You owe it to yourself to read Matt Taibbi’s remarks at Substack about Thomas Frank’s (What’s the Matter With Kansas?) latest book, The People, No, a history of anti-populism:
In 2016, it was clear only a few people in the lefty media world understood what Trump was up to, and why he was a real threat to win. Michael Moore was one, and Frank was another. I don’t think it’s a coincidence both were Midwesterners. Frank released his next book, Listen, Liberal, in May of 2016, just as Trump was seizing the nomination. It began with the following observation:
In the summer of 2014, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average hitting all-time highs, a poll showed that nearly three-quarters of the American public thought the economy was still in recession—because for them, it was.
which was panned by the critics because it was critical of the political and social views held by the critics. Apostasy is an unforgiveable sin.
It’s full of short jibes, both by Taibbi and Franks himself, viz:
After Trump’s election in November 2016, the first instinct of everyone wandering amid the smoldering wreckage of Democratic Party politics should have been to look in all directions for anyone with an explanation for what the hell just happened.
Of course the opposite took place.
or
The new conception of populism, as popularized by historians like Richard Hofstadter, pitted the common run of voters against a growing class of elite-educated managerial professionals, philosopher-kings who set correct policy for the ignorant masses.
The model of enlightened government for this new “technocratic†class of “consensus thinkers†was John Kennedy’s “Camelot†cabinet of Experts in Shirtsleeves, with Robert McNamara’s corporatized Pentagon their Shining Bureaucracy on a Hill. This vision of ideal democracy has dominated mainstream press discourse for almost seventy years.
Here’s as good a summary of where we are now as I’ve seen:
Imagine the reaction in these places now, to editorials in the New York Times instructing white liberals to cut off their relatives (by text, incidentally) until they donate to Black Lives Matter, or a CNN tweet instructing “individuals with a cervix†to start getting cancer screens at age 25, or to widespread denunciations of Mount Rushmore as a “monument of two slaveholders†when visited by Trump, after those same outlets praised its “majesty†just four years earlier.
These stories are as incomprehensible to Middle America as the pictures of MAGA fanatics going maskless and dying of Covid-19 to own the libs are to blue-state audiences. Yet both groups are bombarded with images of their opposite extremes, with predictable results: we all hate each other.
But that’s only a half truth. We don’t all hate each other. While I think it’s quite possible that the progressives who get all of their news from the NYT and CNN and Stephen Colbert and think that the protests in Minneapolis, Seattle, and Portland have been completely peaceful hate everyone who isn’t in lockstep with their thinking while those who get all of their news from President Trump’s tweets, Fox News, and talk radio hate all citydwellers, when I look around at my neighbors here in Chicago, a remarkably diverse group encompassing every race or confession of humankind what I experience on a daily basis is compassion and caring. They’re almost as cynical as I am about political corruption and routinely vote for Democrats because only Democrats are running.
‘They’re almost as cynical as I am about political corruption and routinely vote for Democrats because only Democrats are running.’
Sort of the way it was during the days of the Solid South, when the only Republicans running for office (much less open about their political affiliations) were either suicidal or in the tank for the local Jim Crow boss. But it’s hard to provide an alternative when culture, the political establishment, and the Fourth Estate are uniformly hostile to it. Despite the canard that the Dixiecrats turned Republican after 1972, the South (other than in Presidential elections) didn’t start voting for Republicans on a regular basis until the majority of the yellow-dog Democrats had died off (the 1990’s).
All I will say right now about extremist political opinion and activism is that it isn’t the Trumptards or the Tea Party or the 2A people going around on a routine basis torching neighborhoods and cars and ostracizing and cancelling people (those Pro-Lifers who do resort to violence are generally hunted down and put away). But if local governments and police continue to routinely harass ordinary citizens for exercising what they believe are their rights while allowing BLM, ANTIFA, and other revolutionaries free rein, that may change. Too many people are issuing orders that won’t be obeyed, and enforcing them selectively for political purposes for acquiescence to authority to continue forever.
