[This was originally posted on Facebook on November 11, 2016 and edited on March 21, 2016. Saving here for archival work]
I want to voice my opinion about something I’ve seen a lot of in the past three days: this “not my president” chant or hashtag, or wherever it manifests itself. I’ve seen now, in reporting, and in videos, and in other discussions about the election, folks upset by this outcome (a group of whom I am a member), rally behind “not my president.”
Last night, I watched a live-feed from the news network The Whim (full disclosure, I am a colleague and good friend of the EIC of The Whim) covering the protests in downtown Austin, TX. In this feed, I heard students, as well as other non-student protestors chant “Not My President” (along with several other anti-Trump, anti-fascist, anti-racist chants) and I said to myself, “sure, I’m on board.”
There’s a point in that video, which you should still be able to find on their Facebook page, roughly around half an hour in where a second group of (likely student) pro-Trump anti-protestors show up and respond “That’s the way democracy works” to the “Not my president” chant. Now, I guess I may only be addressing those few kids as my audience, but there’s an idea here that I want to unpack: that people don’t understand why anti-Trump protestors are protesting. In some way, there are groups that don’t understand what the outrage is about.
And this is likely the same group of people who defended Trump and said that “grab her by the pussy” is just ugly language and we shouldn’t get so upset that he’s using “dirty words.” With that particular claim, no one (that I know) was upset by Trump using the word ‘pussy.’ Everyone I know who was upset with his statement, then, was rightly enraged by the word ‘grab.’ What his supporters claimed is an issue of inappropriate use of language, his protestors saw (and I think this is more close to the truth) that he condoned sexual violence and the groping of women without their consent. So, this is an issue of stasis—groups are talking past each other without understanding the point.
For the “Not my president” chant, I’ll speak only for myself, because in the volume of the protests and the whirlwind of the internet, no two protestors are even going to have the same opinions or views about the reasons that they get up, go out, and protest.
For me, I don’t contest that Donald Trump won the presidential race late on November 8th. I don’t contest that it was an open and fair election, in so far as the law is concerned. I don’t think it was rigged; I don’t think he cheated his way into the White House. I concede that Trump beat Hillary Rodham Clinton in the electoral college (and lost in the popular vote). Now, I’m not interested in breaking down why he won; I’ll leave that to the analysts. But he won.
When I hear “Not my president,” I don’t think to myself “Donald Trump is not my president because he didn’t win the election” or “democracy didn’t work somehow, something just … went wrong.” Democracy functioned exactly how it was meant to. Politics functioned exactly how they were meant to. Donald Trump, who has claimed throughout this election to not be a politician (spoiler alert, that’s a lie and he is), beat out Clinton in a race for the highest elected office in the country. And he did it by adeptly and effectively mobilizing the plurality through appeals of nostalgia, nationalism, anti-establishment, anti-science sentiment and with the idea that the government has continued to “put the white man down.”
Donald Trump beat out Clinton in a race to the top of the political structure because he persuaded so many to believe that the political structure was built to be against them.
He is a pluralist.
He is a demagogue.
Pluralists and demagogues don’t win power because they cheat—they win power because they inspire division and fear. They persuade individual people, voters, in this case Americans, to turn to an ‘other’ and say “that’s what America should be about. It should only be about my group.”
And my president is not a demagogue.
When I hear, and when I say “Not my president,” I don’t contest that he’s won; I contest what he’s said. I contest what he’s done, and the implications this campaign has had on the people of my country. Within hours of the victory, the nation’s seen a sweep of white nationalist sentiment made even more public and brought out into the fore. I can site many instances, but fascist iconography has been tagged on structures, gay men have been beaten outside of bars, Muslim women have had their hijabs torn at, students have painted themselves in blackface and posted to social media, and schoolchildren chant racist, anti-black, anti-Jew, etc. slogans in their high schools. And this isn’t new. But these racists and fascists are now less afraid to go into public and take part in these racist or anti-establishment acts because they’ve been told “It’s okay!”
Donald Trump, though his campaign, has legitimized these fascist, nationalist, anti-‘other’ sentiments. He didn’t create them, but he, in his twisted, backward, painfully effective campaign, said “Listen folks, it’s okay to mock women, and disabled, black, latinx, trans, gay, lesbian, (etc. ad inf.) peoples, because they’re not like us. Fuck them. Get them out!” And in some cases, he explicitly calls for the expulsion of whole peoples and the barring of entry for entire race-groups.
