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Build the wall and drain the swamp

My father used to say, “Son, never let them see you coming …” Mr. Trump, president-elect, was indeed incognito as he swept through traditionally Democratic states in the rustbelt of the upper Great Lakes of Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Indeed, nobody saw him coming! In the aftermath of this incredible run for the White House, the Washington elites, Wall Street, Main Street Oligarchs and pontificators, guided by the corporate media have begun soul searching and brainstorming on how they could have missed it all. How did this political juggernaut pass unnoticed? Theories flare on cable television news channels and the main stream media as pundits seek blame for missed fires and missed analysis.

How could they have missed it? As one of my professors often said, “The people always get what they deserve.” In this neck of the woods, where I live, the Trump movement was vividly apparent. Yet, many were blind to the bold writings on the walls, and did not dare to hear the voices of men and women trapped in this never-ending circle of poverty, degradation, and hopelessness. Honestly, the true mystery is how we could’ve missed it all.

Some have labeled the movement racist. True, there are elements of racial animus that fester in the peripheries of the Trump movement. Unfortunately, racism is still at the core of most social contestations in America, but to label this particular movement racist is to undermine its fervor, and thereby miss the true essence driving this political juggernaut. For decades now, the rustbelt states and Appalachian regions have seen declines in economic wealth, as coal mines close, chemical and manufacturing industries close factories and move out of the regions, young men that used to find high paying jobs right out of high school to retire on have to compete for fast food restaurant jobs that pay minimum wages — wages that families cannot live on. Many can no longer provide basic needs for their families. Spouses seek second jobs to help out their husbands who were conditioned to be sole bread winners for their families. Tempers brew as these new unfamiliar family dynamics give rise to conflicts, breakdowns in family structure that eventually lead to families breaking up. Single mothers search for new career pathways in community and technical colleges, as some find careers in nursing and the health fields. Many men are left destitute and some fall victims of the opioid and prescription drug epidemic that continues to rampage many of the rural communities.

This is the rustbelt! Young men and women graduating from college cannot find jobs that pay living wages, enough to repay their mounting student loans, so they are forced to seek opportunities outside the regions. This never ending circle of despair, hopelessness, and poverty is at the core of this political, social, and economic movement that has now propelled Trump to the Presidency of the United States of America.

Yes, people are angry. They are fed-up with the elites in Washington fighting over every little insignificant item of government at the expense of the people who voted them into offices and sent them to state capitols and Washington, D.C. They are tired of the bureaucrats who enforce policies that disenfranchise them, and threaten their civil liberties. Why are they asked to make sacrifices and compromise their ways of life simply to save the inner cities of America from their immoral ways and gang-infested communities. They don’t want to be responsible for fixing the gang war fares of the cities. They want to keep their guns, and argue that their communities have no issues and incidences of gun violence that rampage the inner cities of America. They just want to be left alone to their simple ways of living, and not be compelled to adhere to the ever-changing norms and mores of liberal political correctness that are in direct contradiction with their traditional values of family, community and worship. They are tired of being pushed around by politicians whom they claim have no backbones — the media elites and pundits who look down on them and their ways of life, and often label them uneducated and racist, and academics and researchers who want to study them, as if they were creatures from different planets.

No. No more they say. They want to build the wall to keep the illegals and terrorists out of the country. They want to keep their guns and firearms to protect their families. They want to drain the swamp from Washington, D.C. They want to take their country back!

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Emmanuel Ogwude is the founder and executive director for the West Virginia Center for Peace and Conflict in Parkersburg.

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