Over the past few days, I’ve had interesting discussions about presidential politics with African American passengers.
On the one hand, a couple of lovely elderly ladies from out of state were tremendously apprehensive about what is to come after January 20, 2025. On the other hand, a good-natured and energetic young man—seemingly well positioned in the LA music scene, was matter-of-fact in his satisfaction with the election results.
One of the ladies related the experience of desegregating the manufacturing floor at a rubber parts factory in the Deep South. Shunned as the only black person on the floor surrounded by Wallace-for-President-wearing white folks, she was labelled as “anti-social.” Having attended all-white schools and living in segregated neighborhoods, she was at the time the ONLY black person with whom those factory workers had ever had to engage on a regular basis. She shouldered the lonely role of demonstrating to them that a Black person is “just a person” little different from themselves.
With the election of Trump, the ladies perceive the deep-lying, de-humanizing prejudices and mean-ness in American society being given license to manifest in violence once again. They have been through “all that” before, and they have little appetite for going through it all again.
The young man had none of those experiences. He is doing well in his field, and seems to anticipate that his own merited financial success will carry him through his life. Retirement is too far away to think about, so if Trump does away with Social Security, it’s too bad for older folks like his uncle, but it’s all fine with him. (No active ill-will: his parting words were, “Good luck to you and your generation.”) He seems to perceive Government as an instrument of general oppression: “Both parties are controlled by the Rothchilds” to their own benefit and at the expense of everyone else. I didn’t even get a sense from him that he identified with “the rest of us,” rather more a feeling of “every one out for self” (and he is doing just fine, thank you). In his view, it makes little difference who holds the office of President, but it is good that it is not a woman.