By Brian Wagner
Late last month, Portlanders took to streets and clogged Portland International Airport’s hallways, joining urban Americans nationwide to protest the executive order preventing immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries and refugees from entering or returning to the country.
For urban America, it was a deeply satisfying struggle, one that resulted–through public and judicial action–in nearly immediate results. But outside of the metropolitan areas, it further alienated those who voted in unexpected numbers for President Trump.
There is a widespread belief in rural and manufacturing towns that Americans are locked in battle with immigrants and refugees for a finite supply of attention and resources. Undecided working class white voters in key states broke hard in the voting booths for the Republican candidate in 2016 because they were willing to believe that America is broken, and that foreigners are part of the problem.
As a Portland native educated in New York City and currently residing outside the nation’s capital, I am the very model of the modern urban liberal. I understand how hard it is to look past contemporary debates to contemplate the long-term concerns of working class white Americans. Yet perceived and real disparities are fueling destructive nationalism and populism, undermining our ability to bridge economic and cultural divides.
Outside of Portland and other thriving metropolitan areas, incomes declined last year. Perception of the American Dream has cratered in parts of the country. Nearly two-thirds of working class white Americans believe that American society is in decline and that immigrants are damaging our economy and culture. Election exit polls found that working class white voters overwhelmingly believed their own personal economic situation had declined or stagnated.
While it is crucial that federal and state governments work to promote economic strategies that benefit the entire country, restoring trust and a sense of belonging cannot happen only at political and institutional levels. Urban Americans must pay as much attention to those who live in less fortunate areas of the country as they do to those who seek America as a land of opportunity.
It is simpler to discount the concerns of rural and small town Americans and scoff at their unwillingness to keep up with a changing country than to recognize the existence of disparities. But writing off swaths of the country under the assumption that they no longer matter has consequences in politics and in society.
Portlanders and other urban residents must be as willing to care about working class Americans who are suffering as they are for refugees and immigrants. There are legitimate economic and societal concerns animating the anger of Americans who broke for Trump, and those concerns should not be ignored or wished away.
The feeling that one is irrelevant and unwanted in a changing nation is a recipe for sustained discord. Until those concerns are better acknowledged and addressed, refugees and immigrants will continue to be among those unfairly bearing the brunt of the discord.
Brian Wagner is a Portland native who currently lives in Arlington, Va. He is the vice president and chief operating officer of a veteran-owned business, and previously worked for Washington’s Congressional delegation.
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