A defense of Pittsburghers who like Trump
The man standing behind us narrowed his eyes and said, “I bet you’re Trump supporters.” A tall, thin Black man, he’d come into my townie place for the first time and had started talking to my friend and me because we were sitting on the stools closest to the door. I told him we were probably the only two people in the bar who weren’t Trump supporters.
He didn’t seem to believe me. I suppose it didn’t help that the pole near us had a Trump sticker on it and there was another on the door. He stayed about an hour and then left, and I never saw him again.
Was he right?
Was he right to narrow his eyes? Are those in the eye-narrowing classes right to do that in the presence of possible Trump supporters, like those who might be found in a townie Pittsburgh bar? I don’t have a definitive answer, but I can speak about the one place I know and love.
I know, from moving in different circles, what so many of our region’s affluent liberals and leftists think about the people at my local place. As a category, not necessarily as individuals, but then they’re never going to meet them. They won’t put themselves in the place to meet them, especially to meet them as equals.
Why would they talk to “MAGA” people? What good are people who like Donald Trump? Don’t they hate Black and Brown people, poor people, pro-choice people, atheist people, trans people, and everyone else who isn’t white, conservative, straight and Christian?
Actually, no. With exceptions, of course, who do fit the stereotype, but in general, no.
For one thing, some of them fall into one or more of those groups. The evening the eye-narrowing man walked in, I’d bet most or all of the Black patrons either supported Trump, generally agreed with him, or didn’t care about him. The bread and butter issues that drive his white supporters drive them, because they live the same lives, of hard work and economic insecurity.
And for another, and this is very important, most of the people at my local place don’t actually care much about these issues. They’re not as politicized as are their critics. They don’t feel that holding certain views makes them virtuous, as do many of their critics. As long as they’re not forced to approve of something they don’t approve, they leave others to do what they want with their lives.
The subject almost never comes up, but most don’t care that a trans person is trans. You want to be a different person than you were growing up, fine. It’s your life to shape as you want.
They do believe it’s unfair that a biological male can compete in women’s sports against biological women, when he has a natural advantage. They resent being treated as hateful because they don’t think some people should be given advantages like that.
Are they victims or problem?
I’m pretty sure only a minority vote. They don’t see the point. The political world is not designed in their interest. That’s the most characteristic aspect of their politics and I think the reason Trump appeals to the extent he does. He tells them the world treats them unfairly, which is something oldfashioned liberalism told them. The new liberalism tells them they’re the problem, they’re the oppressors who must be defeated and vanquished.
You can’t blame them for thinking that. People who have saved and sacrificed, and worked long hours, and still lived on the economic edge see, for example, the president and the major media — the Great and Good — wanting to spend billions to pay off educational debts they never incurred but for which they will pay anyway.
They feel the president is using tax money to pay off one of his biggest constituencies. He hasn’t suggested any equivalent measures for them, like paying off loans they took to open businesses or to compensate them for the time they spent working their way up. How, they ask, is that right? How is it fair?
Those are very good questions. We would all feel the same way were we in the same position. But we, the we including most eyenarrowers, aren’t.
I like them
I like the people in my local place. I like them more than I do most of the people like me. They don’t judge you by your politics, for one thing. There’s not a lot of eye-narrowing going on there. They judge you by who they see you are and how kind you are goes a long way.
That you are not your politics is a lesson the people there know a lot better than people in the enlightened salons of Pittsburgh. It’s also the most important lesson for Americans to learn if we’re going to get through the next seven months without permanent, hateful divisions.