Poorly educated white guys are going to vote for Trump, but, you know, someone has to. If can’t be a shutout or no one will believe the outcome. I mean, who better than working class white dudes to make sure this election doesn’t look rigged, right?
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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I like to read what you write because you usually offer a well-thought-out, fact-based and intelligent analysis that I can’t find in many other places. You’ve got a good sense of what the political process involves and how it works. And I feel like I come away from here having learned something even though I don’t always agree with it or see shortcomings in some of the thinking.
Such as this:
which comes off as nothing more interesting than class contempt. It’s shallow, it’s poorly thought out, it’s way below your usual standard. It’s the kind of writing that makes me glad I’m not a liberal.
Instead of dismissing people like the author of this book and the people he came from and the place he grew up in out of hand, why don’t you try for a change to be a little self critical? Realize, just for once and just for a moment, that if you don’t have something to say to him and his that will show them a path out of the pain and misery that neoliberalism offers them somebody else will. Because that’s what Donald Trump is doing and although we are fortunate for the moment that he’s doing it with jaw-dropping incompetence, there are people out there in the darkness who are studying him and trying to learn from his errors.
Right, because conservatives never “dismiss” entire groups of people — you’re not going to find any Republicans tarring enormous, varied demographic groups with sneering, reductive contempt (or cynically manipulating such prejudices to their own tactical advantage). That never happens. Conservatives respect everyone.
What does your commentary have to do with anything? If anything, we might try—at least try—not to copycat many/most Republicans by simply rejecting, bashing a so-called anthropological group out of hand.
He shares Booman’s contempt.
My contempt is not for working class people. It’s for Trump voters and anyone who thinks the primaries were rigged.
thank you for your comment;
AT the beginning of the linked article, Vance says “Donald Trump at least tries” to speak to the concerns of those folks. Do you really think that’s the case? I don’t believe Trump at all on those points. I simply don’t think he honestly gives a crap about them.
He has a shtick and when I see his supporters at rallies on TV laugh hysterically at whatever nasty thing he says, I don’t see much of anything but a crowd responding to dirty jokes by a stand up comic.
He’s entertaining them, not speaking to their concerns. At most he is doing a John Stewart type act for them.
Vance is really the neoliberal poster boy. The “meretricious” one, who deserves his success. His “people” deserve their misery, ipso facto. If he could do it, so can they.
I wonder if our spite and malice would be so easy and cost free if those people were blue-colored? It does kinda remind me of the Okie-hate during the Dust Bowl.
The ONLY president rural American people really loved was FDR. And Nixon was many things, but never a neoliberal. Carter was maybe a baby one.
meritorious, not meretricious, to my knowledge.
Too early in the morning.
I agree that Boo’s post was dismissive and mean-spirited.
I don’t agree that Dems have failed to try to address these people, and that Trump is simply filling a void. Dems have tried to run against trade deals. It’s failed, and for one very simple reason: Trade is popular. Even among Trump voters in the primaries, the split was about 50-50.
These people are not motivated by economics, no matter how much pseudo-sociological horseshit guys like Thomas Frank peddle, and no matter how much the fetishists of the white working class stomp their feet insisting otherwise.
The most popular presidents among these people are Nixon, Reagan and Dubya. All “neoliberals”. The only Dems who’ve done even respectably with them are Carter, Clinton and Obama — again, all “neoliberals”.
Of the two candidates in the race, one is promising fairy tales, while the other has actually put out proposals to remedy the economies these folks live in. One promises to magically bring back dying industries like coal, the other promises infrastructure, benefits and investments.
It’s not the Dems who are dismissive of the white working class. It’s the white working class that’s dismissive of the Dems. The Dems went on and built a new coalition, and certain segments of the party are mad about it. Yet, despite the white working class’s dismissive attitude, the Dems still try to push policies that will help them. As Bill Clinton said in his speech, “If you think you can rebuild the economy from 50 years ago, vote for whomever you want, but know that she’s gonna drag you along into the 21st Century anyway.”
It’s not about economics. It’s about societal status and the hate that derives from that loss of status in an increasingly diverse US.
At some point, these people have to own it.
From your own link:
Asked to rank their feelings on Nafta from zero to 100, Americans on average rated the trade pact at 44.6. The TPP rated 42.0, according to a poll published last week that was conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research.
When you get specific, opinions sharpen.
No one really knows what NAFTA or TPP are.
This is true even among the highly educated.
Will Obama be saying this about his trade deals in ten yrs time…”I never thought the damn things would pass!”
I didn’t post a link, so I’ve no idea what you’re talking about there.
But here’s one from Gallup.
As for people’s feelings a on NAFTA and TPP, even educated people don’t know what the hell’s in those agreements.
Sorry, you are correct. I found a link that supported your general statement on trade, but went further.
To your other point, waking up and finding you have given away environmental protections and consumer protections that you supported for decades won’t excuse politicians from having done it to us.
I wonder if the debates (if they ever happen) will even have trade as a subject. It is either buried from sight, or sold as sparkle ponies by the MSM.
“Other things equal, because of the much more rapid growth in the labor force, we would expect much more rapid growth (or smaller decline) in the number of manufacturing jobs in the United States. The fact we actually lost a larger share of our manufacturing jobs than Germany and almost as large a share as Japan, means that manufacturing fell far more rapidly as a share of total employment in the United States than in these other countries.
Economists who “point out that other industrialized countries like Germany and Japan have also lost manufacturing jobs” understand this basic arithmetic point, as presumably do the editorial writers at the NYT. The only reason to ignore it, and imply that the decline in manufacturing in the three countries has been comparable, and has nothing to do with trade, is to deceive readers.” http://cepr.net/blogs/beat-the-press/why-does-the-nyt-and-economists-feel-the-need-to-lie-to-push-tr
ade-agreements
Thirded on the subpar post from Boo; enjoy the vacation already! I’m not really a fan of binning voters by demographics anyways. It is valuable for polling models but lends to lazy analysis otherwise.
I also agree on your points re: trade. People like cheap goods. Walmart, to use a commonly cited example, didn’t drive smaller shops out of business by force. They did so by being cheaper. Consumer behavior is pretty predictable. Even people directly affected by manufacturing losses are going to make similar choices.
Another aspect of cheap goods is that it masks many of the true drivers of poverty: high housing costs, medical debt, increasing barriers to education, no savings. You can be thousands of dollars in debt with few pathways to getting out, but that won’t stop you from getting a cheap smartphone or big screen television.
