It’s Become OK to Hate, Oppress and Be Offensive
The 2024 election shocked those in the liberal media bubble, which had been predicting Kamala Harris, the current Vice President, to come out on top. However, Donald Trump, the 45th and soon-to-be 47th president, won by a slim but decisive margin. If Trump’s win was so far-fetched for many Democrats, how did it happen? Did people not know they were voting for a convicted felon, sexual assaulter, failed businessman, and impulsive politician?
More in Common, a nonpartisan research organization associated with The Atlantic, surveyed voters about the issues most important to them and the issues they associate with each party.
The study found that voters, both Republican and Democratic, misunderstood the most important issues for the Democratic candidate: They assumed abortion was the No. 1 concern among Democrats.
I attend a school that fits well into Middle American Republicanism in the Northeast. I won’t repeat the many things I’ve heard in class and the halls. But this isn’t limited to my school, my region, or even the deep red states where racism has always been front and center.
For Democrats, the top priorities were inflation/cost of living, healthcare/abortion, and the economy in general. How curious that Democrats were confused about their own party.
Similarly, Republicans underestimated the importance of inflation in the minds of Democrats, which Trump capitalized on. The perceived priority was LGBT/transgender policy, which was actually far down the list of Democrat priorities at No. 14.
However, both parties accurately named the Republican party’s priorities: inflation and the economy in general. That means this is a one-sided problem. How and when did this Democratic Party disconnect take place?
Trump and his campaign team team, worked diligently to make Vice President Kamala Harris seem like a champion of DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) and the Queen of Wokeness. Harris supports DEI and equality, but her main platform was tailored to blue-collar workers, families, and women.
Attacking Diversity
Trump effectively used Harris’s own words against her: one clip of her from 2017 always pops into my head when I think about her loss.
“Y’know, we have to stay woke,” Harris said. “Like, everybody just needs to be woke. And you can talk about if you’re the wokest or woker, but just stay more woke than less woke.”
Republicans began spreading these clips as a destructive meme, along with the, unfortunately, many clips of her where her accent seems to change. Some claim she’s tried to sound more “Black” for predominantly Black audiences. One X user, @EndWokeness, uploaded a 3-minute compilation of Harris “using different accents for different crowds.” Now, if I was constantly being interviewed, as Harris was, naturally, my voice would change in response to the weather, my nervousness, etc. However, this critical thinking was not applied as the anti-woke crowd began claiming that Harris changed her accent for a deceptive reason, hoping to earn each group vote.
Aside from the memes, which cast a shadow on her credibility and seriousness in many ways, I was struck by what a first-time voter had to say. A friend of my brother’s voted for Donald Trump, even though his policy preferences aligned with Harris on every single issue. His reasoning? He said he “hates woke culture.”
Woke has the loose definition of “alert to and concerned about social injustice and discrimination.” It could be understood as simply having good manners in public—treating others with respect and dignity.
Whatever it means, the word “woke” upsets and sometimes enrages people who call themselves conservatives, seen as personal policing of First Amendment ideals of belief and speech.
I wonder if the young voters actually think Harris could have instituted a mandate to be woke even if she wanted to. She would have been the first female president, and is a person of color, being both Indian and Black. Those characteristics clearly unsettled many people, particularly white voters without college degrees because she symbolized change, the antithesis of conservatism and “Make America Great Again” with its dog whistle appeal to white dominance.
Now, aside from this blatant racism, Harris’s alignment with wokeness has negative consequences as opponents turn on the movement itself. Conservative content creators began emerging from the woodwork in an age where they claimed that sharing their conservative views would make them “Canceled.” New media personalities like the Paul brothers—the bodybuilder and YouTube stars—announced their support for Trump. So did the blonde and promotionally Christian couple with five kids known as the Labrant Fam, whose banal videos built a YouTube audience of almost 13 million viewers.
After Trump’s victory, it became okay to be young and a Trump supporter and anti-woke. It became okay to make offensive jokes, which in many cases were not jokes but just crude and rude insults. It became okay to support the oppression of marginalized groups.
3 minutes and 33 seconds of Kamala using different accents for different crowds
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) September 15, 2024
Widespread Hate
I attend a school that fits well into Middle American Republicanism in the Northeast. I won’t repeat the many things I’ve heard in class and the halls that would be classified as hate. But this isn’t limited to my school, my region, or even the deep red states where racism has always been front and center.
The Los Angeles Times reported this week that “pro-Trump students at Beverly Hills High School held two days of what the [school] district termed “spirited demonstrations” to celebrate the election results. Boisterous students chanted pro-Trump slogans and carried flags mounted on poles throughout the school — but some Black students said racial slurs and racist rhetoric were used. The rallying students knocked on and tried to open the door of the classroom where the Black Students Union was meeting, which caused some of the teens and the teacher in the room to fear for their safety.”
The LATimes continued, referring to a student-run mock election that Trump narrowly won:
“Trump supporters at the school rallied rowdily in courtyards and hallways, shouting pro-Trump slogans as they rushed around the school. The rallies made many students who don’t support the former president feel uncomfortable.
“Students were seen screaming profanity throughout the two rallies and were aggressive to those with opposing views. Everyone has the right to express their political views, but countless students and teachers felt unsafe with the crowd’s mob-like behavior,” wrote the editors of Highlights, the high school’s student-run publication.
Casual racism
Any casual racism, sexism, and just about any other -ism you can think of fills my campus, too. People no longer care about being “politically correct,” which is a derogatory conservative term for not bigoted. They even shorted it to PC to be shouted as an insult.
Last year, an acting principal at my high school gave speeches over the loudspeaker for Black History, Asian American, and Hispanic Heritage months. He spoke about the importance of each month and named famous activists for each. It was a noble effort to promote inclusivity in our school. But during each one, many of my fellow students groaned and murmured to their friends about how “stupid” it was.
The principal’s talk about online bullying and mental health was especially disliked among many in the student body.
The acting principal was not officially hired back for the next year. He seemed deserving, so I can only guess why he wasn’t given the role.
Unfortunately, this thoughtlessly critical behavior is typical for teenagers without fully developed frontal lobes. It vexes me how much this has spread to grown-up, voting-aged adults.
White Skin Privilege
Miss Universe was crowned on November 16th. The blonde-haired, blue-eyed Danish woman, Victoria Kjaer Theilvig, who is now Miss Universe, unwittingly became conservative’s Miss Everything as they tweeted racist and transphobic things against other beauty queens with darker hair and skin.
Among these conservatives was Donald Trump Jr. He wrote on X, “Biologically & objectively attractive women are allowed to win beauty pageants again. WE ARE SO BACK!!!”
Other conservatives took his statement, copied and pasted it, and flooded X with it.
The CEO of Miss Universe, Anne Jakrajutatip, was asked how she plans to evolve the pageant. “We have blond and blue eyes, so we’re coming to the ultimate evolution already,” she said.
Jakrajutatip is an ethnic Chinese citizen of Thailand who turned against her own culture, spewing harmful rhetoric, including reposting Trump Jr.’s statement on her Instagram. Money, influence, and power do that to some people.
Of course, culture can be cyclical. I’m desperately waiting for people to raise their moral standards and express compassion for marginalized groups and opposition to any behavior related to hate. Until then, I expect to hear more jokes about an American territory in the Caribbean being “an island of garbage” and transgender people being accused of having a mental illness, not just inside my school but from rude people who call themselves conservatives on social media.
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