Hidden Injuries of Class, Race, and Culture-
Perhaps:
• People like to be permitted the illusion that they are making it on their own.
• People do not like to be told what to do--even when it is obvious that doing [whatever] would benefit them.
• Some of what Liberalism proposes may seem aligned with values that the poor either cannot afford financially or cannot be expected to care about in the face of more pressing concerns (if those two are not overlapping or identical)--or worse, would directly harm their interests (in the near term or longer). Concerns about pollution, never mind about pure aesthetics, are possible only when more basic needs have been met. Working toward the future--long-term goals--makes sense only when today's pressing needs have been met. Present comfort is superior to purely hypothetical--very doubtful--future improvement in situation.
• People don't like accepting solutions from a group (a _class_) they do not respect (such as educated "elites").
• People don't like accepting solutions (advice, money, or rules) from a group that seems faceless and unaccountable to them, to which they can only with great difficulty speak, query, appeal, negotiate, or resist.
• People will accept false hope--even if its futility is fairly obvious--when it seems to them to be the only option available. _One-in-a-million_ seems superior to _none_. Consider the casino or the lottery.
• People don't like being told that they don't--cannot--understand the complexities of their own situations; they will continue against all evidence that they understand their situations better than outsiders could.
• People like to be able to act--to exercise their freedom; voting for the _status quo_ would have seemed like doing nothing at all.
So, this kind of thing happens:
Perhaps I have omitted or overstated some aspect, some explanatory factor in the election outcome.
Perhaps this all seems obvious (and I am the last person to have these ideas).
Perhaps none of the above is true, but some more complicated or more obscure explanatory system is.
What is demonstrable is that a large number of people are seriously dissatisfied--are actually hurting--enough to wish to embrace the unknown because the known is not quickly enough moving to help them. It is not clear that this outcome has had anything to do with principle, and perhaps little to do with confidence in the one side; it has everything to do with loss of confidence in the _status quo_ and in its perfectibility.
Ignoring for the moment the fact that the popular vote chose Mrs. Clinton, I believe that the vote for Mr. Trump was a _tantrum_.
Does anyone ever actually "win" a tantrum?
Mark_
20 November 2016
