Who do we want to be?
An impending Trump presidency has been a reality for nearly a week. But while his election speaks volumes about who we as a nation are today we still have to decide who we’ll be tomorrow.
Local news programs were filled with post-election coverage on the day after the election showing images of large protests in New York and Los Angeles and contrasting it with interviews of Trump supporters in the far away seeming suburbs.
“We just want to take our country back.”
That or some version of that is usually what is said when the befuddled newsman asks a Trump supporter to explain what could have possibly possessed a man or woman to vote for him. It is a vague answer to be sure, one that could be interpreted to mean a hundred things. But the answer mostly begs the question, “Who is we?”
I think there is a tendency on the left to want to blame the people who voted for Donald Trump and an even greater tendency by some to assume that they are very evil people. Thanks to the deep detail of the election coverage it may even lead to very specific and targeted ire such as: I can’t stand all white, non-college educated men from Saginaw County, Michigan.
But I believe the answer to the question, “Who is we?” is most accurately and most productively explored by looking right at Trump. No matter what you think about who his voters are or imagine what they must be like, ultimately Trump will be the one directing policy. Presumably, when Trump’s interviewed supporters happily proclaim that “We just want to take our country back,” they believe on some level that his presidency will accomplish that.
Donald Trump has been a hard man to track as far as his overall policy is concerned and most coverage of him has been lacking in specifics thanks to his many obvious flaws distracting from it. We know about his views on immigration and NAFTA, but what about anything else?
If you really want to know, NPR has published a handy guide to his first 100 days in office, which you should check out here.
Here Is What Donald Trump Wants To Do In His First 100 Days
But beyond policy promises, both likely and unlikely to be passed or even proposed, I want to come back to the question of “Who is we?” America is a diverse place — except when it isn’t. If you grow up in homogeneous, rural Wisconsin, then “we” could be taken to mean, white, Lutheran, working class. If you grow up in urban Atlanta, then “we” could mean African American, Baptist, working class.
“We” is often a question about families and locations. “We want our country back,” is often a referendum on whoever isn’t included in “we” and what they did when they had the power, real or imagined.
But who do we want to be?
Who do we want to be as a nation? Who do we want to be as co-inhabitants, not just of a nation but of a supposed American ideal? Take politics out of it, take location out of it, what does the best version of us look like?
We are not slaves to the hard line policy narratives and bitter rhetoric that drive elections and I don’t believe that most Americans on either side want to be tyrannical monsters. But sometimes, in the service of self, in the service of fear, we can become those monsters.
No president or political party is perfect or above reproach. President Obama was flawed in very real ways and was criticized by both the left and the right during his presidency. But rather than focus on that, his loudest detractors often created a fake reality where he was a socialist, Muslim pied piper, leading the U.S. to a Sodom and Gomorrah-like end while he played fiddle and watched it all burn. Trump was one of those loud voices, propagating false ideas about Obama’s identity or his motives without any regard to reality. He continued to do it in this election. One of the final accusations against Hillary Clinton before election night was a ridiculous story about secret devil worship.
But now the tables are turned and anyone who didn’t vote for Trump will be faced with a similar choice: Will coverage and commentary about his presidency be filled with rumor and insinuation or will it be sober, analytical and vigilant? Can we put away our own pride in the service of truth? Can we talk about nuance when it would be much easier to speak in plain, all-encompassing, platitudes? Can we resist the urge to make stuff up?
What if Trump ended up being a “good” president? It sounds unfathomable to many people but what if at the end of four years he scores positively in the metrics we usually use to define a “good” or “bad” president — economy, power and influence, jobs, wealth? I think sometimes we like to pretend that our only good presidents were brilliant, generous and humble. We like to pretend that Lincoln and Washington are the gold standard of successful presidencies. But under closer examination historically I think you’d find that more flawed men presided over successful eras than we’d like to admit.
When using those metrics, the success or failure of a nation is not intrinsically linked to its moral standing. I have always wanted our country to pursue higher goals than just wealth and power and from the Pilgrim’s desire for religious freedom, to the Civil War, to the Civil Rights movement, a moral narrative has always propelled the concept of American exceptionalism. I want to believe that despite our many flaws we could never accept or embrace moral ambiguity long term, even if it meant that our own lives might be better in the short term.
Donald Trump has already revealed his heart — his own mouth is his greatest detractor. My hope is that in rejecting whatever parts of him we find most appalling, we resist the temptation to become just like him.
Who do we want to be?
“For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?”
-Matthew 16:26
