Here’s a telling quote from an op-ed by Michael Cooper at US News:
According to the Republican Party, the biggest threat to rural America was Islamic terrorism. According to the Democratic Party it was gun violence. In reality it was prescription drug abuse and neither party noticed until it was too late.
I don’t think any of those is the greatest threat. I think the greatest threat is despair.
Read the whole thing, an explication of why Donald Trump’s candidacy is resonating with some Americans.
That was a reasoned explanation for the Trump “movement.” However, this seems to be an election year where “despair” appears to be a motivating factor behind two candidacies — Trump with blue collar workers, and Sanders with directionless millennials. .
Trump is basically American foreign policy coming to roost in America. Is he addressing legitimate problems? Yes, on occasion. Does he have solutions? No. Are his versions of solutions based solely on ‘shaking things up’? Yes. Will he walk away without a thought when it all blows up? Yes. Will the people who supported him take any responsibility for their support? No.
MM, we have two options: We can support more of the same, or not. Will you take responsibility for the giant shit-hole the country is now, or for wanting it to become an even bigger shit-hole in the future?
Of course not. You will just state that you had limited options, and voted for more of the same shit because … well, because Hitler! Yeah, Hitler! You were opposing Hitler!
Trump is a bad candidate, but not only is he nowhere near as bad as he is being portrayed (which would be impossible for anyone to do unless they were an actual fan of totalitarians – oh wait, that’s Bernie), the NOT TRUMP options are advocating doing the same things that led us here, only doing them HARDER and MORE OFTEN. Which is to say, they advocate screwing the middle class in the ass even more, so that they and their donors can get richer.
Enjoy the decline, you demanded it.
Please. Trump is more of the same. His foreign policy isn’t as bad as Clinton’s, at least the way he’s selling it. In the off-chance he’s elected, who knows? But he’s not different. He’s not going to change anything. I get why people think he’s a giant middle finger to the establishment. But anybody can tell neoliberalism to get fucked, especially a cornball billionaire like Trump backed by people still terrified of their place in the social hierarchy who only wish that they and everyone they like were better off.
That’s not change. It’s the status quo.
Keep in mind–Trump supporters are on average no more selfish than Hillary Clinton supporters. But the majority of the latter are voting for her because she’s going to be, in their view, a decent manager of the decline.
Everyone happy?
Trump may not be a change. Everyone else is guaranteed to be more of the same.
You know, I have never seen anyone claim gun violence was the biggest threat to rural America. Haven’t really seen many claim it was Islam and terrorism either. Lack of jobs, drug abuse, alcohol, big agriculture have always been listed as more common problems. Since i actually spend a lot of my time working in very rural America, my sense is that the lack of work and the hopelessness that comes from that is the driver of the rest of the problems. It is why so many of the kids leave.
Steve
This paragraph rings true:
Unlike registered independents who are socially liberal and fiscally conservative, America’s non-voters tended to be poorer, less educated citizens who are fiscally liberal and socially conservative. Neither party listened to them, let alone represented this populist center, until Trump gave them a voice.
And after reading this it occurred to me that in Sanders and Trump we are seeing the emergence of a candidate representing people who are socially and economically liberal (Sanders) and socially conservative / economically liberal (Trump- at least for the independents and Dems that he’s pulling in.) the people in those two quadrants of the political ideology grid seem quite happy with this election but the rest of us, not so much.
The ground has shifted, but it has not yet been recognized. The Trump supporters are no longer playing by the old rules. When the left calls somebody a racist, homophobe, bigot, misogynist, or whatever *.ist, the normal person is supposed to immediately deny the charge and begin providing proof of their innocence.
Trump supporters no longer give a rat’s ass. Call them what you like. “Whatever.” They have come to realize that they are going to be called names one way or the other, and they have decided “the names will never hurt them.” The left has been dealt a blow, but it has not yet realized the extent.
The Republican elite has played the game in a limited fashion, but with Trump supporters, they are playing it as hard as the left. It is having the same results. Name calling does not work, but it also identifies one as the enemy not an opponent.
