With less than two weeks left of the Trump presidency it is time for the Democratic party to start thinking about how to address the massive identity crisis that is happening in the United States. As painful as it is, more than 70 million Americans voted for the current president and after the breach on the Capitol, it is clear that this election was not about who’s policy is better. Donald Trump found unsatisfied, vulnerable and impressionable people who felt invisible and gave them a platform, hence the pain and unwillingness to let go of their leader.
I recently came across a video of the woman killed in the Capitol yesterday, she was angry about the drug epidemic, the homelessness issue in California and the state of the economy and I found these issues and her anger completely understandable. Trump supporters want nothing more than to see the government work for them, something they have every reason to want. What president Trump and many elites have done is find scapegoats for economic issues while making them much worse. Drugs were blamed on Mexico instead of on the pharmaceutical industry who sold drugs knowing that things like Oxycodone had the potential to hook people in an instant, and while of course drugs often come from Mexico, they need to find out why so many people are on drugs and address those issues; The state of the economy was blamed on China, not on the banks who caused the 2008 financial crisis; The loss of jobs was blamed on immigrants, not on those companies who, to be efficient, produce in countries with cheaper labour nor was the school system blamed for charging inhumane fees for a college degree, essentially forcing people to choose between jobs that don’t require a degree or decades long debt.
I hope Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will work to bring jobs to America, to end the drug epidemic, to restore the economic, all things Trump promised to do and didn’t, but what they really need to figure out is how to say to these people “hey, I hear you and this is how I will work to fix your issues” because truly, many of those issues are part of what the Democratic party has vowed to fix.
As much as what happened yesterday and similar episodes during the Trump presidency are disgraceful and it is understandable that non Trump supporters are fed up with this circus (me first) and want nothing more but to treat these people as plain dumb and ignore their existence, Joe Biden needs to find a way to mitigate issues with the far right or we will get a new, smarter and more nuanced Trump in four years.
