The Hon. Lawrence Lockman’s column “Trump win traumatizes Portland progressives” (Nov. 27) deserves a sharp rebuke from one of the deplorables he claims to channel.

He writes that Donald Trump’s election victory was “a huge middle finger from the country class to the ruling class,” but then loses the true meaning in a quest to fulfill his tinny social conservative agenda.

For myself and other working-class friends, we couldn’t care less who marries who or uses what bathroom. Many of us do not want to dictate to women what they can or cannot do with their bodies.

What we do care about is what we see as our government’s betrayal of our well-being and economic interest. We care about the social compact, derived from all classes pulling together during World War II, now torn up.

Our purchase on the American Dream is gone. We have been written off as “Wall People” whose time is past. We are upset about the fate of our children in a system set against them.

The “Best People” have written us off. Their mouthpieces liken us to Neanderthals who must give way to the Cro-Magnon or “Web People.” We deeply resent this characterization. The Best People, in response to our complaint, throw the fairy dust of “identity politics” in our eyes.

But Lockman throws his own fairy dust, or, considering his homophobia, “horse ordure” in our faces. His ploy is actually worse than their fairy dust as it scapegoats vulnerable groups. His noise and tub thumping obscures the issue that dare not say its name: class warfare.


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