Trump supporters do not think he is the best candidate or even the least bad of them. He is not one of them, and he will be no worse than any of them. He is not a conservative, and he is probably moderate on a lot of social issues. Who cares. He cannot make things worse. What is he going to do: start more wars, create Obamacare II, increase the deficit 10x’s, release all the terrorists and give them lifetime pensions, outlaw any sexual positions except missionary, force everybody to say Grace before meals.
He can only make things worse if you have a f*cked-up view of how the country should look. So yeah, you will be going batsh*t crazy at the thought of President Trump. Let me help you. What you feel is the utter despair of not being in control of your life. President Trump will turn your comfy cozy world onto its head, and you will not be able to do a f*cking thing about it.
Welcome to our world. We do not feel a g-d bit of sympathy for you. Are you getting it now? It is not about him. It is about you and the elites you esteem (worship?).
A lot of what Tasty says rings true.
But describing accurately is not “name-calling” and it is absolutely clear that race is central to this. The very people who have attacked blacks for relying on government now want to rely on government. The very people who called for draconian laws when blacks were smoking crack, now want pity and treatment and understanding for whites smoking meth and eating Oxy.
Trump is now actively encouraging violent thuggery by his followers, directed against blacks and Latinos. He is winking none-too-subtly at the KKK and other white supremacist groups.
So, Tasty, what you see as a rebellion by whites actually confirms exactly what this liberal has been saying about so-called conservatives for a long time. To white that they are only interested in moral positions when they can use it to hurt someone outside their own group. Abortion is the be-all, end-all so long as closing clinics will hurt poor black and Latino women, and instantly forgotten once Trump offers new avenues for expressions of racism. Small government is the great shibboleth of these faux-conservatives if they conceive of government as helping minorities. But they casually toss that away as Trump vows to keep SS and create a whole new government health plan. They believe in absolute religious liberty. . . so long as it doesn’t apply to Muslims. Hell, they’d all switch sides on the 2d amendment if it were possible to pass a law depriving only minorities of guns.
In short, they’re a bunch of liars and hypocrites who never believed half what they claimed to believe, but rather saw the world in tribal terms. They were never about ideas or policy, they were always about raw, primitive emotion, greed and spite. Which would be word for word what I’ve said about them for years.
So, by throwing off the oppression of political correctness, Andy, what the Trump voters have done is prove me right. In fact, if anything, I was too generous.
This does not alter the fact that the white working class has genuine beefs. But as usual, following the pattern laid down by plantation owners better than two centuries ago, their genuine economic distress is being focused away from the real villains, and turned into belligerent racism, nativism, gay-bashing and all-around tribalist bigotry.
@michael reynolds
It is no use trying to convince you any differently, but because you are so locked into your beliefs, you will probably never see what is coming on your side.
On your side, it is going to start with the blacks. It may take a few years, and they will be called all sorts of names. A lot of the rhetoric will have the sound of Minister Farrakhan or Reverend Wright. The poor and working class people will begin to look back at the eight years of President Obama’s terms, and they will question what did they get for their support.
There will be a Tea Party of the left. It is possible that the Black Lives Matter was the left’s Tea Party. That the BLM were interrupting Sen. Sanders events should be a forewarning. Nonetheless it is coming.
As to Trump and his supporters. I am amazed at your ability to decipher the super secret code. I guess it is because you are super duper smart. They should make you the head of the Democrat Super Smart Code Breaking Department.
Trump wants to stop killing Muslims. Actually, Sen. Sanders is the only other candidate who would stop killing Muslims, and he will never be elected president. To the Super Duper Smart Code Breaker, this is proof that Trump and his supporters are racists and haters. Unlike President Obama who kills Muslims because he slept bad, Trump would not kill them, and this is because of hatred. OK, I got it. No, I do not. If only I were super duper smart, but alas, I am too dumb to follow the logic.
What I find really rich is how you spew your venom from inside your exclusive community, and should a thuggish looking young black male wander into your neighborhood inadvertently, the police, that you pay, would snatch him and beat the crap out of him until he pissed blood for a week (if he were lucky enough not to be gunned down with the service weapon you provided). Of course, you would declaim any responsibility, and then, you would promptly pay to have your police force hire the next racist cop to replace the last one.