And he did all that by appealing to “folks” in the volkes sense: the idea—which Hitler was fond of—that there is a “The People,” which is exclusionary and that the volk should band together to self-police and maintain the purity of the volk. When Trump says (and he often does) “Listen folks, …” he means not “Listen, my fellow Americans,” he means “Listen, The People” in a “purest race” kind of way.
I don’t know if Donald Trump (the man, not the character) ever intended to bar anyone from this country. I don’t know if he ever intended to build a wall. I don’t care; it doesn’t matter. He has gone to the fore of the American stoa, he stands before the capitol’s porch, in all its alabastered whiteness, with the House and Senate at his back, and said, through his actions “We don’t need the rest of them. We’ve got us. Let’s get rid of them and get back on track.”
And that is not my president.
Through their policies and their actions (and maybe not even their beliefs, though I am more dubious with Pence), they have said that black, woman, latinx, trans, minority, non-protestant, and ‘other’ bodies do not matter.
This campaign has invalidated, or attempted to invalidate, so many’s existence.
And. It. Has. Worked.
Where race crime has never gone away in this country. A lot more has come to the fore, on social media, and in the streets, in the last few days, that should—and does—make a great many Americans Where race crime has never gone away in this country. A lot more has come to the fore, on social media, and in the streets, in the last few days, that should—and does—make a great many Americans scared. And that is how he won the race: by inspiring fear.
We can’t afford to legitimize that further. I’ve seen scholars, my teachers, people with whom I’ve worked, friends of mine, contest the idea that we should just “suck it up” because he won. And hell, even I’ve said he did win, so, what, we should just shut up and get back to work?
When people around have said “don’t morn, act” one of my professors, Robert Jensen, I believe eloquently said on the morning of November 9th “If you feel sick to your stomach, that seems a sane reaction. It’s how I feel. We can say ‘it's time to get to work organizing,’ which is true enough, but shouldn't stop us from feeling this.”
When I say “not my president,” I mean that I’m sick.
My president would be one who stands up for all the people of my country, not in spite of half of them.
When I say “not my president,” I mean that I will not legitimize a fearmonger.
I won’t get up in the morning, in spite of everything I’ve done in and for this country, and decide to abandon my American aspirations and lay aside my own values because a man who will for four years call himself a “president” refuses to preside over all Americans. I won’t ignore the things he’s said; I won’t ignore the people he’s mocked and ostracized.
I won’t say that “that’s okay.”
[And for this next part, if you agree with the things I’m saying, say to yourself “Not my America”]
Donald Trump’s America is one where Klansmen and fascists walk the streets in broad daylight, tagging swastikas and burning crosses.
Donald Trump’s America is one where Muslims and immigrants and undocumented peoples are afraid to leave their houses because of the fear someone will assault them in the streets and that the police will not come to their aid.
Donald Trump’s America is one where gay men, lesbian women, trans and queer peoples are afraid that they will lose their constitutional rights because a bigoted mogul and a pro-electroshock conversion governor said to the public, “No, they just have mental disorders, the crazies don’t need extra rights.”
Donald Trump’s America is one where women should be afraid to walk along the streets at night because rapists like Brock Turner will continue to get off free, where college students should be afraid to report sexual violence to their deans in fear of themselves getting expelled.
Donald Trump’s America is one where extremists break windows, shatter signs, and destroy shops to fulfill their own Crystal Night fantasies, exactly 78 years to the day.
Donald Trump’s America is one where bystanders are expected to be silent, institutions are expected to maintain status quo, and families are expected to look the other way.
Donald Trump’s America is one where corporations are allowed to destroy our planet and legislators are allowed to say to the developing countries of this world “Look at us, economy is more important than ecology, why don’t you join us?”
Donald Trump’s America is one where Americans abroad are afraid to tell people that they are Americans.
Donald Trump’s America is a nation ruled by fear.
And that is not my America.
Donald Trump is not my president.
Photo credit: Jared Brey, retrieved at http://www.phillymag.com/news/2016/11/09/nazi-trump-graffiti-south-philadelphia/