And I certainly don’t hate anybody who regularly posts on this blog. I may disagree vehemently with them, but I’d always be willing to sit down and have a cup of coffee with any of you.
I agree, my evidence is now that election season is approaching, yard signs and bumper stickers are popping up. All for Biden, none at all for Trump. Hard to believe Nebraska was win for Trump in “16 when you saw the same disparity in visual support. I don’t need a poll to tell me why, I hear the hatred and anger in the people on the left and I fear for my home and car windows. They are violent and feel justified in their violence and I have to sleep sometime.
Which is why I don’t believe the polls.
” While I think it’s quite possible that the progressives who get all of their news from the NYT and CNN and Stephen Colbert and think that the protests in Minneapolis, Seattle, and Portland have been completely peaceful hate everyone who isn’t in lockstep with their thinking while those who get all of their news from President Trump’s tweets, Fox News, and talk radio hate all citydwellers, when I look around at my neighbors here in Chicago, a remarkably diverse group encompassing every race or confession of humankind what I experience on a daily basis is compassion and caring.”
Roughly a point I try to make occasionally. So much of what I see written about does not reflect what I see in day to day life or hear about with friends. As you point out there are people on both sides that seem to try to live down to the worst of the stereotypes, but everyone I know who is on the left thinks people committing violence at protests should go to jail. They think most police are good people. None of them are Marxists and most dont even have a hammer and sickle. (OK, I do, but then knife and tool sharpening is a hobby. I have a couple of very nice sickles.) None of the conservatives I know really want gay people to die or hate black people.
That said, there is something different about Trump. Until Trump I had never heard anyone that I know tell me that their favored politician never lies and that he/she was the only one who could save the country. Never heard anyone suggest that Obama, or any prior president never lied or heard it said that only one of them could save the country. It was real shock hearing people I actually know say stuff like that.
Steve
Taibbi’s been on a big roll lately. It’s really amazing how many people on the left are being alienated by the small cadre of progressive activists that seem to be able to dominate that narrative. Taibbi seems to be only one of many who’s had enough.
Perhaps he’s realized that the party is deserting him. It’s much the same situation that the “never-Trumpers” in the Republican Party are in.
College kids were handcuffed and arrested for chalking a pro life message on a sidewalk, while BLM are free to extort money from store owners, vandalize, loot businesses and graffiti at will. Leftist protests, funerals for liberals are fine, but a small gaggle of Trump supporters is met with criticism, while churches in my area are boarded up because of stringent attendance restrictions. BLM t-shirts, banners and signs are cool. Wear a MAGA hat and you have a good chance of being physically attacked. Teacher Unions are totally politicized, making demands havIng little to do with the education or safety of children, only about furthering a social progressive agenda. The manipulation of “science,†abuse of data, blinders applied to what is happening to people caught in the nightmare crosshairs of COVID mandates is appalling and irrational. – business closings, suicides, overdoses, unattended medical issues backlogged because of all eyes being on a virus. There are just too many inconsistencies, double standards, mind boggling decisions being made by vapid, histrionic, corrupt politicians who are rotting the country to the core.
End of rant……
The attempts to sound balanced, and observe that “real people†don’t behave like the fringes are nice, but empty. Jan hits it more closely.
The very first thing one has to come to grips with is Democrat politicians caving, at national and local levels, to the far left. Your neighbors Bill and Betty may be rational, but your mayor and representative are not. The burning buildings, graffiti, rock and bottle throwing are not made up or isolated events. Further, I must have missed the Tea Party assaulting Chicago and NYC policemen or looting the local sole proprietor.
Second, I also don’t seem to recall vast swaths of Republican politicians or media types hurling accusations of racism at every policy dispute, or banning people from social media, or deciding Aunt Jemima has to go, even if Aunt Jemimas descendants were offended.