I suspect that you like most liberal/progressives are as non-racist as the inverse of the distance from the nearest minority and the ratio of minorities around them. When you all move into a minority neighborhood, the first thing you do is begin moving the minorities out. Somehow, large numbers of minorities are kryptonite to progressives.
I loved the part where you imply that abortion clinics help poor black and Latino women. Basically, they help to keep the herd thinned out. You are not a racist. Oh no, you just want to let keep the darkies from breeding to much. I guess it is not in their best interest to have too many of their kind. Liberals and progressives love minorities as long as they are minorities, but for some strange reason, they never seem to allow minorities to become majorities. Interesting.
As far as drugs, I am not getting into it with talking points. As to attitudes changing, it has to do with the changing view on the War on Drugs, and as it becomes more personal for people, their attitudes change. Did you notice that gay people became accepted as they came out. Gay marriage was an issue until it was legal, and then, for most people, it was not.
When crack first came into the public’s attention, it was not a few black guys smoking a pipe after a hard day’s work. It was usually a shootout between gangs, dead crackheads, police raiding crack houses, or similar incidents. Crack was not about black people. It was about violence, and it was often about seemingly out of control violence.
At the time, the only real drug rehab programs were private and expensive. If you could afford rehab, you could afford a good lawyer, and a good lawyer was going to get you off. I do not know what is going on today, but back in the 1980’s, I worked in the middle of the sh*t.
A lot of drug possession charges were more than likely not because the person was an end user. He was a drug runner, or it was plead down. In the unlikely case that the accused could afford a lawyer, he might have gotten the charges dropped down to possession. In New Orleans at the time, there were any number of ways this could happen from the legitimate to the less than legitimate.
The way it worked was that you would drive up, and a drug dealer (I do not remember the name) would take your order. A runner would bring the drugs up. In some cases, the runner would be underage. There were also abandoned and condemned houses that were used to sell and smoke crack.
And if anybody wants to talk about crooked police, I got that covered, also. For those who do not know what a “drop weapon” is, educate yourself, and then, add “drop drugs” to your vocabulary. Most of the sh*theads knew I was straight up with them, and I would even tell them I would lie on them if I had to. There is nothing here that you would not have heard 30 years ago, but as I said back then, your problem is with NOPD not me.
Even for all their bullsh*t back then, NOPD was not running around just harassing crackheads for the fun of it. Crackheads were getting picked up for burglary, theft, robbery, or prostitution, and they had crack on them which was the reason they were engaged in the other activities.
I am white and come from a “chocolate city”, and the “everybody’s a racist but me” crap does not work on me. If you like, come on down, and we can set up shop in whatever project is left or one of the shithole neighborhoods. Trust me, you will love it. You can explain all you theories to the locals. I am sure they will love it. Really.
Or, you could just take a little trip to Oakland. I am sure there are some rather dark areas that would love to have their white population increased. Even better, you should get your rich white progressive neighbors to join the party, but they do not get to raise the property values. They have to live like the locals.
If you all want to go all-in, you could decide to begin a reparations program. You and your progressive neighbors have no claim to your wealth. It was either stolen from the Native Americans or built on the backs of the African slaves. Even if it were from the British Empire, there were any number of post-American colonies they were raping – South Africa, India, Australia, and compared to the other Europeans, the British were the Boy Scouts.
As with most people, the venom they spew is the poison they know first hand. You and the other rich white progressive scumbags are nothing more than the racists you accuse everybody else of being, but you can hide your natural tendencies because you will never live, work, or co-exist next to any substantial number of minority persons. By substantial number, I mean at most 30%, but the usual number is less than 10%.
For any black person out there, ask yourself, why are you either vastly outnumbered by whites or vastly outnumber them? If progressives were so “progressive”, why do they never seem to be at any place where there are a substantial number of black people? What happens when a place where progressive go starts to become “too black”? I have lived in the “too black” neighborhoods, and they did not want to visit or pick me up. They always wanted to meet somewhere. Sound familiar?
(For The Record: I have no doubt about discrimination. The landlords love a white male. The way they reacted at seeing me. You would think it was the Second Coming.)
Anyway, be honest. White privilege is just the cowards way of saying racism and racist. Go ahead, say it. It will make you feel better. You cannot begin the healing process until you admit the truth.