The Politics of Special
Special.
Unique. One-of-a-kind. Exceptional. Extraordinary. Rare.
It's a concept that permeates American culture from one's earliest days. "Who's my special little guy or girl?" is a phrase that many of us hear growing up from our parents or extended family. In elementary school, non-daily classes like P.E., music, and art are referred to as "special." If someone excels academically or athletically, he or she will be referred to as a "special student" or a "special athlete." Later, as we develop loving relationships, that person will be often referred to as our "special someone." Eventually, as we start to join the workforce we will be asked to self-evaluate our own "special skills" that can make us more marketable than our competition. From birth until formal employment, we are taught that being special is a requisite for success in this world.
The problem with this upbringing is that it creates the idea that while you yourself may be special, others are not. How can they be just like you if you are inherently better than them? For many Americans, this rude awakening first occurs at the university level. For the first time, young men and women, who have been told they are uniquely special, come into contact with those who are equally, and in many cases, more talented than they are. How do they respond? Do they take time to self-reflect on their own experiences and realize that they may not be as special as they were told to believe? Or do they double down on their belief that they, and only they, are truly special?
In the age of Trump, we have seen nearly 63 million Americans fall for a charlatan. A phony. A fraud. A carnival barker. A failed businessman/casino owner/reality TV personality all-in-one. A man who got rich thanks to a nice $1 million "gift" from daddy and who was such a financial risk that only Deutsche Bank, a bank with ties to the Russian mafia, would loan him money. These 63 million Americans knew this history, but still proudly cast their vote because they were told that Trump alone could save them. In him, they saw someone special. Someone exceptional. Someone unique. In Donald Trump, 63 million Americans, who believed that they themselves were special, saw someone they felt could be their voice. They saw a man, who like them, was always told of his unique position in life and who always believed himself to be among the best of the best. In Donald Trump, his supporters saw someone who never believed that he was not someone special.
A key trait that separates 21st Century Democrats with Republicans is empathy. Many Democrats are grateful for their position in life and realize their fortune and privilege have provided them with opportunities that not everyone else has had access to. They see systemic injustices in place to continuously marginalize people of color. They see a broken immigration system that punishes those in this country solely for seeking a better life. They see those in the LGBTQ community at risk, both personally and professionally, solely because of who they love. They see those underemployed, working 2 or 3 jobs not as parasites but rather as heroes doing everything they can to support their family despite the cards being stacked against them. It is this empathy that allows Democrats to embrace policies that help the greater good and not simply one small, already wealthy segment of the population.
Republicans lack this empathy. They see their own success as being earned on their own merit and they see the success of others who don't look/worship/love as they do as being a threat to their happiness and wellbeing. They don't believe an immigrant professional athlete can be truly special. They don't believe a Muslim doctor can be truly special. They don't believe a gay actress can be truly special. To them, that early childhood notion of being special is the only notion they've come to believe. They feel entitled to their success and see it as the kind of success that they alone have access to. If someone not like them is succeeding, it's because obviously there was some conspiracy or some built-in system to create that success. In their book, there's simply no way that someone not like them should in any way come close to what they have accomplished.
Modern conservatives take this idea of special to new heights. The half-century-long marriage of the racist and religious right has finally come to fruition with Trump Republicanism. Those looking for someone to say the quiet part out loud of what they've always believed have been ecstatic over the ascendency of Donald Trump because in him they see themselves. They see someone undeterred by the "haters" as they call them. They see someone who gets in the gutter with his enemies, both real and perceived. They see someone who makes a decision without a second thought. They see someone who refuses to apologize. What they see, then, is someone they've always wanted to be. Someone who took this idea of being "special" and applied it to every aspect of his life. Conservatives overwhelmingly admire Donald Trump because in him, they see someone whose authoritarian impulses create the sense that he is in total control. And being in total control is something that conservatives have always wanted.
The 2020 election will be about many things. Once again things like voting rights, environmental justice, criminal justice, immigrant justice, women's rights, LGBTQ rights, workers' rights, and the Supreme Court are prominently on the ballot. But also on the ballot is empathy. Empathy of others. Empathy that recognizes that no matter how you're raised that each and every individual is special in their own right. Modern Republicans do not have empathy for others. We saw how 63 million of them voted in 2016. We've seen the Republican Party fail to act on behalf of their fellow Puerto Ricans left for dead and their fellow transgender troops left behind. We've seen them fail to act on the war crimes being committed against children on our southern border. We've seen them fail to act on climate change that devastates red and blue states alike. We've seen them fail to act on the most dangerous occupant of the White House in our nation's history whose bloviating bluster has gotten us on the precipe of war time and time again. We've seen them refuse to act because, in part, they've gotten a nice little tax break for themselves and their biggest donors and happy fat cats make for happy Republican politicians.
No matter how much they would like to believe it, Trump voters are not special. They are not unique, or extraordinary, or one-of-a-kind. They are just like the other 320 million Americans except that they lack a sense of empathy that 250 million of us exhibit on a daily basis. Their words and their actions do not make America a more special place, in fact, they make America a less special place. The only reason they wanted to "Make America Great Again" is that the America they saw in 2016 had too many successful and happy people who looked/worshipped/loved differently than they did. They couldn't bear to see their country overrun by "those people". At the end of the day, Trump voters simply could not believe that they weren't the only ones destined for greatness. Rather than admit that others may be just as likely as them to achieve success, Trump voters doubled down and cast a vote for the most inept person ever to occupy the Oval Office.
And there is nothing special about that.