2016 has been a difficult year, and many are looking forward to it ending. If we don’t look back and understand the root cause of the most glaring issues and most horrific events, we really won’t understand how to make 2017 better. Consider what we witnessed over the past year:
- Refugees from war torn areas, desperately seeking asylum, turned away, encamped or deported by wealthy countries.
- The rise of hyper-nationalism that lead to the populist decision to have Britain’s exit from the European Union, jeopardizing their economy and all in the Union.
- The resurgence of white supremacists groups and the rapid escalation of violence toward people of color or others who worship in another faith.
- The movement to vilify and deport immigrants and their families who have come here to work in low level jobs offered to them by unscrupulous employers.
- The election of a President whose primary campaign promise was to build a wall between us and them.
There is a word for the driver of all this and it is Xenophobia.
Anyone who voted for Donald Trump because they feel safer with him at the helm is likely a xenophobe. They fear others because of who they are, not what they do. In 2016, political organizations and the conservative press fanned this innate fear in Europe and the United States with hyperbolic rhetoric and fabricated news stories– all for gaining political advantage and power.
As we prepare for the new year, we struggle to understand how some of the white working class has turned away from Democratic principles in favor of an authoritarian style of governance. We struggle to comprehend how they’ve bought into the concept of a privileged billionaire with a history of cheating his partners and workers as being the change agent that will fix all their problems.
Perhaps, we can understand that there is a segment of our population that is scared and want someone to tell them everything is going to be all right.