Rasey: Community healing after the presidential election

There is no second guessing that our society is going through a very nasty presidential campaign process. The mood is repulsive and statements that we’d normally frown upon are becoming acceptable in our public spaces.
Some say it comes with the currents; that we should allow a little bit of loose talking or “locker-room” talk when the stakes are high. But let’s remember that what’s just a distasteful statement today is subjective, depending on who’s making it and how connected we are to them.
If you’re a fan of political satire as much as I am, you’d probably think that there couldn’t have been an easier time to find readily-available, unscripted comments from so-called celebrities for shows like Saturday Night Live, Comedy Central, The Colbert Report or the Daily Show. But at whose expense is all this nastiness? I hope your answer includes our children, because these are the people without votes, who are still learning how to talk and are supposedly learning about what’s acceptable behavior from these so called role models.
The legacy of this trench warfare and venomous messages will continue to reverberate in our communities and affect relationships between families, neighbors and friends, even decades after Nov. 8! Yes, we should not be deluded into thinking that all this will just go away. For example, the election of a black president some eight years ago has yet to convince white America that black and white Americans can live together as productively equal citizens.

It’s not in vain that well-meaning Americans are already talking about how we can possibly reverse the horrible impacts from the current campaign and make our society more cohesive. But I’m sorry to tell you that the solution will not come from sports or consumerism, contrary to what the media and corporations are trying to make us believe.
Instead, the solution will come from liberating our democratic and civic institutions from the claws of neoliberal capitalism and elitist control. We need these institutions to be more available to the ordinary citizens and to create the environment for positive interactions between all members of our society believing that they all matter. We need Congress and our state and local level institutions to work better for the people, but we also need our academic institutions to step up in shaping the human mind and heart to break down stereotypes.
Let’s be clear here: Trump’s message is one that promotes racism, sexism, homophobia, ableism, anti-intellectualism, xenophobia, zero-sum nationalism, fear, unhealthy masculinity and outright fascism. Although we know that line of thinking is neither rational nor reasonable, many Americans still subscribe to it.
Educational institutions are important places for molding people’s minds and encouraging divergent views. We’re told that majority of Trump’s supporters do not have college degrees, but I think it’s fair to say that some very “intelligent” folks actually subscribe to the Trump doctrine, and that baffles me. Let’s not think, though, that our educational intuitions are failing us; it’s because the current situation makes it difficult for these institutions to perform the important civic responsibilities that they’re supposed to.
For example, American policy making has been significantly driven by neoliberal capitalist ideas. Everything must make financial sense and must show profit in dollar values. Consequently, people are literally priced-out of the higher educational system; that’s not a coincidence. It’s what the capitalist elites who have taken control over our democratic institutions, and over the production of knowledge and citizenship want.
Yet, beyond the failure brought on by the unholy marriage between neoliberal capitalism on one hand, and our educational and democratic institutions on the other, Trump’s messages tend to resonate among people of particular geographical and economic class backgrounds. The divide between rural and urban America, the intergenerational gaps, importantly—the rift between the poor and the wealthy, between classes, and racial segregation imperatively affects citizens’ attitudes. The point is that where an individual grew up and the socioeconomic class into which he or she was born are important determinants of behavior and attitude.
To be clear, my argument is that the negative message Trump espouses, and its unusually widespread acceptance, is at least partially explained by the ways that these supporters connect with him, as well as reflective of the symptoms of our failing democratic and educational institutions.
We’d be helping ourselves by insisting that our educational and democratic institutions regain the autonomy that they have long lost to the capitalist masters. We also need to know that we don’t have to agree upon everything in order to respect to one another.
By the way, politics actually works very differently from this so-called “deal-making” process that we’re promised would Make America Great Again. It takes temperance, negotiation, respect for partners and most importantly, the courage to undertake a venture to benefit the majority, even if that does not promise financial profits. Trump’s deal-making techniques assume a “winner-take-all” attitude, which is at variance with how societies work. Collaboration, mutual respect and tolerance are important values we should rather be teaching our children.
Zachary Rasey is graduate student in the education program.