Honestly, White Voters, What the Actual Hell

Amy Shearn
Momentum
Published in
Nov 6, 2020
Photo: Chris McGrath/Getty Images

Astoundingly, in the midst of a raging, mismanaged pandemic and national economic free fall, voters are still coming out strong for President Donald Trump, who has made White nationalism a core part of his administration. As Brandon Tensley writes for CNN:

Indeed, one thing that this week has clarified is the lengths to which many White Americans are willing to go in order to protect their Whiteness, to centralize it, even after a summer that saw unprecedented support for the Black Lives Matter movement. But that’s only a piece of why the election is so shameful. … While galling, these two elements of the election — White voters’ buoying of Trump, the jockeying of a minority party to maintain control of a country that increasingly rejects it — aren’t surprising. Arguably, they reveal what America has always been.

The fact that White voters — including White women, whose interests you’d think would not be served by a noted misogynist like Trump — continue to support him points to a widespread comfort with, even condoning of, the ideals of White supremacy.

As professor Eddie Glaude said (over a year ago) on MSNBC, “America is not unique in its sins as a country. We’re not unique in our evils, to be honest with you. I think where we may be singular is our refusal to acknowledge them.”

--

--

Amy Shearn
Momentum

Formerly: Editor of Creators Hub, Human Parts // Ongoingly: Novelist, Essayist, Person