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You are here: Home / Observing the hypocrites as they mingle with the good people

Observing the hypocrites as they mingle with the good people

by DougJ|  September 15, 201712:40 pm| 102 Comments

This post is in: Assholes

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As you may know, I’m fueled creatively by my massive hatred of centrist pundits. I don’t think George Packer and Nick Kristof need to be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes, but, at some point, they should end up against the wall. So I was pleased that TNC took those two clowns to the wood shed in that article everyone’s talking about:

Packer finds inspiration for his thesis (economic anxiety) in West Virginia—a state that remained Democratic through the 1990s before turning decisively Republican, at least at the level of presidential politics. This relatively recent rightward movement evinces, to Packer, a shift “that couldn’t be attributed just to the politics of race.”

[….]

The dent of racism is not hard to detect in West Virginia. In the 2008 Democratic primary there, 95 percent of the voters were white. Twenty percent of those—one in five—openly admitted that race was influencing their vote, and more than 80 percent voted for Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama. Four years later, the incumbent Obama lost the primary in 10 counties to Keith Judd, a white felon incarcerated in a federal prison; Judd racked up more than 40 percent of the Democratic-primary vote in the state. A simple thought experiment: Can one imagine a black felon in a federal prison running in a primary against an incumbent white president doing so well?

That’ll leave a mark. Here’s Packer’s whiny response (which doesn’t address this beat down at all).

Look, I think it’s great that George Packer hangs out in Applebee’s in Kentucky or whatever it is he does to justify his stupid writing about the white working class. And that goes double for Nick Kristof in his travels to Africa and southeast Asia (though, just between you and me, I think he should spend a little less time with sex workers).

But at the end of the day Kristof and Packer are worthless as writers because they insist on seeing humanity through tote-colored glasses. I’m sure there’s plenty of nice-seeming people Packer met who voted for Trump and say they did so because of stagnant wages. That doesn’t mean that race didn’t affect their vote.

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Reader Interactions

102Comments

  1. 1.

    Garbo

    September 15, 2017 at 12:47 pm

    “Let’s all do the best we can.” Doug, I appreciate this reference every damn time.

  2. 2.

    Kryptik

    September 15, 2017 at 12:47 pm

    Anyone want proof of the need for “identity politics” and the thinness of the “economic anxiety” thesis need only look at St. Louis & the Stockley verdict today. Economics will not fix cops being able to kill black folks with impunity and get away with it every time.

  3. 3.

    Hunter Gathers

    September 15, 2017 at 12:50 pm

    Upper-class whites are just as racist as thier trailer park counterparts. They don’t interact with racial minorites at all outside of the tokens at work and ‘the help’. They all love their Tim Scotts and the babysitter Consuela, but shit thier pants when the players at courtside get a little too close or when they try to sample some pizza reviewed by that douchecanoe at Barstool Sports.

  4. 4.

    Doug!

    September 15, 2017 at 12:51 pm

    @Garbo:

    I love how he sings that lyric in every song.

  5. 5.

    Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)

    September 15, 2017 at 12:52 pm

    fucking tuntwufflers

    You caught Ryan Cooper’s response, Doug?

  6. 6.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    September 15, 2017 at 12:53 pm

    Let me guess: George and Nick are clueless upper middle class white guys who graduated from a uni that is very much a monoculture of whites and so are their workplace.

  7. 7.

    rikyrah

    September 15, 2017 at 12:55 pm

    @Kryptik:

    Anyone want proof of the need for “identity politics” and the thinness of the “economic anxiety” thesis need only look at St. Louis & the Stockley verdict today. Economics will not fix cops being able to kill black folks with impunity and get away with it every time.

    yeah yeah yeah..

    No lie told

  8. 8.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    September 15, 2017 at 12:58 pm

    @Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Week#/media/File%3AThe_Week_US_Cover_December_16_2005_small.jpg
    This is a cover from Dec. 2010.
    It’s a tabloid basically. I take issue with his centrist Dem and leftist framing honestly.

  9. 9.

    Nicole

    September 15, 2017 at 1:01 pm

    Ugh! That response! Especially:
    “I wrote about white working-class voters because their political behavior is increasingly different from that of well-educated, professional whites, in ways that paint the current map of America red. ”

    Actually, in fact, Packer, you idiot, it’s not. That’s the point. The only major group of white voters that did not go for Trump was college educated white women, and that by the barest of margins.

