I am trying to be understanding when I write this blog. I’ve been venting about Trump supporters being stupid, racist, misogynistic and (in the case of the super-rich) just plain greedy for more tax cuts. But someone on Quora, while not denying all these assertions, quoted Thoreau: The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. She went on to suggest that simple desperation may be a motivation for many. And true, there are many reasons to feel desperate if you live in the US.
When I lived in New York as a teenager I had a charmed existence: the daughter of a diplomat, living in an apartment in Manhattan and attending a private international school. Especially after the shock transition to poverty back in Prague, I thought America was the most wonderful place in the world. I’ve only been back once as an adult, and the reality was much more apparent.
I don’t need to quote all the statistics; how the vast majority of Americans are living from pay check to pay check, how an unexpected medical emergency can reduce them to penury (even with insurance), and so on. But that is only the beginning. There’s the whole issue of guns and their consequences, there’s the crumbling infrastructure, there’s the fact that public services are either dire or non-existent. Despite the entertainment and tech industries, the USA in many ways represents a third world country, and lags far behind much of Europe. Educational standards and attainment in the US are abysmal.
And yet Americans persist in thinking that their country is the best in the world. They talk a lot about the “freedom” they have. All Western European countries have freedom; arguably some are freer than the USA.
The Americans that I know would agree with all of this, but they are a minority. The majority, most likely because of poor education, persist in their America-centred world view. As a result, many of them routinely vote against their own interests. Nowhere is that more evident than in Trump’s reelection. Yes, they may be desperate, and yes, the Democrats could have done a lot more to improve the lives of ordinary Americans. But Trump is only going to make life much worse for the average citizen.
There is so much about America that I still love. But I am not in any hurry to go back.