The Accident of Birth and Voter Outrage

If you are the kind of person who thinks that complete control is in your hands and mankind can solve any problem, it is hard to accept than anything is beyond your control.  Take for example the simple fact that you were born in the richest country in the world, benefited from good education and have a mind and upbringing that allowed you to take advantage of those things.  For people who think humans we are sentient and therefore omniscient, simply saying “I have been blessed.” is beyond them. 

            For example, tall women (those 5’5” and above) earn an average of 16% more money than short women.  Since I am 5’2” I could rage against the rigged system, demand that businesses hire a certain quota of short women, deny high heels to anyone above 5’5” and accuse all statuesque women of “tall privilege.”  But, I don’t.  I accept that height is an accident of birth, not an affront to my dignity. 

The accident of birth (to whom, where, how) is just that—an accident—which carries NO moral burden.  Your reaction to the circumstances of your birth can show gratitude or resentment.  Gratitude is the result of humility and shows itself in charity towards others.  Resentment is the result of hubris and shows itself in bigotry. 

            But if you think you have a good “bead” on bigotry, think again.    

            Just as people have been marginalized by color, race or gender in the past, so have the white working class been marginalized for the last half century.  These were the people who were playing by the rules, paying the bills and trying to provide a decent life for them and theirs.  They now find themselves thrown to the curb for the simple reason that the lathered left has decided that the accident of birth is more important than purposeful living.  These angry, frustrated, ignored or belittled white voters are the ones who now see Donald Trump as a viable choice.  They have had enough and they are fighting back.  Unfortunately, Donald Trump is not their savior.  He is, in fact, a deeply flawed flim-flam man who sees them as nothing but an exploitable bloc of votes.

            Leon Wieseltier of the Brookings Institute (a left leaning but legitimate and scholarly think tank) summed up the frustration of these Trump enthusiasts perfectly.

            There are many groups in our society that suffer hardship and discrimination, but we confer moral glamour on some of them and not on others.  We are never concerned in equal measure about them all.  We are inconstant in our decency, which is perhaps the most common form of indecency. 

            Unfortunately, the vectors of victimology are very selective in whom they try to infect with this cancerous disease.  They will never try to infect a thinking, rational, self-sufficient person.  Hard work is an inoculation against victimhood.  The purveyors choose only those they think they can manipulate and turn to their own purpose.  Trump panders to white bigots because he knows that bigotry, by definition, needs a small and malleable mind.  Clinton panders to Blacks, Hispanics and feminist bigots for exactly the same reason. 

            Trump does not deserve to be President of the United States.  I truly hope that Hillary Clinton beats him, but she will be a one-term President and the Democrats will be a lame duck party unless they learn a little humility and admit that the White working men of this country must be judged by the content of their character and not dismissed as the undeserving beneficiaries of an accident of birth. 

            Keep the faith.