The millions of white American who voted for Trump in 2016 willfully forgot why they voted for Obama in 2008. It was not for enlightened reasons, but out of fear. And there was good reason to be scared. Republicans do and will make the lives of ordinary folk more miserable than they have to be during a downturn. A large part of Obama’s popularity with white voters had little to do with the color of his skin. All they saw was a Democrat.
Recall what the conservatives said in the depths of the greatest economic crisis of the 20th century, The Great Depression: “Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate the farmers, liquidate real estate.” That was Andrew Mellon, Herbert Hoover’s treasury secretary. When in an economic foxhole, white Americans go to the left. In 1933, US voters kicked out the liquidationists and started to listen to FDR’s sermons about the greatest freedom ever, the freedom from want. But white American voters are fickle. The moment things are safe enough, they climb out of the foxhole and resume their old ways. This happened in 1953—much less dramatically—with Dwight D. Eisenhower. It happened again in 2016—very dramatically—with Donald Trump. The difference between the two is that with the latter, many white Americans woke up one day and realized they had voted for a black president.
And the markets are now going through turbulence, and the job report for March was nearly 100,000 jobs lower than expected. And Trump is your president. If things continue in this direction, the turbulence will eventually crash the markets, and the rich will grab all of the capital they can, and credit will evaporate, and future projects will be shelved, and jobs will vanish, and there will be no relief in sight. The liquidationists have the White House, the Senate, Congress, and the Supreme Court. Recall that in 2008, shit hit the fan during election season. As John McCain, a regular Republican, was going on about how the economic fundamentals were sound, his opponent was saying the complete opposite. And you knew his opponent was right. In September of 2008, 159,000 jobs vanished. In October, it was 240,000 jobs. By November it was 533,000. You voted for Obama.
The great American sadness is that so many whites know better (and become upstanding citizens when in a foxhole), but if given even the slightest chance (a year or two of stability), they relapse into their old bad habits: racism, SUVs, and McMansions.
