I just don’t get it
As Trump wins America, a WELP cry for help
Jeffrey Denny
As the online dating site FarmersOnly.com said long before this election proved it, “City Folks Just Don’t Get It.”
As a WELP — a White Educated Liberal Professional — I’ve always been dryly bemused by my vague understanding of regular Americans like they’re New Yorker cartoons. Support for Trump must be a joke I just don’t get.
Now the joke’s on me and my fellow WELPs — especially here in Washington, DC, now proven to be a few square miles surrounded by reality — as America picked Trump again by an even bigger margin. Despite his infinitely outrageous misdeeds and defiance of norms that pleased many voters but made us lurch for smelling salts.
In the end, we were schooled not just by the poor, uneducated, hapless flyover white MAGAs who, bless their hearts, were suckered by a con artist to vote against their interests. Voters that WELPs care deeply about and own, including women, BIPOCs, youth and even 13% of LGBTQ, also went for Trump. (Yep, we call minorities “BIPOCs.”)
Even with my WELP enlightened intelligence, I just don’t get it:
— Why voters cared so much about inflation when leading economists and metrics proved that inflation is over, Bidenomics is a resounding success, and grocery sticker shock is all in their heads or hyped by Fox. Many WELPs have no idea if our Whole Foods delivery and farmer’s market prices rose since we’re not Dollar Store receipt-fascists and our nannies do the food shopping.
— Why inflation-worried voters didn’t buy our factually proven claim that Trump tax cuts, the Covid stimulus to save the economy, or greedy corporations, not Biden, caused food and gas prices to spike. Even though we know the buck stops at the president.
— Why illegal immigration, sorry, “irregular migrants,” mattered even to recent Latinx immigrants. (And why the Latinx failed to respect the respectful gender-neutral term we gave them.) My media proved with indisputable facts and figures that immigration is a Trumped-up crisis to rile xenophobes.
— Why America doesn’t recognize all 72 genders, from Agender, Abimegender, Adamasgender and Aerogender (also called evaisgender or locugender “whose gender identity changes according to one’s surroundings”) to Gender witched, Girlflux, Healgender and Omnigender.
— Why America refuses to be silenced by word policing, such as HuffPo’s 7,500 “things you should never ever say to anyone, anytime, anywhere, even in your head.” Or by college students ruining professors’ careers because they don’t know the latest made-up pronouns. Don’t Americans care that wrong words are sticks and stones that can break emotional bones and do violence to the highly sensitive person’s agency?
— Why America can’t avoid using harsh, judgmental words such as “good” or “bad.” Since we need to protect our beautiful children from being harmed by hurtful language but not like ignorant Trumpers who censor their books.
— Why Americans won’t transform their lives to save our dying planet. For instance, going carless like we do because we’re privileged to live in walkable, bike-friendly, transit-rich urban enclaves. Workers who tend our homes and communities need to find a better way to commute from their cheaper suburbs than driving their gas-guzzling trucks. Hey, if everyone bikes in Amsterdam, why can’t we?
— Why America can’t be more like Northern Europe, meaning the wonderful cities and villages where we spent junior year abroad, attend global conferences and vacation? Not the region’s 80% whiteness or the ugliest cities like Charleroi, Belgium or Kouvola, Finland. Or the struggling suburbs of Paris.
— Why America won’t ally with students at elite, costly, exclusive colleges shouting anti-Semitic and pro-Hamas slogans because they hate genocide more than anyone and are braver and more enlightened than adults. We should learn from the kids whose brains, according to science, are as unformed as their opinions. So give them a break.
— Why America can’t understand that young adults who commit multiple armed crimes shouldn't be labeled “criminals” when they’re unfairly “justice involved” victims of society. Crime victims need to suck it up and we should defund the police.
— Why America fails to embrace the thoughtful, well researched and trenchantly expressed solutions to their needs that we set forth at our think tanks and policy conferences. With no direct input from regular Americans because they don’t have our PhDs or data about them.
— Why America doesn’t suffer moral anguish, like we do, for exploiting white-colonized, ethnic-cleansed stolen land. But feel better by making passionate confession statements and donations to social justice nonprofits to wash away our sins.
— Why America doesn’t get that diversity, equity and inclusion goals, training and programs so our institutions can benefit from the full range of backgrounds, skills, perspectives and experiences in our diverse nation is not for poor whites because they have white privilege.
— Why America calls me out of touch with real people’s lives. For instance, I too worry about the nation’s childcare crisis. It’s really hard find an awesome au pair or a Latin American nanny with the right papers. Especially one who cooks allergy-, kid- and planet-sensitive instead of feeding my amazing kiddos the corporate heroin poison McDonald’s Chicken McNuggets they prefer. And also can drive them to their activities when I’m going to be coming home late from a work reception.
— Also, I get the affordable housing crisis and support solutions such as denser inclusive zoning. Somewhere other than my neighborhood because it would overcrowd our schools, roads and public services, and fuel the climate crisis by destroying our tree canopy and green spaces our beautiful children need to play in. Plus the housing would be inconsistent with the character of our community. And I don’t mean because we’re 90% white in a majority black city. I fought all my life for racial justice!
— I don’t get why Americans fail to realize that capitalism is killing them and hate socialism such as free, superior government healthcare like in Europe. They need it more than WELPs with our free or subsidized gold-plated employer healthcare.
— Plus, the average WELP household makes roughly 5–10 times more than the average American household. And we send our legacy kids to top private colleges that cost $100,000 a year despite their $10–50 billion endowments. But we’re uncomfortable with capitalist greed even if we’re corporate shareholders and our stock portfolios throw off enough wealth to feed, clothe and house the poorest Trump families for decades.
But don’t say we’re out of touch with America. That’s hurtful.
Jeffrey Denny is a Washington writer and ashamed WELP.
