Sarah Jones is the social media editor at The New Republic.
She responded to Kos’s post on coal miners yesterday. Bob Johnson has done a great job responding. Sarah Jones does as good or better in her post and tweets.
She gets it.
My comments in his post talked about decency and right and wrong.
She says it far better and more succinctly than I did:
If your political philosophy isn't based on the conviction that every human being deserves healthcare and food and schools it's worthless.
It matters.
Well, Kos got noticed. But infamy is not as good as fame.
First, an excerpt from her post at The New Republic:
Liberals should try not having so much contempt for the poor.
When you’re dying of black lung, you cough up a thick mucus that looks a bit like coal tar. You go on oxygen. You let doctors cut out pieces of your lungs until there’s not enough left and then you go choking into that good night. It is a terrible way to die, which is precisely why miners unionized to demand health insurance and pensions for retirees. Those pensions are now at risk: As NPR reported earlier this month, approximately 16,000 retired miners stand to lose health insurance and pensions this month. Senate Democrats had been holding up a year-end spending bill in an attempt to pass an emergency provision funding the pensions, but on Friday evening they capitulated.
snip
The Trump presidency will be awful for miners and a number of other working class and poor whites. It should make you angry. It should make you sad. If it makes you gloat instead, then look in the mirror the next time you want to know why your political philosophy doesn’t attract more people. Coal country may have voted for Trump, but it’s right about one thing at least: Liberals won’t save it.
New Republic: Liberals should try not having so much contempt for the poor.
Here are her tweets. Hat tip to joedemocrat for showing me this.
Thanks to joedemocrat for showing me how to embed tweets.
Update: I ask people not to use violent sexual imagery about the author of these tweets and the post on New Republic. I could not flag the post that ended with a sentence that is well beyond the pale because the rules say I can not flag in my own post, but we all reject such comments. I am deeply disappointed in Kos’s post, but he does not approve of such language. He would condemn it also.
Update 2: The comment was hidden. Thank you.