This attempt to intellectualize and muse about the majority of reasonable Democrats falls short when your own eyes and ears tell you otherwise and is just a way to deflect from reality. There are essentially no good Antifa supporters, and prescious few in BLM. These are Marxists and anarchist perfectly willing to use violence and trample on civil liberties to achieve their goals. The media are now simply propagandists. And the politicians are operating by the never let a crisis go to waste axiom.
You might want to give it some thought as Taibbi has, because these goons will not stop just because you lean left.
Except that everything you and Jan believe is based upon a right wing media that amplifies everything that a few people do. In fact many rioters have been arrested. Manipulation of science and data is mostly BS. (I just LOVE the right wing claim that we doctors are being forced to change how we fill out death certificates. I have not and none of my docs and none of the ICU docs with whom I maintain contact.) People wear MAGA hats all of the time and dont get attacked. (Guess what? At a couple of the hospitals I go to a lot of people come in wearing masks that say TRUMP 2020. No one attacks them. Does that get reported?) Did it happen a few times? Sure. Do people wear MAGA hats millions of times? Yes. Are right wingers attacking, shooting and killing people because they dont want to wear masks? Yes. Do I think that represents all on the right? No.
Why? Because I know that kind of stuff sells news and it just doesnt fit the people I work and live with. You need to learn to live in reality and not in talk radio world.
“There are just too many inconsistencies, double standards, mind boggling decisions being made by vapid, histrionic, corrupt politicians who are rotting the country to the core.”
Excellent description of Trump and the GOP.
Steve
You don’t have any idea what I read, Steve. You always resort to this kind of argument when you can’t actually make the argument. And also a steady stream of straw men and absolutism.
To the best of my knowledge there is no political instruction manual, like Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals, written for the conservative-minded body of people. Such tactics ascribed in this list, though, have become the recipe for leftist behavior, as to how to twist arms, silence your opponents, and create bedlam in order to transform this country from a constitutional republic to an iron-fisted centrally-run government dominated by one party – democrats. Examples as to how the country might look someday can already be seen in democrat majority states like Illinois and CA.
I have personal experiences, with the leftist sense of fairness, by livIng in a community with nary a conservative voice on any council or board. It’s proven to be useless to disagree with any untoward policy conjured up by this political tribe. The one dispute we brought before a narrow-minded panel was handled very much like the recent Barr Hearing (which I watched), operating like a kangaroo court muffling explanations that contradicted the narrative being supported by that panel.
Also, any claims of amplifying singular acts of violence by one party seem more the proclivity of Democrats than Republicans. As an example, one rally altercation in 2016, was replayed and cited by the media endlessly, as a way to portray Trump supporters as unruly ruffians. This one highly magnified incident, however, pales in the wake of numerous occasions where people wearing Trump apparel have been roughed up, pushed to the ground, spit on, humiliated. In liberal areas how many signs do you see accenting a R party choice? How about bumper stickers for a conservative candidate? They are non-existent in coastal CA. How many people do you see running around demolishing property in their quest to seek conservative Justice or equivalence? Even a rally for gun ownership last year was conducted in a peaceful, civil manner, rather than using fireworks with nails (like was done in Portland) to express their vehemence against gun control laws.
Oh God, the whining! What happened to conservatives with spines? Anyway.
“operating like a kangaroo court muffling explanations that contradicted the narrative being supported by that panel.”
We attended a school board hearing with all Republicans on the board over some book selections. They ignored complaints from those of us considered on the left. If you dont win elections that happens.
“This one highly magnified incident, however, pales in the wake of numerous occasions where people wearing Trump apparel have been roughed up, pushed to the ground, spit on, humiliated.”
Even incident gets repeated over and over in the right wing press. Rarely do you have coverage of the whole event and find out that sometimes the Trump people started a fight then lost out when it got serious. You dont read anything on the left so wont know if a right winger is violent, like with all of the people being attacked over masks. I am sure you feel sorry for the press who got grouped into small areas at Trump rallies and got spit upon by Trump supporters.
How many signs for Democrats do you see in areas that are deeply red? Or bumper stickers. You learn to keep quiet or risk losing your job.
