http://www.stirjournal.com/2016/04/01/i-know-why-poor-whites-chant-trump-trump-trump/
First – this is NOT an article about Trump. (Even I’m getting tired of those. You can only say the same thing so many times.)
Second – this article is NOT anti-Trump. (Trump may be the inevitable result of this story, but he is not the story.)
THIS story is much older and bigger and wider and deeper than the current Trump phenomenon. This is the history of who we are, and how we got here. Trump is only the latest chapter. This story started hundreds of years ago, generations before we were born, and yet directly impacts us today.
Our world today did not just suddenly spring into existence. It is the direct result of literally everything that came before it. We lose sight of that at our own peril.
The article is long, but not unnecessarily so. It contains great insight and understanding. The tone of the article implies an intent that I don’t think exists, but the facts, the things that happened, regardless of intent, and the results of those actions, are irrefutable. These things happened. God can judge intent. We are left with the results.
It doesn’t hurt that it is well written, and makes for an easy read.
If you don’t want to read the whole thing, you will miss out on a lot of important history, but I think this excerpt sums it up best…
“I’m no one special. I am a poor, uneducated, white woman. I am the white underclass, and I am no one’s enemy. I fight for racial equality because people of color are not my enemy. Gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgender people are not my enemy. Immigrants and refugees are not my enemy. Muslims are not my enemy. Native Americans are not my enemy. Single mothers and fathers are not my enemy. People on Medicare, disability, food stamps, and unemployment are not my enemy. The homeless are not my enemy. And it turns out that the people of a small Arkansas town in the middle of the Ozarks are not my enemy.”
“Other poor people are not the enemy, no matter how they look, how they pray, or who they love. They are fighting to be heard. They are people who, like Trump supporters, agree with the statement, ‘People like me don’t have any say about what the government does.'”