While the battles rage on the Democratic side of the aisle as to whether its failure to crush Trump was due to the fact that 73 million Americans are just horrible racists or the progressive wing’s radical messages were rejected by the vast majority of the nation, most Dems and all Reps, one person “tried” to bridge the gap. His name is
Wajahat Ali is a New York Times Contributing Op-Ed writer, public speaker, recovering attorney and tired dad of two cute kids. He believes in sharing stories that are by us, for everyone: universal narratives told through a culturally specific lens to entertain, educate and bridge the global divides.
Aside from being Muslim, it’s unclear what Ali brings to the table.
He also enjoys writing about himself in the third person. He frequently appears on television and podcasts for his brilliant, incisive, and witty political commentary. (That’s what his mom says anyway). Born in the Bay Area, California to Pakistani immigrant parents, Ali went to school wearing Husky pants and knowing only three words of English. He graduated from UC Berkeley with an English major and became a licensed attorney. He knows what it feels like to be the token minority in the classroom and the darkest person in a boardroom.
For a child of immigrant parents, it seems he did quite well here, even if the lawyer thing didn’t pan out for him, apparently distinguishing between a licensed and unlicensed attorney. Why he would be in a boardroom is a mystery, and the likelihood of his being the “token minority” being a bit of a stretch. Nonetheless, this is how he describes himself, and lacking any reason to doubt him, so be it.
Since he “bridges global divides,” he left the comfort of his TED talk audience to go to the hinterlands to entertain the “real Americans.”
‘Reach Out to Trump Supporters,’ They Said. I Tried.
Is Ali just a quitter?
The majority of people of color rejected his cruelty and vulgarity. But along with others who voted for Joe Biden, we are now being lectured by a chorus of voices including Pete Buttigieg and Ian Bremmer, to “reach out” to Trump voters and “empathize” with their pain.
This is the same advice that was given after Trump’s 2016 victory, and for nearly four years, I attempted to take it. Believe me, it’s not worth it.
Leaving the warm comfort of brilliant people who agreed with him and apparently knew who he was, Ali took to the road.
So in late 2016, I told my speaking agency to book me for events in the states where Trump won. I wanted to talk to the people the media calls “real Americans” from the “heartland,” — which is of course America’s synonym for white people, Trump’s most fervent base. Over the next four years I gave more than a dozen talks to universities, companies and a variety of faith-based communities.
Only people who are very important, and have very important things to say, have speaking agencies. I can only imagine the suffering endured by leaving the comforting bosom of sophisticated America to wander the “heartland,” which dopes like me thought referred to places rather than races, where the coffee was sold in large or small containers rather than venti.
My standard speech was about how to “build a multicultural coalition of the willing.” My message was that diverse communities, including white Trump supporters, could work together to create a future where all of our children would have an equal shot at the American dream. I assured the audiences that I was not their enemy.
What could be wrong with such a standard speech, sufficiently dumbed down to such banal notions as “equal shot at the American dream” that even a white Trump supporter could follow it? It didn’t work. They liked him well enough, for a Muslim, but despite his using small words, benign concepts, pretending not to be sceeved out by their grossness and deplorability, they just didn’t get it.
I did my part. What was my reward? Listening to Trump’s base chant, “Send her back!” in reference to Representative Ilhan Omar, a black Muslim woman, who came to America as a refugee.
Can you even imagine poor Ali, sitting in a diner in Boise, having some white single-mother waitress ask him if he wants a refill, calling him “honey,” not even an unlicensed attorney, not embracing Ilhan Omar? He did this for the sake of those dumb potato farmer, to enlighten them with his understanding by exposing them to someone so much smarter, so much more entertaining, so much more enlightened, then they could ever be. He tried.
We cannot help people who refuse to help themselves. Trump is an extension of their id, their culture, their values, their greed. He is their defender and savior. He is their blunt instrument. He is their destructive drug of choice.
After all, the only way to help oneself is to listen to people far smarter, far more sophisticated, far more enlightened than a deplorable can ever hope to be. Unless it has little to do with Trump and more to do with the sorts of things brilliant people tell them.
“Defund the police” is the second stupidest campaign slogan any Democrat has uttered in the twenty first century. It is second in stupidity only to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 comment that half of Trump’s supporters belong in a “basket of deplorables.”
A debt of gratitude is owed to Wajahat Ali for suffering for America’s sake by having his speaking agency book him in the heartland so that he could wander among the deplorables and teach them the truth. Don’t blame him for the fact that 73 million Americans didn’t embrace the one true secular god of progressivism for their own good. Like Father Juniper Serra bringing Jesus to the heathens, he tried to reach out to Trump supporters, but they just didn’t appreciate his brilliance and become good people.
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