In Which I Am Confused By The Liberal Elite Game Plan

 

The Liberal Elite don’t care for Trump. I get it. What I don’t get is their dislike –no, hatred –no, loathing – for his supporters. Despite the whole ‘do unto others’ bit, it doesn’t make any sense politically to alienate millions of people instead of trying to win them to your side.

According to the Talking Heads on MSNBC, anyone who votes for Trump is racist, sexist and/or fascist. They refuse to entertain the possibility that there may be any other reason to support the Orange Man. They won’t consider that a large segment of the country has had it with over-the-top political correctness. They dismiss fears of urban crime that appears to be linked to permissive courts. They label those who are concerned about the danger of allowing thousands of unknown people to cross our borders as xenophobes. They shrug off minorities who complain that newly arrived immigrants are going to the head of the line for public housing and are scooping up social service resources that should be going to America’s low income and homeless residents as the misinformed ranting of the uneducated.

There seems to be a pervasive feeling among Biden supporters that Trump supporters have been led astray by dangerous conspiracy theories and that the majority of them will benefit from government reeducation programs or stints in prison. They refuse to acknowledge those who point out the disparity in jail time for violent Antifa protestors and violent January 6 protestors and ridicule those who suggest that Trump is a victim of political lawfare. They shut down attempts to explain opposing views with shouts of ‘fascist’ and refuse to associate with those who stray from the party line by advocating moderation.

There seems to be a pervasive feeling among Trump supporters that Biden supporters are more interested in getting a person’s pronouns correct than in getting inflation down. Inflation is coming down, the Administration announces. It’s not a big deal, they explain, just one of those things that happen now and then. It’s clear those speakers have a savings account, a high-limit credit card and decent employment. Because the people I know – my clients who are struggling to buy food, rent and utility bills as prices rise faster than their social security cost-of-living increases—aren’t benefiting from the great economy that appears to exist only in the minds of the Liberal Elite.

I’m not a big fan of Bill Clinton, but his campaign staff did have one thing right –their “It’s the Economy, Stupid” slogan. No matter what the issue, no matter what the distraction, they kept focused on the economy. Now, as low-income people find it increasingly difficult to find affordable housing, as the working class find their concerns about competition for jobs dismissed as racist, as devout religious practitioners confused by modern mores are mocked as transphobic, the Liberal Elite seems determined to drive millions away from their party instead of at least feigning interest in their concerns.

Not sure that’s the best way to win an election, but I guess we’ll find out this November.

In Which I Begin My Search for a Bridge Across the Troubled Waters

I grew up in the 1960s, a child of the Cold War.  My father spoke often about the Communist Threat and was ever vigilant for signs that foreigners were attempting to interfere with American life. He didn’t allow movies starring Hanoi Jane into the house, he frowned on anti-war music and he even went so far as to forbid me to learn Russian in high school.  He frequently accused hippie protestors of being Soviet pawns and I was wise enough not to tell him about the protests I attended at college.

Perhaps as a reaction to the anti-commie fervor of the time, I had a burning desire to go to the Soviet Union myself.  Not, as my horrified father feared, to join the Revolution.  Instead, I wanted to meet the Russians, get to know them, and ask them why they sat up nights thinking of ways to bury us. I was sure, in my naïve do-gooder way, that if we knew why they didn’t like us we could talk it out and come to some kind of compromise.  Another naivete – I’ve always considered compromise to be a good thing and not a reason to hound a candidate out of a political race.

I’ve grown more jaded over the years, but I still feel compelled to meet with the ‘enemy’ and find out what makes them tick. I understand political differences. I don’t understand political hatred. In the midst of the growing social divide, I decided to do some local field research to see if I could discover why political animosity continues to grow with each election. 

My first stop was at a continuing education class designed for seniors. The marketing blip said that we’d be discussing current political issues and that ‘all voices are welcome.’ Trust me, they were not. The moderator made an early attempt to be non-partisan, but it soon became apparent that he was a Biden supporter. That wouldn’t necessarily make a non-partisan discussion moot, but he chose the topics and the articles that we would read and that made the prospect of a non-partisan discussion moot. It didn’t matter too much, however. As far as I could discern based on comments, there was only one beleaguered Republican in the class and he didn’t appear to be comfortable expressing his opposing views.

Frustrated, but still hopeful, I went to a public meeting about immigration. Again, the organizers declared that they were non-partisan, concerned only with offering a much-needed forum to discuss a current topic. The speakers did attempt to hide their prejudices, with varying success. Unfortunately, their liberal bent was obvious in the way they handled questions/comments from the audience. No one was allowed to speak during the session and those who forgot were sharply reprimanded. All questions had to be written down and handed to a moderator. I give her points for asking all questions, even those that she clearly found distasteful. I deduct points for her tone of voice and for the times she paraphrased a question, her entire manner broadcasting her disagreement with not only the question, but with the audience member who was so uneducated as to ask it.

No legitimate objections to mass migration were recognized during the meeting. When one of the presenters opined that ‘immigration was good for the economy,’ I considered mentioning my low-income clients, who were raised in public housing and educated in segregated schools in the 1950s and 1960s. They had worked for decades in factories, but now that those jobs had gone overseas, they were ill-equipped to compete with a sea of cheap labor.  My concern for them is genuine, but I ultimately decided it wasn’t worth the effort of writing my thoughts down. They’d only be edited by the moderator and summarily dismissed. All in all, the evening did nothing to broaden my view on the topic.

So my search to understand our divided country continues. My goal isn’t to get anyone to take my side of an issue. It’s to have a reasoned discussion about our differences and maybe –just maybe—come to some type of give-and-take consensus, acknowledging that complicated situations are unlikely to be solved by partisan thinkers.  I grow increasingly pessimistic that this will ever happen.