I’m an old protester. My first (in a long line) was way back
in 1966 or 1967 when as a teenager I took part in a sit-in at the tail end of
the Civil Rights Movement, something that makes me look back with pride. This
was in Greenville, North Carolina, and we were taunted and spit on throughout,
a badge of honor today.
Still I’m having a hard time ignoring my friends on the
Right as they point today to the irony of the protests taking place in cities
across the country as a result of Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential
election. Didn’t a lot of those same protesters excoriate Trump when he said during
the campaign that he might not accept the results of the election if he loses?
Of course, the protests are about much more than the
election. They are about the xenophobic, misogynistic, racist comments and
attitudes exhibited by Trump and his supporters during and since the campaign,
and they are about the fear that now exists about the country’ future.
Still, a hesitation other than irony haunts me about these
protests, and it has to do with Hillary Clinton and the idea of a protest that
could actually be interpreted as saying, “Long Live the Status Quo!”
Let’s face it. Hillary Clinton was the quintessential
embodiment of the political establishment, the status quo, the polar opposite
of change. As bad as Trump was and is, and that’s really bad, he represented
the only voice (by a major candidate) for change in the general election for
millions of non-racist voters who cast their ballots for him.
How could a seasoned veteran like Hillary Clinton, backed by
deep-pocketed moneymen and a Democratic Party establishment that helped scuttle
Bernie Sanders' primary challenge, lose against a foot-in-the-mouth opponent
with zero political experience?
Sure, Trump tried to appeal to the worst of many people with
his “Build the Wall” talk and so forth, but he also tapped into a deep working
class malaise that the Clinton wing of the Democratic Party has too long been
too busy wooing Wall Street to see. When Trump talked about bringing jobs back
home from oversees and ending lousy trade deals that Bill and Hillary Clinton
both championed workers listened, and many of them defied their union bosses to
vote for Trump.
I don’t expect Trump to deliver much on those promises or hopes.
When you boil his big talk down, he’s still calling for tax cuts to big
corporations and the rich, and his treatment of his own workers and contractors
don’t bode well for an enlightened attitude toward worker rights.
Which means working class folks are likely still going to be
left out in the cold once the dust settles. Malaise and frustration make
fertile ground for demagogues—always have—particularly when the so-called party
of the people decades ago began ape-ing the Republican Party in servitude to
the rich and powerful.
The neoliberal establishment still doesn’t get it. The New York Times wondered this week
whether losing Democratic vice-presidential candidate Tim Kaine may be “the
future of the Democratic Party.” Give me a break. New Yorker magazine conjectured in its latest
edition that veteran Wall Street insider Thomas R. Nides was well-positioned
for a major role and maybe even Hillary Clinton’s chief of staff had she won.
Democratic National Committee interim leader and television commentator Donna Brazile has been
unapologetic about her role in slipping the Clinton campaign debate questions.
If the Democratic Party s going to survive this debacle, it
has got to reclaim its roots and turn to folks like Bernie Sanders and
Elizabeth Warren for guidance. Clintonism is dead. Dead. Even so, it is going
to take a long time for the Democratic Party to reclaim the trust it has lost
among working folks.
