In his inaugural address, Joe Biden should draw on Lincoln to address Trump’s supporters

In his 1865 second inaugural, with a Union victory just weeks away, Abraham Lincoln could have been vindictive toward the South for the horrible conflict that nearly destroyed the United States. Instead, he called for healing – “with malice toward none, with charity for all” – and suggested that the war was God’s retribution “on both North and South” for the collective sin of 250 years of slavery.

Joe Biden can borrow from one of Lincoln’s finest moments by using his inaugural address on Jan. 20 to acknowledge that, while the attack on the Capitol was the work of domestic terrorists, our long-standing political schism is a collective national responsibility. 

Trump’s departure will not end the grievances of the 74 million Americans who voted for him, especially working-class whites. Their deep dissatisfaction – why else would they support someone like Trump? – needs to be understood and addressed if we are to reunite as a country. Three recent books, two by academics and one by a journalist, demonstrate that, while Trump exploited white working-class grievances, they were at least in part a response to the arrogance of the privileged white elite.   

In “White Working Class: Overcoming Class Cluelessness in America,” Joan C. Williams, a law professor at the U.C. Hastings College of the Law, argues that educated well-off whites share blame for the Trump phenomenon. Unwilling to acknowledge their own racism, these privileged whites “comfort themselves” by blaming racism on “other-class whites,” such as Trump supporters, who resent that charge. Privileged whites also ignore the economic challenges faced by working-class whites while telling them “to feel sorry for a whole range of other groups.” Williams acknowledges that racism is an issue among working class whites, but her point is that privileged white attitudes helped to drive non-racist whites to Trump.

In “The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good?” Michael Sandel, a professor at Harvard University, where he teaches political philosophy, makes a similar argument, but his explanation for the Trump phenomenon focuses on the arrogant way that many American elites have come to regard their own success. Once, the economic winners in American life recognized that their achievements were due to factors beyond their control, including family circumstances, economic conditions and often plain luck. But as the notion of the “meritocratic ideal” – that the most talented and hardworking justly deserve the greatest rewards – took hold, those at the top developed the haughty attitude that they deserve “their fate.”

The ugly downside of this mindset is that “those on the bottom deserve theirs, too.” As Sandel points out, no one likes to be looked down on, a sentiment that Hillary Clinton seemed oblivious to in 2016 when she said that half of Trump’s supporters were “deplorable.” Condescending attitudes like that generated the deep humiliation and resentment by the white working-class that Trump exploited.

Few journalists from the mainstream media have done in depth reporting on Trump supporters. Daniel Allott, an opinion editor for The Hill (disclosure: he edits my columns), spent most of the three years before the pandemic interviewing Americans in nine counties around the country, six of which switched from Obama in 2012 to Trump in 2016. He wrote a book about it, “On the Road in Trump’s America: A Journey Into the Heart of a Divided Nation.”

He certainly encountered racism among Trump supporters, such as the white man in rural West Virginia who explained that he liked living in the area ‘Cuz there ain’t no black people here.” But Allott found more resentment toward the elite than racism. In rural areas people resent being called “racists and ignorant” by the urban elite because they voted for Trump; in the Rust Belt, the South and elsewhere, many feel “ignored or disparaged” by a “distant elite”; and farmers and manufacturing workers think that “they’re making the things that make America work, but nobody seems to listen or care.”

In his inaugural address, Joe Biden should acknowledge that racism is a problem shared by whites from all walks of life, recognize the economic fears and needs of the working class, point out that having a college degree does not make you a better person and emphasize the dignity and importance of the work done by people without one. 

Policies, of course, will be needed to implement these themes. But such a message in the inaugural address will be a good start on Biden’s campaign promise to unite the country.

Gregory J. Wallance, a writer in New York City and a federal prosecutor during the Carter and Reagan administrations, where he was a member of the ABSCAM prosecution team that convicted a U.S. senator and six congressmen of bribery. He is the author of “America’s Soul in the Balance: The Holocaust, FDR’s State Department, and The Moral Disgrace of an American Aristocracy.” Follow him on Twitter at @gregorywallance.