Changing Hearts and Minds

The way I see it is we didn’t advance LGBT rights by creating a new party or electing the right leaders. We did it by changing the culture. Obama has been the greatest president in history regarding LGBT rights. The best by far. He deserves our praise and admiration. But even Obama had not “evolved” yet on marriage equality when he entered office, and he wouldn’t have been able to do much for us if political opposition wasn’t weak. He was the right person to be in office during a turning point in history. We created and worked toward that turning point for 40 years. We did it by coming out, by living honestly and rejecting shame and standing up to bigotry.

Many of those who joined the labor movement in the early part of the 20^th century are the ancestors of those who now vote Republican. Strong labor unions played an instrumental part in expanding the middle class in the ’40s, ’50s and ’60s. Early unionists weren’t better educated or less prejudiced than their descendents. The labor movement targeted them and kept explaining to them why it was in their best interest to join a union.

Up to 40% of the population seems to be prepared to vote for Trump no matter what he does or says. To be sure, many of these people are hopeless bigots, but if you want to change our society for the better, you can’t write off 40% of the population. And many of the progressive changes we want would help poor Republican voters the most. Rather than simply looking down our noses at such people, I think we should be evangelizing to them. Some, perhaps many stubbornly vote Republican because they think those blue city voters are snobbish. Considering the sweeping comments you hear about people from rural areas and southern states, you can hardly blame them for thinking that. Many from rural areas are bigots. No doubt about that. And I don’t think we should give an inch to bigotry. But you can challenge the idea that cutting taxes and regulations will help working people. You think the labor movement would have gotten far if organizers took a condescending attitude toward poor rural workers? We need to convince them to join us. And if we can’t convince them, we need to convince their children.

One of the reasons I hope for universal healthcare in this country is because of what happened to my mother. The system pushed her aside. She didn’t receive inadequate healthcare because there was a shortage of healthcare. It was all about money. The healthcare was right there all along, but she wasn’t allowed to have it because she couldn’t pay. She died when she was 63 years old. She lived her entire life in West Virginia. West Virginia, almost assuredly, will go red on November 8. But that doesn’t mean everybody in the state is an asshole. And it doesn’t mean West Virginia will always be red.