Hello Wykisha, thanks for your comment.
I’m perfectly happy to try to put myself in the mind of a Trump voter, and it is not all that hard to do in fact. Firstly I’ve read quite a bit about the rise of Trump and the explanations for it, and secondly there are many parallels with Brexit (with which I am much more familiar) in terms of disengagement from conventionally-assumed ways of doing politics. I do want to empathise with such people, but not at the expense of condoning the underlying racism and prejudice to be found in many parts of the USA – there is a difference between being able to explain a sentiment, and being willing to excuse it. After all, there have been politically excluded people throughout history who haven’t been sucked in by dangerous and unpleasant politics. Indeed, it has often motivated some of the finest political movements in the world (eg the suffragettes in the UK or the 1960s civil rights movement in the USA).
But the thing is, the factors you talk about are actually a distraction from the reality we find ourselves in now, which is a racist, disableist, anti-immigrant, anti-Islam, anti-minority president with a demagogue complex and a disregard for science, reason and the constitution who is putting lives at risk through his ignorance and haphazard approach to the security of the nation. How disaffected someone might feel that they ended up voting for this man is not a debate for now – that was a debate for earlier. We are now where we are, and the question is what to do?
You’re right to point out that petitions, placards etc aren’t solutions to improving the lives of the disenchanted. Indeed, it’s a lack of ability to think of things which caused me to write this blog post. But hopefully by taking political action alongside doing other things in my own life to promote the values I believe in, I can play an albeit tiny part in making Trump feel that he cannot get away with whatever he wants. I may not succeed, but I do think that doing nothing is not an option – something I think we are at least agreed on.