Yes, and the key driver here, I think, is that when we talk about Walmart displacing locally-owned businesses and things of that nature, it’s because Walmart whole gig is commoditization. “I can operate at greater scale then Joe’s Corner Store, and you’re just buying dishwashing detergent anyway, so why not buy it here where it’s cheaper?”
They’re not differentiated goods, so the only real pull the corner store has there is ideological, and that’s not going to win the day over the economics.
There are counters to that, of course. An iPhone generally costs a bit more than an Android phone, and a Camry — at least in my experience — generally costs a bit more than a Malibu. But iPhones and Camrys are generally perceived to be superior products, despite the fact that there’s really not much difference. A Samsung can handle Facebook just as well as an iPhone, and a Camry nowadays really isn’t much different from a Malibu in terms of the probability of breaking down, even if surveys rank the Camry nominally ahead. But the perception of superior goods nevertheless means Apple and Toyota sell a lot of iPhones and Camrys despite the higher costs.
You see the pro-cheap goods thing with Amazon gutting all the brick-and-mortar guys too.
Agree 100% of the housing/academic/medical costs bit too. Bring the cost of those down (or at least bring their respective inflation rates down to a sane level), and suddenly the picture would look much different.
Actually, they did. But it was a multi-step process.
Depends a bit on what we mean by “by force,” really.
Think he means, “Nobody held a gun to anybody’s head….”
It’s just that the ideological force — and here I’d include consumer behavior as well as voter action at the local level — I referenced is generally (not always, but generally) a much weaker force than the economic force.
Walmart didn’t invent low-end retailing. Your insistence that its success and the simultaneous destruction of main street was purely or mostly a matter of economics indicates that you are unfamiliar with how Walmart did it. Cleverly on the backs on the very consumers that never perceived their hidden costs for those cheaper products.
How many people even remember one of Walmart’s early national marketing campaigns? “Made in the USA!” Save a penny or two on every item. Patriotism and change pockets. Other than foodstuffs, some toiletries, and guns, how many “made in the USA” products does Walmart carry today? And that’s only a sliver of the business model that Walmart has used. They teach their “sales associates” how to get on the dole because they don’t pay them enough to survive otherwise. And on and on.
That “rural” location was key — cheaper land costs combined with the local yokels approving property tax abatements in some form. Sure people “saved” money at the check-out counter but they didn’t factor in the additional cost to get there and back (and time isn’t such a valuable commodity to many people). Once a couple of stores located within ten to thirty miles of each other had decimated their associated main streets, those stores were replaced with a new superstore just down the road from those two and close enough to another still existing main street. The folks in those first two communities had no option but the superstore. Loss leaders attracted those within the new service area until they too had no other option.
And this…
WHEN WALMART LEAVES TOWN
http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/when-walmart-leaves-town
Guess those folks can get up and move away, too?
Are the suburbs wising up? “It was an economic development opposition that envisioned alternative uses for the property itself and alternatives to Walmart’s low-road economics,” Weissman said. http://www.jwj.org/small-town-residents-say-no-to-walmart
Also this. A very interesting look at some hopeful trends in rural and suburban ares after WM is gone.
http://www.newgeography.com/content/005191-what-happens-when-walmart-dumps-you
Rural WM closing are trending. Urban/suburban expansion is unpopular/contested. International WMs and online seem to be the next generation.
Not so much money left to squeeze out of those rural areas. Walmart’s repositioning to suburban areas is now several decades old. Still doesn’t have the proper cache for the middle-class suburban shopper despite its long affiliation with the Clintons. Transportation limitations has restricted Walmart’s growth into denser populated lower income areas. But Walmart still might succeed with its addition of another new model – “neighborhood stores.”
Also, it’s rather shocking that anyone here that posts on this topic wouldn’t have been at least minimally informed long ago and from that know better than to post that economics drove Walmart’s success or at least bother to Google and read and study up on the issue. Which is different from Googling and grabbing a section from some article that supports one’s ill-informed opinion.
Some of the small communities not far away from my city were affected by some of the Walmart closures – mostly it the smaller Neighborhood Markets that get sacked, but sometimes larger. Several of these communities risked becoming food deserts almost overnight. A regional worker-owned chain swooped in to buy up the spaces Walmart abandoned, and to some extent has opened supermarkets in those locations (regrettably, not all of those locations). There is some hope. A lot really depends on the economic health of the community in question.
I’m not doing too well on this thread — nobody likes what I’m saying; I’m too “dismissive” etc — but I’ll try again anyway. The thing nobody fucking wants to face is that the way to lower prices and increase wages is to cut into the fucking obscene corporate profits but that will never happen, not just because of the entrenched cronyism of CEOS as boardmembers on other companies approving each others’ ridiculously inflated billion-dollar salaries, or because of the corrosive culture of business where they wring their hands about how they “can’t live on” less than $900K/year because of all the school payments and the nights they’re too tired to cook and have to order sushi (you can read those self-pitying articles), but because of the absurd Reagan-era thinking that it’s “illegal” for management to do anything that will cut into shareholder profits — that the purpose of business is to make money for shareholders (including vested managers), full stop, and if they do anything to reduce that cashflow they’re “breaking the law” (Wall Street types actually believe this). They also believe that they need tax subsidies to keep them from bolting the big cities (again, they’d “have to”) and that they “deserve” their gargantuan profits because they’re “job creators” — and that they’re helping “the economy” because “the economy” is the Dow Jones; nothing else exists. Change all this, and things will start to improve.
Even Donald Trump, when confronted with his neckties that are made in China, says, “Well, I’m a businessman”…like, his hands are tied; there’s nothing he can do about it. It’s someone else’s problem. Until the business class steps up and gets their fucking snouts out of the money trough our problems will continue. Rank and file conservatives have it within their power to grasp this, but they don’t, through exactly the willful blindness that BooMan is referring to when he calls them out for being needlessly dumb.
Interference by employers with the right of workers to organize and collectively bargain through cost-of-business lawbreaking and other actions which are legal but immoral is another big driver of economic inequality which deserves greater attention.
This. “It’s not the Dems who are dismissive of the white working class. It’s the white working class that’s dismissive of Dems”
The white working class has been listening to AM hate radio for decades, and Fox for nearly as long. For many the radio is on all day, very day. Rush learned early on that appealing to white male resentment was the path to riches, and all the rest have followed in his footsteps.
I live in WV. My state will vote heavily for Trump, because of AM radio and going to churches led by preachers who do. No amount of “messaging” will get through that wall of propaganda.
