- Sanders Supporters: It’s Infuriating to Be Told We Have to Vote for Hillary. But We Do.
- Privilege is what allows Sanders supporters to say they’ll “never” vote for Clinton
- Bernie Sanders or bust? That’s a stance based on privilege
- “Disaster will come”: Dan Savage’s epic rant lays out the problem with third-party candidates
