There are a lot of angry people out there.
Many of the people who support Donald Trump, Rob and Doug Ford, Brexit, and other more conservative politicians and causes are angry at what they see as an elite that don’t care about their needs. They believe the elite look down on them as stupid and backward, denigrate their identities as citizens of Canada, the U.S. or wherever else, and waste vast amounts of tax dollars pandering to what they consider special interest groups such as gays, environmentalists, Indigenous people, illegal immigrants and others. Their support for Trump, the Fords and others like them stems in part from their feeling ignored, and wanting to make themselves heard.
Many of the people who the supporters of Trump and the Fords accuse of being special interest groups are angry, too. They are angry at what they see as the racism and bigotry directed at their communities, at economic developments that threaten their ways of life and their identities, and at ideas and actions that treat them as though they’re somehow wrong or messed up due to who they are. Activist groups like Black Lives Matter and Idle No More advocate on behalf of communities that feel oppressed and backed into a corner, and that they have to fight for their identities and their people.
The end result are societies that become increasingly polarized, to the point where it seems like people are forced to choose sides. Anyone who disagrees is not just someone who disagrees with you, but an enemy who needs to be crushed.
What should we make of this situation?
As I’ve alluded to before in the Gazette, there is no one single “elite” in Canada or anywhere else (“Rebels and elites aren’t always what they seem”, March 18, 2015; “There is no single elite in Canada or the U.S.”, January 7, 2017). Different groups are able to get governments and institutions to make changes they want at different times. As a result, while various groups of people are angry, often for very good reasons, their anger stems from different origins.
It’s impossible to tell which of these groups might “win”, and in any case a “win” by one side might not be a good thing. After all, the problems that made so many people on the “losing” side angry would still have to be addressed, and could come back to haunt the people on the “winning” side.
The real challenge in the 21st century, then, may not be for one faction of angry people to win over the other. Maybe the real challenge is to try to figure out if there are common threads between the reasons different people are angry. Maybe that can be a way to build bridges between different groups of people, and address what they’re all angry about.
Obviously, it’s impossible to please every single person in a social debate. But at this point, it almost seems like no one’s even willing to try.
Could it be a better alternative, though?