Further to your point:
http://alicublog.blogspot.com/2016/08/the-trump-whisperers.html
Plenty of churches in my corner of the South where the pastors will tell their respective congregations that voting anything other than GOP is a one-way ticket to Hell. To vote Democratic is to not be a “good Christian.” The election of a Democratic President (or just imagine an actual socialist) may well bring the beginning of the Apocalypse. Heck, I knew folks about eight years ago who were quite surprised when they weren’t raptured immediately after Obama’s electoral victory. After all, that’s what the pastor who knew what was in the good book was telling them. And they’ll gladly let anyone within earshot know that those not going to their church or voting for their candidates are simply “not good enough.” Plenty of contempt for any of a number of groups that could be labelled “other” to be sure. Sad, really.
I have to admit, I had the same feeling you did when I first read this post.
I just bought this book yesterday and started reading it last night. The author grew up a scant 10 miles from where I did. His family originates from Jackson, Kentucky. Mine from right next door to Jackson, in Lee County. My grandparents and their parents were dirt poor, just as Vance’s were. They also left Kentucky so their kids would not know that same poverty that the grew up with. They migrated north, many with just grade school educations, to seek work in the factories in Ohio and Michigan. And almost all of them succeeded in making a better life for their children and their grandchildren. In so many ways, the story of the author’s family mirrors my family’s history.
So I feel a particular sense of aggravation when I see and hear these generalized and snarky dismissals of “hillbillies”. The people Vance talks about are, in most ways, my people. And when I hear my liberal brethren express those kinds of attitudes, it saddens me.
Goodreads has a nice review and an extensive, smart comment section on it.
I kind of have the same question. Boo, I have more than a couple of friends who fit into that category. A couple ARE voting for Trump. A couple are reluctantly voting for HRC or staying home. Most, save for two, are thoughtful, thinking people.
Thoughtful people who vote for Trump are getting graded on a space-bending curve.
i was excluding the Trump voters.
Apropos – The Atlantic, Alex MacGinnis and ProPublica September 2016- The Original Underclass
To be fair, this isn’t new to Democrats. Their “barely suppressed contempt” has escaped the targets and it adds to the fodder used by rightwing talk radio, to great effect because it contains a large element of truth.
The GOP, OTOH, thought that they could exploit these folks forever without anyone challenging their dominance within that demographic.
That Atlantic piece is a very good companion to Boo’s linked piece.
Lol. Yeah, like I’m the one who doesn’t want these folks’ votes and not the Pravda vanguard that has invaded my blog.
I totally agree. Thank you.
Right! They are just scum anyway. Just cattle to be slaughtered by you rich Eastern elites.
I recommended Vance’s book to my friends because it had some reality about how a conservative frame causes life incidents to be read without empathy and with excuses for those who are stuck in various dysfunctional if not addictive patterns. This produces a co-dependent relationship that shuns empathetic accountability and a patient insistence on turning around (the whole notion of repentance is to stop doing what is harmful) and oscillates between harsh condemnation and making excuses.
Vance does not have clarity on this but he is struggling with the issue publicly in a relatively honest way (for a “professional conservative”). Let this outbreak of struggling with the truth of the situation be contagious! Having a pandemic of that contagion during August and September would be a welcome relief from a quarter century of the dominance of the Great Republican Wurlitzer tell people what truth they should believe. ‘Cause Democrats.
Thanks for that description. It’s the lack of empathy that most disturbs me about autobiographical accounts like the one under discussion. That and the peculiar idea that one just has to pull oneself up by the bootstraps, perhaps assisted by a heroic friend or neighbor or relative. This sort of narrative ignores the societal structures within which we all operate. It’s like the small businessman who says that government never helped him, but never thinks about stuff like roads and municipal water supply.
“Socialism” is what helps other people. Look at the bankers to see this. Pete Peterson and his war on entitlements or the Acela commuters between NYC and DC.
And of course, Trump himself.
“Hillary Clinton is the establishment. She’s the candidate of think-tankers, wonks, and the established style of governance that has dominated the Western world since the end of the Cold War. She represents the standard managed capitalist vision at home. She’s for big free-trade deals. And she is hawkish on defense issues in the Washington way, embracing the use of air power and proxies abroad to “shape” outcomes in America’s favor. She sides with liberals in the culture war, but in a way that seems cautious and calculating. She is pious about gay rights now, but she was not pioneering then. She is politically correct, but not politically courageous. She says all the right things, once the left has made it compulsory for her to do so.”
https://theweek.com/articles/640676/antiestablishment-case-hillary-clinton
“A vote for Clinton is a vote for a status quo that, when left to itself, can barely hide its exhaustion, self-hatred, and incompetence much longer.”
I will vote for the status quo because it suits my interests. I’m quite certain, though, that my interests are not the same as those of poorly educated white guys or even the poor non-whites of all genders.
Such honesty is hardly available at any price nowadays.
The 1949 amendment to the National Security Act of 1947 renamed the War Department as the Department of Defense. So referring to acts of war as “defense issues”, as even this critic of the American establishment does, has been hallowed by time. But it is still a lie in the service of a great evil and it is worth calling out every time it occurs.
Likewise Clinton supporters who mumble about “disagreements with her foreign policy” or “issues with her record”. Let their vote for her be accompanied by an honest acknowledgment of what it means for the future of the Muslim world.
Agreed. It is unfortunate that advocates for war and the use of deadly force refer it to national security or defense issues. I usually refer to it as endless war or murder and assassination.
The “no college education” demographic analysis misses the point that most Trump voters are going to be your typical republican voters (e.g. richer).
Poorly educated white men generally don’t vote at all. Not worth their time unless there is some rural or urban walking around money.
Trump’s base is with those a notch about that. Those who can keep jobs and still worship at the god of “personal responsibility” enough to have some assets, an attitude, and loads of misogyny and racism that informs their attitudes about who doesn’t have personal responsibility. These guys are also likely to be some sort of veterans, but too many of them (to judge by their stories of their service) spent their time as goof-offs or worse. But the brotherhood of the military and hunting/fishing trips still is first in their priorities.
The election cannot avoid looking rigged because there will be hundreds if not thousands of local election officials trying to rig it in different ways, most of them not seen by Trump voters as “rigging”. In ordinary election years, most are statistical noise that cancels out nationally. The 2000 election was not just noise because the media and Gore’s lackluster campaign made it close enough in the electoral vote for Florida to matter. And Jeb Bush disqualified 90,000 registrations from the git-go, which made Nader’s margins relevant enough that Palm Beach’s butterfly ballots threw the election into chaos and the Supreme Court short circuited the recount after the “Brooks Brothers” riot made it acceptable. Those are a lot of shenanigans that have to fall into place.
