Sympathy for the Devil?
by John Lawrence
Trump has gotten himself in a lot of trouble for not condemning and excoriated the alt right, neo-Nazis and Ku Kux Klanners after the Charlottesville debacle. But what if he had said something like this:
"Most of the issues we are dealing with now are related to poverty. But we still want to put everything in a racial context. The problem with the ... and the reason I feel uncomfortable condemning the Klan types is they're almost the poorest of the poor. They're the forgotten Americans. They have been used, abused and neglected. Instead of giving them affordable health care, they give them black lung jobs. ... And it just doesn't make sense in today's world. And they see progress in the black community and on television and everywhere else and they don't share it."
Would Trump have been universally censured if he had said it? The person who I have exactly quoted above is Andrew Young, former civil rights leader, Ambassador to the United Nations, Congressman and Mayor of Atlanta. He said it on Meet the Press on Sunday, August 20, 2017. So he and Trump have something in common. They didn't universally declare their hatred for the "Klan types," but afforded them a measure of sympathy. Trump said "there were good people on both sides." Perhaps he didn't say it as eloquently as Andrew Young, but nobody in the media or elsewhere as far as I know condemned Andrew Young for not condemning the "Klan types."
Perhaps it boils down to poverty. Perhaps it boils down to economics. Donald Trump in a backhand sort of manner promised them jobs - redoing NAFTA, an infrastructure program, full steam ahead with oil, gas and coal production. As misguided a jobs program as Trump promised, where was the promise of jobs from Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton promised the status quo. The Democratic Party needs to get with Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and lay out a jobs program, not just a free college education and Medicare for all. Those two issues are very important but what the poorest of the poor want is good paying jobs and not minimum wage jobs at WalMart and Carls Jr.
Poor whites are the "forgotten Americans"? Trump could never have said it without being condemned. Andrew Young just did.
