What you’re calling “elitism” is just simply not being ignorant. We don’t have our heads shoved up Jesus’s ass. And when the left gets angry because of how fucking dumb some of the shit coming out of rural and red mouths is, we’re told we need to understand what they believe. No, we’re just gonna say that stupid is stupid.
You can stop explaining the white working class rural conservative Christian farming folk, hot-takers and self-justifiers. Instead, why don’t you explain liberalism to them? Why don’t you explain that jobs are drying up and communities are dying not because of abortion and same-sex marriage but because of Republican economic policies that have favored the wealthy, most of whom live in cities, including a certain president-elect they voted for who took advantage of those very policies in order to stay rich? Ultimately, though, it won’t matter. Because despite every fucking word to the contrary, the real problem is that those who voted for Trump are racist. They are sexist. They are Islamophobic. They are ignorant.
The whole thrust of these “let’s learn about the yokels” articles is to imply that there are real Americans and there are coastal elites. Sorry, motherfuckers. We’re all Americans. And if I have to suffer under your stupid, you have to hear about our smarts.
The worst thing about the “empathize with the stupid” crowd is that most of them wouldn’t know a trailer park from a parking lot. The Rude Pundit is from that background. I’m not but I choose to bask in the glow of his reflected glory. I also live in the Deep South and have met my share of Trump’s so-called forgotten people; many of whom are unforgettable in a non-Nat King Cole kind of way.
Bigotry and willful ignorance are never acceptable. Neither is pandering to the 1/3 or so of Trump voters who are the genuine deplorables described by the winner of the popular vote. They’re the ones who chanted “lock her up” and “build the wall” during the late campaign. The only way to win over the worst of the worst is to abandon what the Dudebro alt-left calls “identity politics.” I am unwilling to abandon people of color, feminists, religious minorities, and the LGBTQ community. I agree with the Rude One that we need a to do a better job explaining ourselves. One thing I am certain of is that Cafeteria Trumpism won’t work just as Reaganism with a Human Face did not work.
In honor of the Rude Pundit, I’ll give the early and very clean-cut Wailers the last word:
Roughly a third of America supports Trump and will not be moved by an evidence or argument. Fuck ’em; let’s move on. We had the same problem in the Revolution, and that turned out OK.
*any
The idea that what democracy means is something like “My stupid equals your knowledge” is an idea that needs to die a messy, and very permanent death. Stake that fucking idea down as if it is Dracula!
I think people are angry at the wrong people. Sure, poor white rural voters voted for Trump, but statistically, there aren’t that many of them. The one economic demographic Clinton won by a significant margin was voters from households with less than $50K income/year. She beat Trump there by 10% nationwide. But she lost the $50K-$200K ‘middle’ class.
Not a third; it’s merely a fourth of Americans. And to say it’s the “working class” shows that people don’t know who the working class is anymore. trump won with the rich white folks who own their own businesses & who, to the elites, look working class, but who are not union & are what we call SCABS. Many of these people live really good lives. Suburban homes, vacations in the Caribbean, etc. But if you’re not working in an office, you’re “working class” to the pundits who can’t tell one person with a wrench from another. I think the word that really describes these people are “bourgeois”. I talked to dozens of them. They all hated Obama & they all saw trump as their savior.