Quick Thought: People are not a monolith

Quick thoughts are really quick posts of things that I think of right in that moment. No editing. No planning. Just a free flow of my ideas. Live with it.

Why did people vote for Trump? Why did people not vote for Hillary? Many of us are wondering what exactly led us to having the CEO of a major oil company (a company that has received a lot of corporate welfare) as the next person in line to be the Secretary of State. But we don’t have to wonder too hard if we stop seeing people, or groups of people, as monoliths. Just like not all Mexicans like spicy food, not all whites align with the racism and xenophobia expressed by Trump and his surrogates during the election season. A lot of white people really were forgotten during the 8 years of the Obama Administration, and they either voted for Trump to prevent from being forgotten for another four, or they voted against Hillary to demonstrate that they’re out there and they should be counted. Because that’s exactly what happened to people like coal miners. When their mines were shut down, no one went in to give them an alternative. Instead, we kind of celebrated that the pollution levels would go down but didn’t feel bad that there would be starving families. Then we kind of said, “They would never vote for Trump because he’s racist, and they’re not racist.” No, they’re not, but they were forgotten and unheard. And that’s one monolith that people on the left were not expecting at the ballots.