That’d depend on how you’re defining “themselves”. Their base are screwed, but the 0.1%er leadership are doing fine.
3 Likes
I can now see why you see no way to communicate with rural Americans. Yeah, you’d probably best not try any approach that involves trying to seek any sort of common ground.
It’s important to note again and again that the people appealing to them over the past 35+ years have been the GOP establishment, “free” market fundies and conservative billionaires. They’ve spent that time ginning up “culture war” battles and conspiracy theories and Confederate revanchism and racist scare stories all in a cynical effort to divide the citizenry and distract their targets from having their pockets picked. And yet now those same groups pretend that they had nothing to do with it, that Il Douche and the right-wing populism oozing from under the paving stones just “happened” and that it’s up to the Dems to reach an accommodation with the metastasised cancers that they planted. It’s another version of privatising profits and socialising losses.
Screw that – the GOP can have their Know-Nothing 25%, even if (typically) these proponents of “personal responsibility” never own up to their mess. The Dems, if they’re smart*, can focus on the smaller group of rural and working-class people and exurbanites with mediocre educations who haven’t drunk the Kool-Aid (or who learned the hard way what it was laced with) and are now looking for real solutions rather than Libertarian fantasies aimed at “temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”
[* no guarantees there, I’m afaid]
3 Likes
Not what I said, but I can’t say that’s a surprise at this point.
I don’t even think it goes this far when simply convincing people all of it is fruitless and pointless and why bother is enough. Most people don’t vote, while people that feel strongest about politics do. The culture war stuff is just team sports nonsense that serves little to no purpose outside of making everything as partisan as possible.
3 Likes
Here’s a good article about just that.
In order to do that, though, Democrats need to realize that those rural people are going to keep their culture. They are going to keep smoking cigs and drinking Bud, eating at Burger King, watching NASCAR and bull riding, driving pickup trucks with V-8s.
Can Democrats sit in the same room with people like that without gagging? Maybe some of them can…I have my doubts about the ones who like to drop offhand insults like “with mediocre educations” though.
As usual, Orwell nails it (from “The Road To Wigan Pier”)
“I have known numbers of bourgeois Socialists. I have listened by the hour to their tirades against their own class, and yet never, not even once, have I met one who had picked up proletarian table manners. Yet after all why not? Why should a man who thinks all virtue resides in the proletariat still take such pains to drink his soup silently? It can only be because in his heart he feels that proletarian manners are disgusting.”
1 Like
i’m a democrat from texas, 7th to 8th generation native texan, to the left of sanders. your description of the culture of rural whites sounds a lot like parts of my family. i’ve sat in the same room with people like that many times since i was a child. there’s nothing about any of what you list–
that i find disgusting. a few of them have racist mindsets i do find disgusting but you didn’t list that. i’ve also met that kind of mindset in people with refined manners, expensive educations, and even more expensive tastes. i still find it disgusting.
4 Likes
That’s because being disgusted by deliberate racism is a normal reaction and that sort of disgust would be no bar to Democrats recovering gains in rural areas.
If Democrats want to be a national party again, rather than trying to rule the nation from enclaves of hipsters and low income nonwhites, they need to have workable plans to improve the job market, which to me means creating enough economic activity that labor starts becoming scarce. Trump promised this, and even though his promises were bullshit it was so much more appealing than what Clinton promised that she had no chance.
And, Democrats need to hold down their gorge when talking to lower and middle class people who: think it’s okay to talk young women out of getting abortions; aren’t interested in being lectured to about their carbon footprint by jet-setters; stand up and salute the American flag. Can’t do it?? Gotta get back to the Clinton archipelago before they puke??? Have it that way then, but get ready for Trump 2020.
this–
although there is some overlap, is not identical to this–
besides which, there isn’t a lot of “lecturing” about carbon footprints to the lower and lower middle class because their carbon footprint is tiny compared to that of the 1%. everyone should be willing to do their part for the sake of the future of both our progeny and our society. does that make you uncomfortable? you seem to have some bitterness of your own towards people who think it’s wrong to force women to bear children in all circumstances while simultaneously reducing contraceptive options. you seem to have some bitterness of your own towards anyone interested in stabilizing and preserving our environment as well as some bitterness towards those who challenge your wish that everyone genuflect before the american flag. does your bitterness include those who refuse to salute the flag due to religious objections as well, like the jehova’s witness?
in a way you’re making two incompatible claims in your comment–
the main thing trump promised was a return to a white america where undesirable brown skinned people would know their place and not try to act as if they were entitled to full citizenship. pretending that racist dogwhistles and outright racist statements weren’t part of the trump campaign and part of what got him votes in white strongholds is whitewashing reality at the least and mendacity at worst.
5 Likes
You were listening through a filter. I strongly suggest you read the article I linked to upthread, written by a leftist Democrat who was not listening through a filter. Your attitude is one which the Trump 2020 campaign would be delighted to see shared by the Democratic party leadership.
And from your other comments, it seems that Democrats should insist that they only want the votes of people who sign on to a full laundry list of Approved Positions. That;s exactly not where I am. I want to get the country’s economy moving again and I’m willing to work with anyone who agrees on that, regardless of where they stand on other things.
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