The best defense is strong election protection legal force and a wave election.
People who know that their neighbors have suddenly shifted to Clinton are less likely to argue rigging with a straight face.
“Social mobility isn’t just about money and economics, it’s about a lifestyle change,” he writes. “When you go from working class to professional class, almost everything about your old life becomes unfashionable at best or unhealthy at worst.”
Indeed. I can speak to that myself. I grew up solidly working class, but my parents wanted their kids to get educated and moved up the socioeconomic ladder. I got to college (a top-notch polytechnic–I think they treated me as a sort of affirmative action case) and not only struggled, but discovered that I was a cultural misfit. But one of the great ironies was that although the white working class was regarded as laughable, those upper middle class students loved to go slumming. They’d wear nothing but blue jeans, flannel or chambray work shirts, and (you can date me by this) field jackets and other stuff they’d gotten at Army surplus stores. And now, many years later, working at a government lab, I’m the guy who dresses neatly while my colleagues nearly all keep wearing those jeans etc.
You write:
This post is awful, Booman. I started to reply to it and then…somewhat apprehensively…went and read the responses. To my amazement, a number of people called you out on it. Good. This means that this blog is healthier than I imagined.
First of all, I disagree with he media-popular meme “poorly educated white guys.” on hree levels.
#1-People of all races and sexes who successfully work with their hands are not “poorly educated.” In fact, in my view…given the state of so-called higher education in the U.S., they are quite likely to be better educated on many levels than are people with any number of degrees in any number of subjects. Educated in the realities of life in these United States if on few other levels.
Is a master auto mechanic or fine carpenter “poorly educated?” I dunno. You tell me. Can an auto mechanic successfully fake his or her way through the ability to diagnose and fix a car’s problems? Not for long. Bet on it. Can the guy who does most of the maintenance and renovation work in the 1896-built building in which I live in the Bronx do shoddy work? The same guy who cares for the grounds and has built a beautiful, almost wild-looking garden in the courtyard that stops passenrs-by in their tracks? Not as far as I am concerned. And he is by no means alone. There are millions of people like him all over the country. Passionate, intelligent people who had the good sense to learn a craft rather than slog through what has become a bullshit miseducmational system to get a couple of degrees that at best will qualify them to be bureaucratically governed cogs in some giant shithole of a corporation or governmental apparatus. And they watching this election very closely. This guy swallows none of the media cant like your “poorly educated white guys” crap. None of it.
#2 “Poorly educated white guys…”
What is your definition of “white,” Booman? Really. What is the overall definition of “white” in this country? I work with any number of people of Puerto Rican 2nd and 3rd generation heritage, most of whom identify with that heritage as a matter of choice. Change a little bit in their dress choices, smooth out the accent a tad, maybe get a different haircut and change the name they use from “José Gonzalez” to “Joseph Zale” and hey could pass right into so-called white culture without so much as making a wave.
But they don’t.
Why?
Ain’t worth it to do so as far as they are concerned. They’d lose more than they gained.
#3-Again: “Poorly educated white guys…” Why “guys”, Booman? Do you somehow believe…as apparently do HRC and the whole rotted-out DNC apparatus…that a tidal wave of females is going to vote her into office? I got news for ya…there are women of all races and classes who have absolutely no use for her act. Seeing her attended to hand and foot by that Abedin creature (Why on earth would anyone stay married that dick-pic fool Weiner!!!???) and…up until just a week ago, anyway…allied with that other female bureaucratic monster Debbie Wasserman Schultz? Seeing her still standing next to that serial sexual predator Bill Clinton? Come on, Booman!!!
Take a longer vacation.
You gonna need it when he shit starts to hit the fan in a few weeks.
Bet on that as well.
Later…
AG
Uprated for the shout out for craftsmen and women.
Indeed.
Clinton consistently polls very strongly with women, and Trump runs very poorly:
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/clinton-opens-23-point-lead-women-gains-democrats/story?id=41148222
http://polling.reuters.com/#poll/TM651Y15_DS_13/filters/SEX:2
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/07/28/a-closer-look-at-the-gender-gap-in-presidential-voti
ng/
There’s more to be found on this all over the Internet.
So yes, a tidal wave of females is ready to vote Clinton into office. It is very likely that the slight majority of voters in November will be women; that’s been the case in recent Presidential elections.
I do admit to being baffled why Abeddin is still married to Wiener and wonder if its a political alliance only.
Polls are bullshit.
AG
Polls accurately previewed and predicted Trump’s strong plurality wins in this year’s GOP primaries and caucuses. They accurately predicted the winners of recent Presidential elections.
They also predicted Romney’s win and also McCain’s against Obama.
Bullshit.
Nate Silve>? Also bullshit.
AG
Arthur, you’re wrong, just wrong.
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/fivethirtyeights-2012-forecast/?_r=0
http://mashable.com/2012/11/07/nate-silver-wins/#QI1fYdH1daqz
Like Trump, you are straying from opinion-based argumentation and are now making statements which can be proven to be incorrect.
Still a long ways to go to Nov, 3 more months could see another major terrorist attack in Europe or even in the US, or some kind of economic downturn or worry, which almost certainly would work to the benefit of the Donald.
I’m mostly (but not entirely) encouraged by the recent polls (depressed though when considering Hillary’s hawkish FP), and it’s still hard to wrap my mind around a Trump triumph. Although, with enough support going to the third parties like the Libertarian ticket (actually a smart if misguided duo) and some liberal voter dilution for Jill Stein, it’s possible a scenario could develop taking away enough support for HRC to make it at least interesting.
I’d also like to hear the thought of Prof Alan Lichtmann, the 13 Keys historian, who’s predicted all the PV winners of presidential elections since 1984. He’s in town Tues night, and I’m tempted to battle evening traffic to go hear his views. Presumably he will be telling us about his prediction for this cycle and whether Hillary has at least a majority of those keys to ensure her election.
I’m not convinced that an attack benefits Trump. I just don’t see it.
If a serious attack took place people would want a steady hand on the helm, not a shoot from the hip loud mouth. I think most Americans got their fill of that from 2000-2008. Sure, stupid people would go for Trump, but he already has them sewed up.
.
It’s not over, not by a long shot. I’ve just observed the candidates, their platforms, their behaviors, and their coalitions, and it’s hard to see how Trump would gain the votes he needs from women and non-whites.
