Are Americans Experiencing Collective Trauma?

[babylonsister]

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/16/opinion/sunday/are-americans-experiencing-collective-trauma.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur

Are Americans Experiencing Collective Trauma?
Gray Matter
By NEIL GROSS
DEC. 16, 2016

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Last month’s presidential election has collective trauma written all over it. For working-class white people whose communities had been hollowed out by the decline of manufacturing, the rhetoric and promises of Donald J. Trump’s campaign offered a salve. He vowed to restore the world they had lost.

But those who voted for Hillary Clinton may now be experiencing collective trauma of their own. In the aftermath of the election, they have been walking around in a daze. Some of this is because forecasts based on problematic polling strongly predicted a Democratic win. Some is fear or uncertainty about the future. But there’s more to it than that: For progressives, moderates and “Never Trump” Republicans, the political order they long took for granted — defined by polarization, yes, but also by a commitment to basic principles of democracy and decency — is suddenly gone.

In recent decades, Democrats and Republicans rarely agreed on substance, but all candidates for major office were expected to adhere to fundamental ethical norms, like “don’t threaten to jail your opponent” and “don’t celebrate sexual assault.” Mr. Trump’s victory signals that that world, with the assurances it offered that there were some lines those seeking power wouldn’t cross (or that the American electorate wouldn’t let them cross), is no longer. Rightly or wrongly, memories have been activated of historical traumas linked with anti-democratic politics, such as the emergence of fascism in interwar Europe and the rise of Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s.

The title of Mr. Eyerman’s book about Katrina — “Is This America?” — is a question many have been asking lately. It’s a telltale sign of collective trauma, a grasping for identity when the usual bases for community aren’t there anymore. If research on other collective traumas is any indication, it may take years, and a great deal of political imagination, for us to figure out where to go from here.

[FarCenter]

1. About 66 million adults out of 243 million voted for Clinton, so trauma is limited to 25% or so.

The rest either voted for Trump or don't care very much.

[Crash2Parties]

9. Just wait until Trump, Pence, Putin, the GOP Congress & SCOTUS start changing things...

The people who voted could foresee what would happen if Trump won; many appear to have voted against him for just that reason. The others didn't care because they assumed (often unconsciously) that whatever intersectional privilege they hold would continue to keep them safe.

I'm going to predict that in say, two months maybe, more of America is going to wake up. Slowly, and grudgingly, as things begin to affect them personally. It won't be enough that it affects their friend, their coworker, etc. - sure, those will be "a shame" but they'll be near-misses. Those that would have voted Dem in the past will blame the GOP. Those that always have voted GOP will blame whatever scapegoat has been offered (often those who are being hit even harder). And the ones in the middle, the people who have no alliance, who don't really look beyond the next weekend? Well, how they react will show us what America is about to become.

[smirkymonkey]

2. K&R

[gademocrat7]

3. K&R!

[TonyPDX]

4. If we're not experiencing collective trauma, we ought to be.

(with apologies to Kipling) If you can keep your head while everyone around you is losing theirs, maybe you don't understand the situation.

[Generic Other]

5. Singular trauma here

but united we suffer.

[yuiyoshida]

6. God, yes....

I keep thinking, I am glad I am safe in California, but I know, some how those fools will find their way here and mess with everything we love and stand for. Are people in the Castro district safe from Gay Haters? Is the Mission district going to be safe, for our Mexican-American friends? Will Chinatown be threatened? Will Japantown be threatened?

God, I hope not. I hope we stay strong, and that our governor will keep out the riff rafted Nazi thugs.

[Generic Other]

11. The leftcoast will NOT stand down

[Richard D]

7. How could we be experiencing collective trauma?

Oh. I see.

[ananda]

8. To me, collective corporate-fascism is collective trauma.

That's how it operates -- this is Shock Doctrine II.

[alarimer]

10. Yes.

I think this has been coming for many years, decades, even. Right-wingers have always pitted one group against another. It's the only way they have won because their actual policies are terrible for most people. The hollowing-out of American communities by giant corporations in the name of greed is part-and-parcel of the whole thing. While we are so busy blaming "the deplorables" for their votes, we really need to be asking ourselves how this happened. In reality, it was a long time coming, with the loosening of broadcast rules enabling the rise of Rush Limbaugh and Fox News and media consolidation, thanks to the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

In fact this is the Shock Doctrine coming home to roost. Even Democrats fall for the fallacy that the free market is all.

[AmericanActivist]

12. Yes Americans are experiencing collective trauma. There are many articles

re tRump Anxiety, fear, dread, etc with mental health professionals. Millions of Americans are terrified of tRump's America including children.

[nini]

13. Not completely... but it's coming

and it ain't gonna be purdy.