Bullshit.
Dems had no economic message for Trump Voters! Dems failed to understand the white working-class flyover America! Dems need to change their messaging to attract more Trump Voters. Dem East-coast elites don’t understand rural America! All bullshit.
Like the author of this article in Raw Story, I was raised with the Trump Voters, I live with them. My family members are them. My friends are them. I even married two of them. My son-in-law is one of them. They don’t care about “economic messages,” they don’t care about the WHY of being economically depressed. They have been voting against their economic interests for years, they know it, but they don’t care.
When I saw this article in Raw Story this morning, I thought “Yes!” If I was talented enough to have written an article for publication anywhere, this would have been it. Exactly. The one thing I hate about Dems/Liberals/Progressives is our love of wallowing in analysis….we endlessly analyze everything and fight over the details….when the answers are right in front of us. But simple answers are not our thing….we must look for all the deeper meanings, the ins and outs of every problem. If you read nothing else this week, please read this article. It doesn’t apply to 100% of Trump Voters, but to mainly rural voters, either literally rural, or rural in attitude: They don’t care. They will not vote for Dems even if we gave each one a Million Dollars and a new Ford pick up. Here are just a few paragraphs, but I hope you read the whole article:
www.rawstory.com/…
“Gays being allowed to marry are a threat. Blacks protesting the killing of their unarmed friends and family are a threat. Hispanics doing the cheap labor on their farms are somehow viewed a threat. The black president is a threat. Two billion Muslims are a threat. The Chinese are a threat. Women wanting to be autonomous are a threat. The college educated are a threat. Godless scientists are a threat. Everyone who isn’t just like them has been sold to them as a threat and they’ve bought it hook, line, and grifting sinker. Since there are no self-regulating mechanisms in their belief systems, these threats only grow over time. Since facts and reality don’t matter, nothing you say to them will alter their beliefs. “President Obama was born in Kenya, is a secret member of the Muslim Brotherhood who hates white Americans and is going to take away their guns.” I feel ridiculous even writing this, it is so absurd, but it is gospel across large swaths of rural America. Are rural, Christian, white Americans scared? You’re damn right they are. Are their fears rational and justified? Hell no. The problem isn’t understanding their fears. The problem is how to assuage fears based on lies in closed-off fundamentalist belief systems that don’t have the necessary tools for properly evaluating the fears.”
Further along:
“How do you make climate change personal to someone who believes only God can alter the weather? How do you make racial equality personal to someone who believes whites are naturally superior to non-whites? How do you make gender equality personal to someone who believes women are supposed to be subservient to men by God’s command? How do you get someone to view minorities as not threatening personal to people who don’t live around and never interact with them? How do you make personal the fact massive tax cuts and cutting back government hurts their economic situation when they’ve voted for these for decades? I don’t think you can without some catastrophic events. And maybe not even then. The Civil War was pretty damn catastrophic yet a large swath of the South believed and still believes they were right, had the moral high ground. They were/are also mostly Christian fundamentalists who believe they are superior because of the color of their skin and the religion they profess to follow. There is a pattern here for anyone willing to connect the dots.
“Rural, white America needs to be better understood,” is not one of the dots. “Rural, white America needs to be better understood,” is a dodge, meant to avoid the real problems because talking about the real problems is viewed as “too upsetting,” “too mean,” “too arrogant,” “too elite,” “too snobbish.” Pointing out Aunt Bee’s views of Mexicans, blacks, gays…is bigoted isn’t the thing one does in polite society. Too bad more people don’t think the same about the views Aunt Bee has. It’s the classic, “You’re a racist for calling me a racist,” ploy. Or, as it is more commonly known, “I know you are but what am I?”
So, Dems should analyze why the poor, misunderstood Trump Voters voted for Trump? I can tell you why. 95% will NOT vote for Democrats or Liberals or Progressives, or whatever we call ourselves these days, under ANY circumstance because their internal belief systems will not allow them to. We’re not going to win them over, so we must get out the people who believe as we do. We outnumber them, we must incentivize our voters & just nibble on the edges of theirs. Yes, it is we vs them, it has always been so, and probably will always be so.