People lodge complaints that the Democratic Party nominee and prohibitive favorite to win the Presidency is a lousy candidate. She has weaknesses, but it’s delusional to claim at this point that Hillary is a bad candidate or is running a bad campaign.
Those forwarding these views here have convinced me they will continue to call her a bad candidate even if she wins in November. They’re very determined, perhaps overly so.
Yes it takes intelligence to learn a skill but thats a different thing than thinking critically. Critical thinking is not neccessarily taught in all college courses nor is it the province of a specific political ideology, or something that a skilled tradesman can’t also have, but it absolutely is a bedrock of education.
That’s bullshit too.
Critical thinking…whatever that really means, if it means anything past being yet another empty slogan…it may at one time have been a “bedrock of education” (It certainly was in Jesuit colleges), but now? In the U.S.? “Education” is basically the ability to pass multiple choice tests by choosing the most popular answer…kind of a glorified quiz show.
Critical thinking??? Where is the slightest bit of evidence that the American public has applied any sort of critical thinking whatsoever to their last several choices for presidential candidates? Where is it when they elect and re-elect people who are owned and operated by big money at the expense of the people who are doing the voting!!!
Please!!!
Critical thinking.
Just another buzzword.
WTFU.
AG
OK, not critical thinking, a lot of which is bullshit. But education for citizenship, definitely. If large numbers of working-class people continue to make horrible choices with their votes, I may be able to understand why they do, but that doesn’t mean I have to think thy are making GOOD choices, even for them.
Trump offers them hope, a vent for their anger and frustrations, blah blah blah. But he’s nothing but a con artist. Trump is not a good choice for them, any more than for the thousands of people that have been bilked by him already.
Don’t bring up Hillary. It’s just not a moral equivalent. At least she is sane. Right now it look slike we’re stuck with her, Trump is anything but a viable alternative.
And it’s not only about Hillary. There are a lot of good people in the Democratic Party.
But AG, statistics show that the ONLY demographic of which the majority support Trump, is white men without college degrees. Sad but true.
I really don’t care whether you believe in polls or not.
Full disclosure. I come from a family of carpenters, plumbers, house painters, on all sides. My father, who grew up in the Depression, did not have the luxury of finishing high school. He was a carpenter, hell, his father was a carpenter. My father was a very intelligent man. He was a union man and a leftist. He read constantly, was interested in everything, politics, social issues, history, religion, science, mathematics.
But in those days, MOST people didn’t go to college. They learned more in the first 8 or 12 grades than many today do who get a B.A. So maybe it’s not a fair comparison.
You do not know what you are talking about. They are both con artists. HRC has the better con. So far. We shall see as the process progresses. HRC will kill and maim more people in the short term…of all nationalities…than will Trump in the short term.
In the long term?
As I said…we shall see
Won’t we.
AG
I know what I’m talking about, all right.
I’ll accept that she is a con artist, but the difference is, the majority of people who are going to vote for her are aware of that.
Let me ask you something, do you actually support Trump? Do those Puerto Rican friends of yours support Trump?
This is an example of your “critical thinking?
Oh.
Nevermind.
AG
Also:
Another wonderful example of your peculiar brand of “critical thinking?”
Sure.
What in the following paragraphs would lead you to even ask those questions?
But I will answer you anyway.
No, I do not support Trump, and neither do…as you oddly refer to them…”those Puerto Rican friends” of mine.
“Those Puerto Rican friends of yours” sounds like something a Republican suburban mother might say to her wayward teenaged son or daughter. “Those Puerto Rican friends of yours are going to get you in trouble!!!.”
WTFU.
AG
You specifically refer to some Puerto Rican friends of yours. Then I refer to them and suddenly I sound like a Republican suburban mother. Excuse me for living.
As for asking you the question whether you support Trump, I’m just trying to get some clarity here. I don’t think I ever heard you say anything against him. I get the distinct impression you’d rather vote for Trump than for Hillary. If you’re not, then i can only conclude that you’re bloviating. But that’s nothing new.
Bernie Sanders, who you support, or anyway used to support, urges his supporters to vote for Hillary. But since you are “holier than thou”, you’re still flogging a dead horse about what a fucking disaster Hillary is. What other realistic choice is there than to vote for her, support Berniecrats and good Democrats, and don’t trust Hillary any further than you can throw her? Watch her like a hawk, and try to block her bad moves. Whatever you know about Hillary, I know too, and so does Bernie, and so do lots of people. If somebody has a crystal ball and can reveal exactly what the Democratic Party is going to look like after November, please tell us.
It’s not what you said, it’s the way that you said it.
Location, location, location?
Also context, context, context.
If you have not read anything that I have written here that is anti-Trump, then you either have not read very much of my stuff and/or your reading comprehension hovers around 7th grade level.
AG
P.S. I will not vote for either of them. Ever.
It’s not the way that I said it. It’s the way that you heard it.
I heard it the way I heard it.
I’ve heard it before here and I’ll hear it again, both here and elsewhere.
You said it the way that you said it.
You could have said it a hundred ways. You chose that one.
“Those Puerto Rican friends of yours…” followed by an inane question about their
probable…errr, ahhh…”possible” preference…and mine…for Trump.I’ve got a good sense of attitudinal smell, priscianus. I called it the way I smelled it.
Like a fart in an elevator.
“Not me!!!” say the culprit.
“I didn’t do it!!!”
I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt.
Show me it wasn’t what you meant.
Show me what you did mean.
AG
What could I have meant, AG? That I, as a suburban mom, was referring to them with “dog whistle” rovertones because I suspected they probably were voting for Trump? What Puerto Ricans are voting for Trump? Or maybe I meant that I, who despise Trump, despise those Puerto Rican friends of yours because they probably are voting for Trump? I mean what the hell could I have meant? None of this makes the slightest bit of sense.
What I did mean was that for sure they weren’t voting for Trump because for sure they know he’s a tota asshole, so if they are friends of yours, why do you keep saying that most of the people you know are voting for Trump?
The only fart in the elevator is that you think you’re so much smarter than everyone else, that you just KNOW that Trump is much more popular than anyone else thinks he is.
Oh I agree with you. The powers that be want very little critical thinking. Lack of education is by far not limited to poor white guys.
One in Martin’s tribe, Andrew S. Weiss (Rand, NSA, etc.), tweet:
One not in that tribe, Michael Tracy, response tweet:
Those of a certain age can hear the echoes from long ago and know exactly what slots those like Weiss and VSP Clinton folks occupy: “The Best and the Brightest.” The McNamara and Kissinger set. Should be called “The Myopic and the Dullest.” Or “The Dulles Descendants.”
