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.
2 comments:
Hi EJ! I don't know if you'll be happy to hear from me but I wanted to say that I really like what you wrote here. America has become so tribal in the past few decades that it's hard for anyone who follows politics who doesn't belong to either tribe. Because I didn’t vote for either Trump or Hillary in 2016 some family members accused of voting for both of them. (So I guess I got three votes: one for the third-party guy I actually voted for, and then one for Hillary because my brother said so, and one for Trump because my mother said so.🤣)
For decades, liberal Democrats and mushy moderate Republicans had pretty much a deal in Congress: liberal Democrats would propose some new socialist program; mushy moderate Republicans would wring their hands and say it was "too expensive," conceding the debate to the liberal Democrats, who would then cry crocodile tears and cut the (alleged) spending on the program in half, condemning Republican "foot-dragging," as the mushy moderate Republicans voted for th "half" measure. Then the liberal Democrats and moderate Republicans would go play basketball, or attend the baseball game together, all the rhetoric simply laughed off.
(Most of those programs actually ended up costing at least one order of magnitude more than the liberal Democrats' CBO claimed they would cost, but that was no deterrent to repeating the deal with Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps and other auto-pilot spending entitlement programs)
But after several generations grew up hearing liberals says moderates were throwing granny under the bus a funny thing happened: liberals started to believe their own propaganda. They came to believe that they were moral and virtuous, and that anyone who disagreed was stupid, evil, or both. They started seriously abusing not only the moderates but especially the few conservatives who somehow developed despite liberal control of the news, entertainment and education establishments.
Bill Clinton, for instance, brought RICCO racketeering cases against Christians who went and simply prayed outside of abortion clinics, treating them as gangsters. He also had the IRS revoke the tax-exempt status of many conservative non-profit groups, trying to tax them out of business and by making contributions to them non-deductible, dry up their revenues at the same time.
The Democrats have for decades been bringing in as many anti-American immigrants, legal or illegal, as possible, to vote Democrat and to change the entire culture of whole cities and even states. The Republican establishment actually bought into the liberal media claim that opposing tens of millions of illegal anti-American immigrants made someone an evil racist. So the Republicans in Congress kept "authorizing'" a wall but not appropriating any money for it.
Liberal demonization of Republicans combined with the Republican establishment caving in to them let to Trump. Where once people said, "Liberals think conservatives are bad people; conservatives think liberals are people with bad ideas," in today's tribal atmosphere Trump has transformed conservatism from an ideology of individual rights to life, liberty and property into liberal-hating. If Obama had raised tens of billions of dollars in taxes on Americans like Trump did with tariffs, conservatives would have demanded his head, but it's fine if Trump did it because he REALLY insults liberals.
It's a tough America to live in if you’re not a member of either tribe. The intolerance for your position, as I understand it something of a liberal on economic issues but conservative on abortion permeates both sides (although as I say if you insult liberals enough you can get away with tens of billions in tax hikes). My late mother, who died last year, was willing to support McCain over Obama, and thus a pro-life man, but as soon as McCain choose Sarah Palin, a pro-life woman, my mother turned 180 degrees and voted for Obama, much to her everlasting misery as she watched him harm Israel at every turn.
Well, so you at least have the consolation of being right that the Democrats’ campaign strategy of demonizing anyone who disagrees with them didn’t work out so well for them. Al haNissim: thank God for the miracles.
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