Sen. Robert F. Kennedy greets supporters in the south during his 1968 presidential campaign.   Courtesy photo

I heard 10,000 whisperin’ and nobody listenin’

I heard one person starve, I heard many people laughin’

             From “A Hard Rain’s A Gonna Fall,” by Bob Dylan

In its Nov. 3 edition, The New York Times devoted the entirety of its Sunday Opinion section to the severe impact a second Trump presidency would have on the future of our country, our Constitution and our form of democracy. The headlines seemed to flare out in all directions: “Autocracy is on the Ballot,” “Let’s Not Blow It Again,” “How to End a Democracy,” “All the Demons Are Here,” “The Beginning of the End,” and “What I Fear If Trump Returns.”

To further accentuate their opinion, The Times requoted “best of” snippets from 27 of its recent editorials that have excoriated Trump for his attempt to subvert the 2020 election; that he is a threat to democracy and unfit to lead; that he is corrupt and lawless; that he will pursue “a cruel policy of mass deportations” and “wreak havoc on the poor, the middle class and employers”; and that he will use the government to go after his opponents.

It was a 12-page, unrelenting assault authored by some of the most well-respected journalists in our nation – a poignant takedown strengthened by truth, facts, clarity and a telltale forecast that may indeed come true. What The New York Times editorial board failed to realize is that its message was only received by the already converted – the liberal, the progressive, the educated and the self-professed “woke” -- who read the newspaper not just for news but to clarify their firmly entrenched opinions.

What The New York Times – and you, the Democratic Party – have failed to realize is that 73 million Americans – including 3.5 million Pennsylvanians – voted for Donald Trump because of your collective failure to understand that for many of them, stories about fashion and societal trends and new authors and foreign travel plans and stock market forecasts that impact IRAs -- all of which grace the pages of The Times -- mean nothing to them.

What you and your favorite newspaper failed to realize is that for the 73,480,558 Americans who voted Trump to a second term on Nov. 5, they overlooked the fact that he is a convicted felon; that he is an accused sexual predator; and that he may jeopardize Social Security and leave millions of Americans with no access to healthcare. Perhaps most gutting of all is their audacity to vote into the presidency a man entirely devoid of conscience, decency and integrity.

They voted for Donald Trump because he spoke to them instead of at them. He looked into their eyes while you looked above their heads as if peering over a throng.

What you and The Times have failed to realize is that this is not the America that is coated in the ivy walls of higher academia or of suburban mothers waiting for four cuts of mako shark at Wegman’s that will lay on a bed of sauteed kale at that night’s dinner, all throughout the fine-lawn crevices of our left and right coasts.

Rather, this is the America who has perfected their ability to stretch a paycheck as far as it can go, who calculate numbers in their heads as they walk through the aisles of a grocery store.

This is the America who whispers soft prayers at Sunday service for a brighter future that may never come.

This is the America that you see at 30,000 feet.

This is the America of infinity highways and tiny towns and houses of worship that create the narrative that guides them.

If you truly wish to know who they are then just look at the damn map. By the time it turned 2 a.m. on Nov. 6, the electoral college map of Pennsylvania resembled a rectangular bed of roses as did most of America, and in response to your callousness, your indifference and your smug elitism, by the time the sun rose the next morning, 73 million of them had eaten your lunch.

And I’ll tell it and speak it and think it and breathe it
And reflect from the mountains, so all souls can see it
And I’ll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin’
But I’ll know my song well before I start singing.

In the weeks before he was assassinated by a gunman in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles on June 5, 1968, Robert F. Kennedy was the leading Democratic candidate for the U.S. presidency. His campaign began slowly, but as spring began to wash over a country in the heat of the Vietnam War and civil unrest, it took on the momentum of a freight train, careening through massive crowds in city after city.

For Kennedy, however, a child of privilege and a Harvard education, he was determined to visit the other side of America, where cameras and microphones are rarely focused on. In rolled up sleeves, he toured the Appalachian region of eastern Kentucky, western Pennsylvania, California’s Central Valley and the Mississippi Delta, and it was there that he saw a nation that longed to be heard.

Now is not the time for you to point fingers at the Republican Party. They did the work that you haven’t done, and they have left you broken and splintered and undefined, and as a result, they have complete control of the U.S. Senate, the U.S House and the White House.

This is not the time to question the intelligence and character of the 73 million people who did not vote for Kamala Harris.

Now is the time for the Democratic Party to tear itself down and rebuild, brick by brick, ideal by ideal. Now is the time for the Democratic Party to write its next chapter, word by word – one of inclusion and not hollow, deferential and meaningless rhetoric that appeals only to its base. Now is the time for the Democratic Party to turn off the cameras and ride down the dusty roads of middle America. Now is the time for the Democratic Party to roll up its sleeves and listen to the people who live there, and now is the time for the Democratic Party to know its voice well before it starts speaking.