Gustave Flaubert, letter to Madame Louise Colet, June 14, 1853
wrt Trump that doesn’t hold. He’s still an ignorant con-man.
Stephen Robbins:
Glenn response:
A lot of commenters here think Booman had a fit of pique and wrote something silly. The diversity of opinion here (including yours) is why I look at this blog.
However, I’m sorry, but “one in Martin’s tribe”? People occupying “slots”? Really? Aside from the fact that he has nothing to do with Rand Corp or the NSA–your canonical examples–what are you actually doing here? Looks as if you’re criticizing Booman for putting people into categories by…putting people into categories. And then you associate him with what you call “The Myopic and the Dullest”. Why in the world then even read him? And “the McNamara and Kissinger set”? Jeez Louise, Marie3, you were taking someone to task here recently for what you called “guilt by association”–and now you’re doing that yourself. Criticize Booman on the merits of what he wrote or linked to, not by trying to associate him with a “set” that predates his birth.
By the way, the stuff about Jill Stein and tweets: I realize you like Twitter, but it’s perhaps an acquired taste. I find Twitter an absurdly limited mode of communication, long on possibilities for zingers, but by its nature incapable of presenting thoughtful discourse. Twitter’s a lot like bumper stickers.
Then they haven’t been paying attention to what he has been writing (flogging?) for the past year.
“Tribe” in this instance means college educated, white collar, socially/culturally liberal (or squishy liberal because they are followers instead of leaders on efforts to improve equality under the law) male workers. But you knew that, or should have, and thus, you’re again being argumentative for sport.
Well, Marie3, you certainly display knowledge of how to be “argumentative for sport”.
You don’t display much self-reflection, proper perspective, and consideration of respectful interpersonal relationships, however.
I don’t expect you to change. I don’t expect your supporters in the community to be swayed by this. I just want to register my disappointment in the belligerent cheap shots you take which often extend past the end of your arguments.
I’m not innocent in this area either, but I’m willing to be reflective on this, cop to it, make amends for my worst behavior, and attempt to be more supportive of community relations moving forward. My willingness to largely defer to your unusual demand that I not respond to your comments (?) is one of my attempts to express that support.
We’re in a community here.
‘We’re a community here.’ Define and explain.
There’s many thousands of people who read this blog frequently. There’s many dozens, at varying frequencies, who choose to participate in the comments section and diary posts. We actively choose to come here. In the very title of his blog, Martin establishes this as a place where he wants progressives to be in community with each other.
Engaging in harsh personal attacks during our discussions undermines our community. Building this community requires us to maintain a large number of our current members, and present a welcoming face to those who come across the blog. I don’t think we can say with a straight face that the comments threads here are presenting the blog as a very welcoming place right now.
We can enter into argumentations and simultaneously display strong recognition of and respect for each other’s humanity. That has not been on consistent offer here recently.
The split in the community brought on by the Presidential primary is calcifying into the general election. To me, for that to be taking place in an election where Trump is the GOP nominee is a remarkable outcome.
My view is that in order to maintain opposition to Clinton, some community members are starting to pull the comment threads into argumentations which are fully digressive from BooMan’s posts and betray the maintenance and building of a fully inclusive progressive/liberal movement.
But that’s my view. Others are free to express theirs. All of our expressions have the potential to draw consequential responses.
Thanks. Yes, I get it. I just don’t do it properly.
I don’t understand what you are communicating here.
What I’m saying is that the expectation of one big happy family attitude on this blog is unrealistic and undesirable; and that criticism or rejection of Hillary Clinton are not in any way approval and support of Donald Trump. She remains unacceptable, Donald Trump is beyond the pale. People who feel this way may vote for her in the end but no one can rightfully expect them to hide their unease, fear. You have a line, others have a different line, we are not here to ridicule and depreciate: for that we can go to Daily Kos.
Maybe what centerfield was trying to say is that we should feel free to disagree – just don’t be disagreeable when you do it.
None of us on who post on this blog have all the right answers; none of us. We ignore other’s ideas at our peril.
You do take up a lot of space on the thread for so few words. Am I being disagreeable? Or are you?
Ratings function here doesn’t work for me. Used to, but hasn’t in a long time. Cause unknown. Flagged to booman in e-mail once. Tried what he suggested. Didn’t work. Sorry you find it disagreeable.
The blog is a bit buggy as of late. I have my own set of minor gripes. If this is the only way you can express your intention to uprate, I say go for it.
It would be nice to keep things civil all the time but I think people are so convinced of how right they are and how wrong others are that it becomes impossible not to become tribal and petty when one’s argument fails to persuade.
There you go again! Do I troll your comments to initiate arguments with you? That would be a big, fat no. I don’t even read yours except when you personally attack me and/or a comment I’ve made that wasn’t directed at you. I do my best even to ignore the nasty comments you post as a response to me. But not when you go over the line as you did this time. Others here have also pointed out your limited knowledge/grasp on many topics and the weak logic skill displayed in your comments. As for “self-reflection,” look in the mirror.
Marie3: for you, “trolling” seems to be equivalent to “disagreement”.
Centerfielddj: Thanks for this. Many of us have screwed up, written unduly sarcastic remarks, and gotten responses you might expect. Then we learn from our mistakes.
Monday morning. I had more important stuff to do on Sunday afternoon, going canoeing with my daughter before she heads back to college. “Argumentative for sport.” That’s ridiculous. But now a reply.
Marie3, you are dancing around and denying your own, well-worn rhetorical device by claiming that I ought to have known you meant something else. Nonsense. You did the guilt by association thing with Booman the same way you do it with lots of other people. And then you have the gall to deny what you’re doing? Blah.
More mass media non-personing.
Low level, because/..so far…she doesn’t pose a credible threat to the status quo.
AG
This is such trope. Every generation thinks that they are the ones that worked hard and that the generations coming after them are slackers. The reality, of course, is much different- Americans are working more hours than they have ever worked before. It used to be that entry level jobs for many industries in America provided a decent level of wages, and had benefits, so that you didn’t have to take multiple jobs just to pay the rent. Now, entry level jobs are all part time, with low pay and no benefits.
But seriously, you think the path for Democratic victory is to tell the lazy underclass that they just have to work harder? How well do you think that’s going to go over?
