This past season, I’ve talked to many Trump supporters who enthuse about Trump’s ability to give people a sense of hope and solidarity. “He empowers us,” one woman told me. “He makes us feel like we’re part of the nation again.”
We should absolutely be concerned about people who feel excluded to such an extreme. Clearly there’s much work to be done here. We need to proceed with caution, however. The Left has just given us an excellent tutorial in “mistakes to avoid when reaching out to the marginalized,” and the first thing on that list is to manage expectations concerning nationwide solidarity.
The desire for “inclusion” is so natural and sympathetic that it’s easy to blind ourselves to the broader ramifications of promising it to particular groups. This was a major blunder of the LGBT movement in its quest to (as liberals saw it) “protect sexual minorities.” Again and again, liberal friends have explained to me how crushing it is for gays, lesbians, or transgendered people to feel like they’re standing on the outskirts of mainstream society.
“We’re not asking so much,” a gay friend once explained to me. “We just want to take our kids to the park without people looking at us strangely. We want to hold hands on park benches without feeling like we’re breaking a taboo. We want to announce our engagements knowing that neighbors and loved ones will be happy for us.”
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