The ‘deplorables’ won, and they deserve an apology

I didn’t vote for Trump, and I didn’t vote for Clinton. I wrote in Daenerys Targaryen and I’m not about to apologize for it. I would have been honored if I felt that I could have proudly voted for the first female president. But the right to vote gives me the right to choose, and I would have done a disservice to myself if I had voted for the leader of the free world based on gender alone. You may not agree, but please don’t take my choice away from me.

{mosads}All election season, I’ve seen Facebook posts that read “if you vote for Trump then f–k you.” It was this type of commentary that prompted me to keep my observations on the sidelines. After all, I still wanted to have friends after this election.

For the most part, until now I just watched and read and observed. And this is what I saw:

1) Gross generalizations

I appreciate the popularity of social channels like Facebook. They provide a platform for everyday people to voice their views and connect with one another — sometimes to a fault.

The majority of my social network is made up of college-educated millennials living in urban areas. I won’t postulate on the views of this group — I know it’s a mix of conservative and liberal ideology, but from my experience, the more vocal segment hails from the left. This is not surprising, Democrats have always been strong and efficient on social media and digital channels. While that shouldn’t prevent me from sharing my opinions Facebook, the antagonistic commentary I read on Facebook, however misguided, makes me feel less like a herald and more like a pariah.

Here are actual posts that I read within six hours of the election: 

“It has become clear that we currently live in a world where rhetoric based on HATE alone prevails. I am so ashamed…White supremacy will not win; love and inclusion will prevail.”

“Today was a victory for the “White Power Movement” and that really scares me.”

“What scares me is knowing that I live in a country where the majority is okay with racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, and sexual assault.” 

“Educated, tolerate, people: do we flee or do we fight?”

“I have never been so disgusted with the American public in my entire life. I always trusted us to make the right choice, but tonight we diverge. This is not the same as electing George W. Bush or Ronald Regan. I have NEVER been so disgusted. I’ve never felt like an elitist, but tonight I do. You just picked the unregistered sex offender to be your president. You just picked the slut to be your First Lady.”

“I am the opposite of a sore loser. I always accept the will of the American people. Not this time. I am not going to be associated with rural America anymore. We are not the same.” 

The hypocrisy of grossly generalizing all Trump supporters as rural and uneducated white supremacists is obvious without explanation. Furthermore, when did rural and uneducated become such bad words? Shouldn’t you be grateful for your education instead of shaming those without one? Is that not hateful? Is that not bigoted? Is that not prejudiced? Do you live in an urban bubble and only surround yourself with liberal friends that reaffirm your dogmatic belief that all conservatives are card-carrying KKK members?

Speaking as someone who lives in an urban bubble and is surrounded by liberal friends (whom I love very much), I can tell you that it’s not easy being misunderstood. We need to raise the discourse to better understand each other and realize that oversimplified assumptions on both sides of the aisle only serve to divide us.

2) The media lost

The real big loser of the night was the media. While we pick our jaws up from the floor, they are hiding their tails between their legs.

The New York Times called it a “stunning upset,” but that hardly characterizes what happened. The fact is this: We were all mislead by the media, and emotionally, that was very painful for Hillary supporters. There is nothing worse than creating an expectation, or having one created for you, only for it to fall short (e.g., my high school prom). I feel compassion for those who experienced disappointment after the election. 

Conservatives are notoriously skeptical of the media, and yes, sometimes it pans out to be absolute nonsense. But a healthy dose of skepticism is part of being an open-minded, objective thinker. It’s too easy to blindly trust what you’re told without scrutinizing the source. How often we find ourselves regurgitating a random fact we heard, but never confirmed on our own? 

It was (and always is) the media’s duty to present the truth, but most journalists weren’t looking for it. I’m not suggesting that we were deliberately misled, but we’re left scratching our heads at how The New York Times predicated a Clinton victory at 85 percent — or Huffington Post at 99 percent. CBS News President David Rhodes said, “There is no question the polling was off. It wasn’t capturing support for Trump.”

For months the narrative among large media outlets was unanimous: A Clinton victory. New York Times Chief Television Critic James Poniewozik said, “The press covered Hillary Clinton like the next president of the United States. The press covered Donald Trump like a future trivia question (and a ratings cash cow).” The fault of the media extended beyond the typical conception of news; during its second debate skit, SNL’s Cecily Strong prematurely joked, “Please help us welcome the candidates, Republican nominee Donald Trump — and can we say this yet — President Hillary Clinton.”

Like Brexit, supporters of Trump were continuously rejected by the media’s established narrative. Glen Greenwald said it best: “In each case, journalists who spend all day chatting with one another on Twitter and congregating in exclusive social circles in national capitals — constantly re-affirming their own wisdom in an endless feedback loop — were certain of victory.”

With all of the media’s dismissal and inaccuracy, one of the most frustrating moments on election night came when CNN continuously referenced Trump’s “hidden voters.” It’s obvious that the media didn’t look for Trump voters, but it didn’t mean the voters were hiding. There is some suggestion that Trump voters may have been sheepish about claiming support, as I was, but isn’t that the result of the media’s maligned insolence of his campaign?

3) The “deplorables” won

What CNN called hidden voters were really just forgotten Americans. Or as Hilary Clinton famously said, “deplorables.” If the media was the night’s biggest loser, then the deplorables — the supporters at Trump’s rallies who would rather have jobs than Jay Z — were the biggest winner.

Written nearly two months before election night, Les Deplorables, by WSJ columnist Daniel Henninger, is the best article I read this election season, and it gives the most sound reasoning of why Trump beat Clinton. There are three key concepts it hits:

The first is the economic shift that led to cultural disintegration of the working class:

“There is a legitimate argument over exactly when the rising digital economy started transferring income away from blue-collar workers and toward the “creative class” of Google and Facebook employees, no few of whom are smug progressives who think the landmass seen from business class between San Francisco and New York is pocked with deplorable, phobic Americans.”

Second is the transformation of the Democratic Party:

“This is not the Democratic Party of Bill Clinton. The progressive Democrats, a wholly public-sector party, have disconnected from the realities of the private economy, which exists as a mysterious revenue-producing abstraction. …

Hillary Clinton is the logical result of the Democratic Party’s new, progressive algorithm—a set of strict social rules that drives politics and the culture to one point of view. A Clinton victory would enable and entrench the forces her comment represents.”

And finally is the revolt against political correctness:

“Hillary Clinton’s comment that half of Donald Trump’s supporters are racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic—a heck of a lot of phobia for anyone to lug around all day—puts back in play what will be seen as one of the 2016 campaign’s defining forces: the revolt of the politically incorrect. …

Her supporters say it’s Donald Trump’s rhetoric that is “divisive.” Just so. But it’s rich to hear them claim that their words and politics are “inclusive.” So is the town dump. They have chopped American society into so many offendable identities that only a Yale freshman can name them all.

In fact, Henninger offers the most profound conclusion to his article and the entire election season, which I will close with here: “If the Democrats lose behind Hillary Clinton, it will be in part because America’s les déplorables decided enough of this is enough.”

Molly Pfister is an award-winning digital marketing professional. She is currently the director of Marketing at Snap36, a B2B technology and services startup located in Chicago. She has a degree in broadcast journalism from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the views of The Hill.