Oh… I get it. He’s a Trump supporter…
Vance? No. He’s a National Review writer who cannot support Trump and does not know what he going to do. But he is also the author of Hillbilly Elegy which is getting high marks for its exploration of the marginality of hillbillies who do work their way to success (like him) and the difficulties that those left behind actually have to face.
That is, he’s being given high marks for his empathy for the losers of his own culture and deftly explores how they became losers (generations ago, for example) and what traps them now. A lot of it is discussion of dysfunctional white families.
#1 – Yeah! (Already great or making America great again?)
Savills on Twitter
One reason why poor whites would vote for Trump, or vote for most Republicans, is because the economics haven’t been working for them. People who had a good factory job, could afford a house and two cars, even the wife could afford to stay home to raise the kids, all on one salary. That doesn’t exist in the US today.
Another reason, always harder to fathom, is the cult of racism. It’s harder to understand, but it’s widespread in the US. When one considers that race as a concept is bunk then the enormous block to class consciousness disappears. That’s why racism never goes away. It’s necessary for our brand of capitalism to function. It strengthens class.
Yes. Most graphic in the south but the same thought process dynamics existed throughout the country. It goes like this:
If I get ten cents and the black guy gets four cents, I have to prevent the black guy from getting five cents because then I’d only get nine cents. Meanwhile “the man” may be getting ten bucks to the white guy’s ten cents, but the white guy needs “the man” to keep doling out his ten cents.
I generally agree that race as a concept is bunk. (Different ethnicities can carry their own ideas, traditions and interests, and those are not bunk.) Most importantly, our philosophical point of agreement that race as a concept is bunk carries very little weight in day-to-day life in the United States.
Race as a concept is extraordinarily pervasive in our culture, and its many effects cuts across class lines. Police officers pull over black drivers of expensive cars more often than they pull over white drivers of expensive cars, for example. Responding to this in part by saying “race as a concept is bunk” appears to me to be infuriatingly insulting to those injured by racial prejudice, the vast majority of whom have lower incomes.
Race as a concept also cuts across views of class issues and voting patterns. For example, non-whites with low incomes are undermined by the worst effects of trade deals, reduction of union rights and power, and other aspects of modern economics, just as whites are. But non-whites with low incomes are not showing themselves in polls to be willing to vote for Trump.
I can understand the disgust BooMan registers in his post here. Substantial numbers of white Americans are going to vote for Trump. Trump has gained the enthusiasm of those voters in large part by announcing his plans to deport and oppress over 100 million Americans. That’s disturbing, and it disgusts me.
It disgusts me too, but here’s the difference. I don’t blame it particularly on them.
They’re suckers, can’t you understand that? Just like the suckers that signed up for Trump University.
They’re suckers so many times over, it’s hard to know where to begin. Whether or not they’re excellent auto mechanics. And by the way, many of those auto mechanics are actually not so excellent.
But do you want to help them or not? I have long had the impression that many here do not.
Bernie Sanders does.
I’m an organizer for a Union. I worked on the campaign which won the $15/COLA/sick day minimum wage law for Californians. Goddamn right I want to help people help themselves.
Professional expertise and education do not determine personal decency and policy wisdom, as literally any video clip of Dr. Ben Carson amply displays.
Glad to hear it. I appreciate the value of your work.
The extremely specialized kind of technical education a guy like Carson got would not, in itself, teach him anything about anything else. There are all too many like him in professional life, although he is an extreme case. Educated idots, they used to call ’em.
Here, I think you will enjoy reading this:
https:/chiefio.wordpress.com/2011/08/12/educated-idiots-and-uneducated-wise-ones
Thanks for the appreciation, and the link.
The ruling class of the settler colonial US created a cult of racism to balance “Indians” (who were losing territory to exclusive white expropriation), “Negroes” (who were compelled to labor in slavery), and “whites” (meaning the whites numerous enough to be a threat to the ruling planters and merchants) so that they could play them so as never to have all of them as enemies at once. That is still what is happening. Only it is the federal government that has the remaining “free” land and immigrants are the laborers who are used to reduce wages. The old legal categories of “Indian”, “Negro”, and “white” remain engrained in our assumptions about the cultures that emerged from that 300-year cauldron. We might call them different names to avoid the stigma of stereotypes but we still are pointing to not totally segregated cultures that emerged in response to that original system that drove the frontier, manifest destiny, and American exceptionalism. In the US, class has complicated markers of status based on the still engrained culture of racism.
Trump and his buddies represent the faces of the institutions that want those markers and class privileges preserved.
Most US Marxians and Marxists have understood this. They were abolitionists, supporters of Freedman rights, supporters of the fight against Jim Crow, organizers of desegregated labor unions, and organizing venues for non-segregated meetings and conferences even before World War II. Those civil rights leaders tarred with J. Edgar Hoover’s accusations of communism earned those by going to at least one conference at at least one of those meeting centers.
Racism is integral to imperialism. Dehumanizing those whom you are about to swindle, enslave or kill requires a moral justification, and considering the immorality of swindling, enslaving and killing you have to devalue those other humans to less-than-human status.
It is integral to the exercise of power by imperialist adventurers and elites. Avoiding ethnic cleansing by the locals of the outsiders. Avoiding slave revolts. Avoiding mutinies by the employees used to provide the muscle.
In several African nations, they elevated minority tribes over the larger, thus making their safety and well-being dependent on the interlopers.
Likewise setting up violent paybacks upon getting independence.
it is neither personal nor psychological. The greed drives the politics drives the excuses. It is an institutional part of how empires are built.
Do read The Original Underclass at The Atlantic. It includes summaries and reviews of Nancy Isenberg’s The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America and Vance’s book.
Sounds to me as if the first portion of Isenberg’s book is first rate, and it is consistent with the facts from the colonial period which differs significantly from your understanding as reflected in your comments here over the years.
wrt Vance’s book, I started to get queasy as that was covered. Not quite deja vu, but echoes of the popular “up by one’s bootstraps” message from someone that got out. Sometimes such books are harsh and sometimes their kind and gentle. And sometimes, they are designed to glorify the one that succeeded, such as Dr. Ben Carson. Might see Vance running for POTUS in 1932. The same capitalist BS repackaged for that half of the population that leans right instead this time.
Trump is getting a lot of support from “poorly educated” whites, meaning whites without college degrees. But I think this is just a marker for the real driver, age. Among 18-30 year olds, his polling is beyond atrocious – in a four-way race with Johnson and Stein he comes in FOURTH. By contrast, he’s got a comfortable lead over Hillary among Silents. Well, those Silents who support him aren’t particularly “poorly educated”, they just grew up before everybody was expected to get a college degree. All the same, if you lump those polls together, you end up with “college educated” opposing Trump and “poorly educated” supporting him.