As I said before, the large majority of people on the left would like for violent rioters to be arrested.
“as to how to twist arms, silence your opponents, and create bedlam in order to transform this country from a constitutional republic to an iron-fisted centrally-run government dominated by one party”
Guess you missed the whole Tea Party thing. The name Merrick Garland mean anything? Talk about silencing the opposition and guaranteeing one party rule. Not even holding hearings on lots of nominees for that matter. The GOP plays for keeps when it comes to silencing the opposition. AND, the irony of a Trump supporter complaining about bedlam is laughable.
Steve
Seriously, steve?
Whining……………about the local PTA meeting? Cold coffee and stale doughnuts? To coin a phrase, get a spine.
You are truly in denial, an apparently comfortable place for you.
Look at NYC, Chicago, Portland, Seattle, LA, Baltimore, Atlanta. They are in various stages of absolute chaos. Deny it if you want, I think the point of Dave’s original post was that you are shooting your dick off.
And as usual, a diversionary debating tactic into MG. That’s power politics. Since 1776 if my dates are correct. Democrats and Republicans play it. Grow up. That’s separate and apart from throwing firebombs.
Chicago isn’t in chaos. A handful of neighborhoods on the South and West Sides are descending into anarchy but you’d never know it from the Northwest Side.
But Dave, to the people living in the areas in chaos, its chaos. Just because you are insulated doesn’t make it OK. Its the byproduct of horrendous public policy. Its avoidable.
Further, the Portland’s and Seattle’s of the world are in chaos.
And need I quote the murder rate upticks in major cities?
A blind eye to NIMBY is cold and callous. I’ve sarcastically remarked that I’m living in the lap of luxury here. It doesn’t make what’s happening there OK.
You pays your money and you takes your choice. When the young men in your neighborhood are shooting each other with additional collateral damage of innocents and you (in the neighborhood) don’t trust the police enough to turn in the shooters and the Powers-That-Be insist on maintaining a light footprint in the neighborhood for whatever reason (force protection, cosmetics, politics, corruption), I’m not sure how any other outcome could be realized.
Is it okay? No. Is it the reality? Yes.
We’ll see how this plays out. IMO the panicky public service announcements about the census are indicators of dwindling population. I continue to believe that people will be shocked at Chicago’s results.
“Whining”
Nope, just letting jan know the same stuff happens when you have unanimous conservative control. Poor reading comprehension there.
” NYC, Chicago, Portland, Seattle, LA, Baltimore, Atlanta.”
Except that I have someone who just started for us who came from NYC. There are a couple of small areas that are trouble. Not the whole city. Same with Portland I am told. Dont know the others but would guess the same. Still, the point remains. There is no general outpouring of support from most of the left to support what violence exists. We would like to see people arrested.
“You don’t have any idea what I read”
Then stop imitating a Fox robot. Moat of the stuff that you and jan claim does not resemble the world we live in.
Steve
Steve, there’s a difference between “whining,†and honestly deploring unmitigated, naked bias in government practices – whether evidenced in local, state or federal sectors.
And, while it’s annoying to have republican school board members ignore liberal book choices, one can rectify such a rejection by simply introducing books you want your kids to read yourself. Other rulings, governed mainly by an elected body’s political ideology, are not as easily circumvented or solvable as it is with book choices. When a council, board, governor takes a wrecking ball to one’s livelihood via lopsided administrative rulings, exercises double standards, or places mandatory burdens on some and not on others, this can be a lot more devastating…even permanent. For instance, private businesses are currently being ruined by the utterance of a governor’s mandatory guidance, creating unsustainable business climates. Even worse, intense cultural resentments are fanned by the magnification of identity politics – a specialty of the Democrat Party – between classes, genders, races. creating a toxic brew of unyielding violence across the nation. Rep. Nader, however, says all these visual images of angry crowds, fires set, private property ravaged, people hurt and even killed is a “myth.â€
Consequently, what the Dems refuse to acknowledge, they won’t condemn.
What a merry-go-round of deceit!