Those who decry Trump supporters as deplorables are part of the problem

Speaking at a fundraiser in New York during the 2016 presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton described half of Donald Trump’s supporters as being in a “basket of deplorables”, characterised by “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic” views. She said the other half “feel that the government has let them down” and are “desperate for change”.

I thought then, as I do now, that there’s something acutely uncomfortable for me as a liberal, a believer in freedom of speech, and an advocate of the power of democracy, that a politician would willingly dismiss large chunks of the electorate with dog whistle labels and dangerous generalisations when, if they were to be elected, they would be there with a pledge to serve all. 

But worse for me is for a politician to recognise disaffected communities and yet ignore the source of their disaffection and not seek to soothe their ire with clear and demonstrable change. It smacks of a liberal elite operating from an ivory tower with an exaggerated sense of its own intellectual superiority and being oblivious to the ills that swirl around the disadvantaged living in the real world.

Our homegrown political leaders did the same around Brexit. They were so shaken by a result that spun their cosy world view on its axis, they preferred to retreat into the comfort of a disparaging lexicon which characterised those leave voters as ‘racists’, ‘thugs’ and ‘ignoramuses’. An SNP first minister, seeing the UK vote so divergent from her own, used it as a political opportunity to make another call for independence while ignoring the 40-odd per cent of her own supporters who veered the other way than remain. And then declined to ever address their concerns. 

Politicians, including those on our own terf [sic], do it all the time when they lazily dismiss as ‘a culture war’ any view that doesn’t concur with their own. And instead of deploying any cerebral energy to argue the pros and cons, they simply deride any other way of thinking than theirs as ‘not valid’. And the disaffection and the dissatisfaction simply grow.

I am no fan of Donald Trump. How could I be?  Any president who can marshal the prospect of a nationwide abortion ban can only be rewarded with my contempt. Never mind the fact that he is a convicted felon, an abuser of women, a man that pokes fun at the disabled, incited a near insurrection, and accuses immigrants of eating cats and dogs. There are also his alarming views on Ukraine, the Middle East and my general fears for world peace with him at the helm.

But what I would never do is blame the voters – the very many millions of voters who heard him, saw him, know all about him, and still put their faith in him. They are not all racists, sexists or xenophobes. And that is the uncomfortable truth. He peddles hope, and without addressing why there are millions of Americans feeling hopeless and helpless, and willing to buy what he purports to sell, then you are, as ever, missing the point.

When I interviewed Trump’s former political strategist Steve Bannon back in 2018, when he was already on manoeuvres in Europe ahead of elections there, I wanted to understand the source of the appeal. He was speaking at a prestigious international media event held jointly between the BBC and the European Broadcast Union.

And while the then first minister pulled out of the event because she said she didn’t want to risk “legitimising or normalising far-right, racist views”, I instead agreed with the organisers that a conference designed to analyse the big issues impacting the world isn’t an endorsement of anyone or anything – it is a function of what journalism is. And with that I strongly concur. Being close-minded to listening to views you find unpalatable is not in any way progressive, it is intellectually barren and exposes the weaknesses in your arguments if you are unable to confront dissent.

For simply interviewing Bannon, I was condemned in certain quarters. Interviewing Bannon didn’t make me Bannon; rather, it made me even more determined to understand the hopelessness that he was tapping into. And, frankly, it made me afraid because while he was listening to angry people who felt left behind, the so-called progressives with whom I would normally align were simply deaf to those concerns, wallowing in their own narcissism and hand-wringing about the failure of the left to connect with real people, but doing nothing to amend that omission. 

I have heard a lot of sensible people in recent days metaphorically abandoning Americans who voted for Trump, believing that they are ‘beyond help’ and only ‘have themselves to blame’. Truly, the ‘deplorables’. But those barstool commentators are as myopic as those that they decry. It is too easy to slip into a counsel of despair, to believe that Trumpers are alien beings, lost to the civilised world, but if that is your first line of defence as to why the Democrats lost, then you have strayed so far from the solutions that you are part of the problem.

The most ignorant response to Trump’s election would be to cover our eyes and ears and repeat more loudly the mantra of our liberal credentials while ignoring the fundamental issues that led voters to vote for someone like him. Across the globe, the UK is increasingly an outlier in electing a [so-called] left-leaning government.

This is an opportunity for Keir Starmer to literally grasp the thistle; to amplify his government’s underlying socialist principles; look to demonstrate the good that is inherent in a centre-left politics; show that what he and the UK offers is the antithesis of what is happening in the US. Drop the arrogance, adopt some humility and take serious, tangible and visible action to deal with the damaging consequences of a widening economic inequality that helps fuel social division. Talk sensibly and fearlessly about immigration; meet head on concerns that have brought disunity to communities across the country; and recognise what people fear, without dismissing them as ‘racists’ or ‘bigots’, as some of his predecessors have done.

Starmer needs to build a healthier, wealthier population rooted in progressive values at speed, and, as part of any ‘special relationship’ with America, not be afraid to speak up. This is a chance for Britain to show that progressive politics can truly be the art of the possible. And that he is the better man.