There’s certainly an educational component to opinions about Trump, but I think to a large extent its just a marker.
(based on consistency of the polling I’ve seen) that the classification tree for Trump voter vs. not works like this:
Older has a lot of explanatory power.
Within older, white has a lot of additional explanatory power.
Within older white, male has a lot of further explanatory power.
Within older white male, absence of college education has most of the rest of what explanatory power can be attributed to these types of categories (i.e., demographic).
Indeed, among that large older cohort of Trump voters, college education might have been first generation, if at all.
Among white older male voters, the strongly discriminating factor seems to be “some college” vs. “no college” (or at least that’s how the binary poll question that produces significant differences gets asked), from the polling data I’ve seen.
In shat world do you live where you think “…’everybody’ [is] expected to get a college degree?”
Wake the fuck upo.
Moved to urban Philadelphia, Watts or the Bronx and WTFU!!!
AG
Katrina vandenHeuvel:
Glenn:
Democrats can borrow the GOP binders full of “KatrinaNation” smear/attack lines. No need to reinvent the wheel.
Hmm, Jill Stein now being mauled for trip to Russia.
Greenwald’s twitter feed lit up on this earlier today. It’s like a PUMA mind meld within the ranks of the neoliberalcon Democrats. Belligerent and paranoid ravings. Minds don’t recover quickly, if at all, once they cross into such a zone. Really quite indistinguishable in style from the Bushies a dozen years ago.
Very disturbing and troubling cold warrior views being espoused on some of the lib blogs on the Russia situation. A few brave voices on the left (Stephen Cohen, Rbt Parry’s site and Patrick Lawrence at Salon) have noted the neocon mindset of these Dem/liberal voices and how some/many are adopting McCarthyite tactics in seeking to squelch dissent.
I’m getting the sickening feeling that another Cuban Missile Crisis eyeball-to-eyeball situation is developing to play out in the not too distant future. And I doubt if we’ll be as lucky with a safe outcome as the last time.
Yes, very disturbing. Not too get all mumbo jumbo, but its as if something very deep and dark is welling up from the unconscious among both the Trumpters and Democrats. And attempting to engage in rational conversations with them is as constructive as it was in late 2002 – early 2003. Difference is that then it was clear where the blood would be spilled to satisfy their lust and therefore, it was far enough away that they didn’t have to see it and shed any tears over it.
If by “rational conversation” on this topic, or any other, you mean “accepting all of my premises and arguments,” then yes, indeed, rational conversation may be a challenge.
Another killer for “rational conversation” is imputing the worst possible motives to those with whom you disagree. It has always struck me that that is the shared rhetorical device among those who write political polemics.
But this forum here is not supposed to be an echo chamber.
http://www.thenation.com/article/obama-expands-isis-bombing-campaign-to-fourth-country-media-barely-
notices/
This post is kicking a whole group of people when they’re down. It’s beneath you, booman.
You mean dead-ended Bernie supporters?
Some of them might be, but I suspect most uneducated white males didn’t support Sanders. Not sure what your point is. I thought it was pretty clear what group I was referring to. If your comment was snark it was lost on me.
Funny that my absurdist post was seen much more narrowly than intended.
It’s not snark, it’s deep disgust, and not directed solely at Trump Dead Enders at all.
Have you been reading the comments here recently?
Seems like a little education is a dangerous thing.
Unmarked absurdism is essential in a bonkers year like this one. It’s the only rational response to willful misinterpretation, too.
So then your post was not intended as a put down of uneducated white males, ok . Still unclear what it was intended to be, then . Something about election rigging? The inanity of some comments here?
I do read most of the comments here , god help me. If I misinterpreted your remarks I apologize.enjoy your vacation.
Nice to see you being blatant in your ontempt. Not that over the past year, you hid it half as well as you thought you did.
Born and bred in Princeton.
What did you expect?
Populism?
Please!!!
AG
Let’s not denigrate people for the circumstances of their birth. It enough to call others out for their opinions and behaviors that aren’t consistent with their previously stated positions and self-identification.
The fallacies among the status quoers is that 1) it doesn’t exist — time cannot be stopped and 2) all good human constructed changes are incubated on the left; kill off the left and change can only generate from the right.
I get why this post is pissing off some folks here. I do it find amusing though that few would blink an eye here if booman wrote a post mocking those who believe in a “sky god” who plan to vote for Trump. Especially considering how dependent the left in the US is on reliably Democratic-voting religious minorities.
Just some thoughts after reading the ~100 comments posted here so far:
I thought the essential point of BooMan’s post was the irony that the votes for Trump from poorly educated white guys, many of whom will be saying that the election was rigged, will be Evidence A in the argument that the election was not rigged. I didn’t think his point was to put down poorly educated white guys as a demographic group.
And why is it insulting to say that the “working class… has lost its sense of agency and taste for hard work”? This statement is a very close cousin to the frequent progressive/liberal argument that America depends on undocumented workers to do the work that Americans don’t want to do.
As for Vance’s book, I haven’t read it. But I don’t understand why progressives/liberals treat personal and societal factors of poverty, addiction, joblessness, homelessness, etc., as an either/or proposition. If you’ve ever felt proud of something you’ve done, you’ve implicitly given yourself credit for your own agency, beyond anything that your environment provided for you. Why should we feel threatened by questions of how to distinguish constructive from destructive agency and what factors lead to the former? There’s no reason to give up this ground to conservatives, who have for decades used the vacuum to shape the questions and answers for their own purposes.
As for what motivates the non-blatantly-racist Trump voter, it’s nothing more contemptible than the impulse to quit a job without having another one to go to, even if you depended on the salary. How really bad were those working conditions? Could you have stuck it out another four years? The fact that people behave irrationally isn’t news. We all do, and BooMan isn’t being any more contemptuous than anyone else who’s faulted someone for how they’re going to vote.
What we could use is some self-reflection on what progressives/liberals/neoliberals and yes — Obama — have done to contribute to an environment in which so many people are making this particularly irrational choice. But this blog of all places is not the place to come for that.
Georgia “Democrat” Sam Nunn endorses Johnny Isakson for the Senate. Either speaks of backstabbing or poor candidate recruitment.
Kinda explains why his daughter essentially phoned it in in 2014.
Anyone running in Georgia needs to think 159 counties…159 counties…159 counties. At this point, the last Democrat some of these counties have seen was in the 1990s.