It’s time to stop making assumptions about the right and start listening — even when it’s infuriating

ALANNAH NATHAN: Donald Trump has proven time after time that he is unfit to be a leader of the American people. 

For the past four years, the president has undermined the values and ideals of our Founding Fathers with astonishing recklessness, shamelessly tearing apart our democratic institutions and inflaming the worst of our country’s nature. Instead of responding with increasing outrage and falsely hoping that Trump’s latest 2 a.m. tweet or political scandal will at last change the minds of his supporters, the left needs to ask the why behind Donald Trump’s support base. 

The last four years — particularly the last seven months amongst a pandemic and an economic crisis — have taught us that Donald Trump’s support cannot be summed up within a single narrative or reason. Little in his policy has suggested he is truly committed to helping the white rural middle class whom he has promised fulfillment, nor has it reflected Republican values. He did not create the “Mexican Wall” he promised. He has not created “law and order” (in fact, he’s delivered just the opposite). He has failed to protect American security at every turn, beginning with his inability to keep Americans (including himself) safe from the coronavirus. It is therefore too simplistic to attribute any of these reasons (racism, a craving of “law and order,” freedom, the economy) to Trump’s continued support. Besides, any conversation that starts and ends with “All Trump supporters are racist and greedy” leaves little room to grow. 

Trump rallied the support of an additional nine million Americans since the 2016 election. In total, 72 million Americans voted for Trump in spite of his failure to deliver on his promises. The results firmly indicate that the President’s election in 2016 represented not merely a moment spurred by radical right-wing anti-globalists, but a movement fueled by everyday (albeit mostly white, rural, and male) Americans — one that the left will have to seek to fully understand. 

For four years, those against Trump have type-casted the president’s supporters and presented sweeping generalizations about the motives behind the continued support of the president. Without civil conversation with the right and only wild speculations of why Trump voters continued to support him, the left may fail to address the reasons that put Trump in office in the first place. Identifying the specific sentiments on the right — as told by the right — will be crucial over the course of Biden’s presidency should the Democratic Party wish to prevent the rise of the next right-wing authoritarian leader — one who will inevitably be far more dangerous than Trump. 

Of course, such a task is not easy given the climate: The two sides appear to live in two entirely different universes, so much so that what is true for the left is false to right, what is just to the left is unjust to the right, what is American to the left is anti-American to the right. Rarely (if ever) have the two sides engaged in productive conversation or any civilized form of communication for that matter. Thus, non-binding referendums, polls (and ones that actually work), increased engagement in local and state politics, and honest journalism will be key. 

Though Trump will (presumably) leave office this January, his legacy and the movement he has uncovered along with it will not. The best thing the left can do is not to point out the many reasons why Trump supporters are fundamentally wrong, evil, or undeserving, but to do what so many liberals have avoided doing for the past four years: listen. 

Alannah Nathan is a freshman in the School of Foreign Service and a New Yorker by way of Seattle. She is a prospective STIA major and hopes to guide the future of climate change policy in the international arena.