I love you Michael Moore. I really do. I respect your work, your desire to improve things. I love the Bernie Sanders voters. I was one, though I had no problem, when it was time, turning my support to Hillary. I respect and admire some of our democratic leaders. As well I respect many of our writers here, from the front pagers to the occasional writers. But I have something to say. I will try to say it respectfully. I am sick and tired of hearing about how the “poor, disaffected, middle American, mostly white, mostly males” lost their good paying jobs and are now hurting and we should have paid attention.
White straight males have had the best of everything for the better part of four centuries on this continent…...hell for most of history throughout the world. Here in this part of the world, they got to come, ravage the land and its inhabitants; and were rewarded with free lands. They got to write all the rules. There were no founding “mothers”…..no founders of color, no “Native” founds. They got to write the history. I was born in 1945 and they still had all the power.
Now, finally in the late seventies, things SLOWLY were changing. And suddenly all those angry white males with the great jobs, voted for the anti union, anti working class Ronald Reagan. I freaking cried that day. How could that happen. But it got worse. The more women and minorities tried to get a piece of the pie, the more the white males got angry, and pushed back. Like toddlers having temper tantrums, the white guys who voted Reagan (even when they were union workers) helped push globalization. THEY DID THIS. Now they are throwing fits because the rest of us want a turn and they are “disenfranchised, scared”. They are scapegoating minorities, immigrants and women because their great jobs are gone. We are supposed to feel bad for them. HELL NO.
It’s our turn. The rest of us deserve a turn, a chance. We had a candidate. Oh wait, SHE had to be perfect. And because she wasn’t we got the “it’s not sexism, it’s just HER, THIS WOMAN.” Bullsh*t. No matter what woman we put up, some group somewhere would decide she was not the right one. Sure, the first African American male did OK with “some of those Reagan democrat.” You know why. He was cool. He is cool. He is athletic and while overt white racists don’t want to see any person of color in power, the covert racists are OK with cool black guys...cause sports. But women. Hell no.
I don’t give a crap about those poor, midwest white male guys who used to have good jobs and now are angry cause they don’t. They did it with their stupid support of the right wing racists like Reagan. African American men, all women, all minorities have been dealing with not having access to high paying jobs for most of history. Women have been dealing with being insulted, groped, attacked and demeaned. Please don’t tell me I should be worried about a bunch of selfish white guys who think they are entitled and the rest of us need to fall in line.