    And I love how he then tries to pull misogyny into it. Because, while yes, I think misogyny also plays a huge role in electoral politics, it’s not like he was writing about it- I imagine most of his “working class whites” have Y chromosomes. Because when pundits like him say, “working class whites” that’s what he’s talking about. White men.

    I can’t even with the endless #notallwhitepeoplewhovotedforTrump. Okay, maybe, maybe, there is actually a very small percentage of them who were not motivated by racial issues, that really were voting on economics. They’re not significant in the bigger picture, and the fact is, that bigger picture includes a f*ckton of human suffering and oppression. I feel like these pundits are the equivalent of seeing a doctor who hand waves away discussing treatments for the Stage 4 cancer because he really prefers to talk about your case of rosacea.

  10. 10.

    TenguPhule

    September 15, 2017 at 1:01 pm

    But at the end of the day Kristof and Packer are worthless as writers

    You should just end it at that.

  11. 11.

    Doug!

    September 15, 2017 at 1:02 pm

    @Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD):

    I didn’t think Cooper’s was as bad, though too defensive of Bernie. I *do* think that Coates glided too much over the 34 points gap between the college-educated and non-college educated white vote. (OTOH, I don’t blame him much, given all the BS we hear about how white college-educated people will soon become liberals, even though they voted for Trump, albeit by a small margin.)

  12. 12.

    TenguPhule

    September 15, 2017 at 1:03 pm

    @Kryptik:

    Economics will not fix cops being able to kill black folks with impunity and get away with it every time.

    Well, I suppose if black people had all the money, they could hire private security and control the courts to ensure that no cop dared even eyeball any black person funny. //

  13. 13.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    September 15, 2017 at 1:04 pm

    @Kryptik:
    I fucking hate those Thin Blue Line American flags I’ve seen going over where I live. For one, it’s flag desecration. For another, I find it a little hard to believe that they’re just a symbol to show sympathy for cops killed in the line of duty. Maybe that’s what it was before. Given the context of what’s happened, I think it’s really just a sign to signal that, “We support LEOs no matter what they do. We’re chickenshit cowards.”

  14. 14.

    Villago Delenda Est

    September 15, 2017 at 1:05 pm

    Both Packer and Kristoff are, in their own infuriating ways, just as tumbrel worthy as Brooks, Friedman, Douchehat, or Doud. Oh, and Pinch, who doesn’t have a column, but certainly sets the tone.

  15. 15.

    Doug!

    September 15, 2017 at 1:05 pm

    It is weird that Berniebros are attacking Coates, given that Coates said he was voting for Bernie.

  16. 16.

    Villago Delenda Est

    September 15, 2017 at 1:07 pm

    @Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD): Hoofwanking Bunglecunts is what they are.

  17. 17.

    Judge Crater

    September 15, 2017 at 1:08 pm

    The “economic anxiety” crap ignores how, decades after Nixon’s southern strategy, the GOP and Trump are still blowing the same dog whistles and sounding the same alarms about brown people and the decline of American values. The friggin Wall is the metaphor for our times – it’s as simple as that.

  18. 18.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    September 15, 2017 at 1:08 pm

    @TenguPhule:
    As you know, racist whites never allowed that to happen in the first place in significant numbers. Redlining is still a thing.

    I can’t believe the media actually promoted that “post-racial America” meme. Was that Chuck Todd that first said that?

  19. 19.

    Major Major Major Major

    September 15, 2017 at 1:08 pm

    @Doug!: It’s almost like they have hangups about race.

  20. 20.

    TenguPhule

    September 15, 2017 at 1:09 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Both Packer and Kristoff are, in their own infuriating ways, just as tumbrel worthy as Brooks, Friedman, Douchehat, or Doud. Oh, and Pinch, who doesn’t have a column, but certainly sets the tone.

    At this point it would be easier to just list those who will be spared.

  21. 21.

    TenguPhule

    September 15, 2017 at 1:09 pm

    @Major Major Major Major:

    It’s almost like they have hangups about race.

    Almost?

  22. 22.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    September 15, 2017 at 1:11 pm

    @Doug!:
    Not really. Anyone who criticizes the Leader in that crowd in any way, regardless of whether they previously supported Bernie, will get taken to Room 101

  23. 23.

    Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)

    September 15, 2017 at 1:12 pm

    @Doug!: Well, Cooper said a few weeks ago that the pushback he got from the Harris/Cooper/Patrick article was worse than that of Gamergate (while lumping all the criticism together as “a gigantic swarm of centrists.”

    @Major Major Major Major: Yes. And said dynamic has existed since at least mid-2016, with Connor Kilpatrick and Freddie being notable offenders.

  24. 24.

    Trabb's Boy

    September 15, 2017 at 1:14 pm

    To the extent economic insecurity was a factor for Trump voters, it’s that the loss of middle-class jobs in rural areas gave them a spark of aggrievement about their lot, which Fox and Rush and their own previously irrelevant biases worked on endlessly throughout the Obama administration. By the time the election came along, it was all racist spite.

  25. 25.

    Philip Rachmanis

    September 15, 2017 at 1:14 pm

    Barack Obama did significantly better in West Virginia in 2012 than Hilary Clinton did in 2016. And Packer rightly notes in his letter that TNC’s essay almost entirely ignores the role of sexism in Clinton’s defeat, in pursuit of a reductive thesis. The way that you mock the New Yorker article—”I talked to some smiling Trump voters at Applebee’s and they seemed like good folks”—doesn’t reflect it accurately at all. The piece is a portrait of Hillary Clinton and a historical analysis that looks at why the Democratic Party has been struggling for decades to connect with working-class whites. Packer doesn’t interview a single Trump supporter in the piece—the one “regular guy” in it says that he is repelled by Trump’s mockery of disabled people. So where, exactly, has Packer romanticized and soft-pedaled racist Trump voters in the way you describe? This definitely has happened in the media—off the top of my head, I can think of some Times articles by Sabrina Tavernise. But here you seem to be condemning articles that George Packer didn’t actually write.

  26. 26.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    September 15, 2017 at 1:16 pm

    @Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD):

    while lumping all the criticism together as “a gigantic swarm of centrists.”

    That sounds like good self-reflection.

    Am I to take it “Centrist” means whoever is insufficiently left as compared to the accuser?

  27. 27.

    Doug!

    September 15, 2017 at 1:16 pm

    @Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD):

    Well, Cooper said a few weeks ago that the pushback he got from the Harris/Cooper/Patrick article was worse than that of Gamergate

    That’s fucking ridiculous. That article was an obvious troll.

    I’ve liked a lot of stuff Cooper’s written in the past, so I tend to cut him some slack. But that’s just a stupid thing for him to say.

  28. 28.

    Kryptik

    September 15, 2017 at 1:17 pm

    @TenguPhule:
    @? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:

    And historically, when blacks did excel and achieve influence, they got steamrolled by the hate surrounding them and their wealth pillaged. Look at the mislabeled Tulsa Race “Riots”, or the Colfax Massacre (similarly mislabled as the Colfax “Riot” in the godawful memorials to it). Almost like economics won’t save you from hate in large enough numbers…

  29. 29.

    Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)

    September 15, 2017 at 1:18 pm

    @Doug!: Not “obvious troll” so much as “squid-cumulonimbi of butthurt.”

  30. 30.

    Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)

    September 15, 2017 at 1:19 pm

    @? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: Where “left” means “the accuser’s political positions, regardless of actual placement on the ideological spectrum.”

  31. 31.

    SatanicPanic

    September 15, 2017 at 1:20 pm

    @Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD): It’s not terrible- he has a good point that Lilla, et al, don’t belong next to Sanders because the former are centrists. But he makes some highly questionable points:

    Since the election, centrists, liberals, and leftists have been arguing about what caused Democrats to lose to Trump. Centrists and liberals, for obvious reasons, tended to emphasize Russian meddling, FBI Director James Comey’s shockingly irresponsible last-minute intervention, and racism. Meanwhile, leftists, while not ruling out those factors, also pointed to Hillary Clinton’s inadequate economic policies — especially how she barely mentioned her own platform in her advertising, and how her long history of triangulation, buckraking secret speeches to Wall Street banks, and decades of living in hyper-elite circles made her a non-credible messenger for that platform in any case.

    * my bold there. Uh, yeah leftists have gone out of their way to downplay Russian interference.

    But Trump really did manage to get to Clinton’s left on the economy, constantly repeating a vague but effective message that he would rebuild the country and bring back high-paying manufacturing jobs.

    OUCH. No dude, that’s just silly.

  32. 32.

    Zach

    September 15, 2017 at 1:21 pm

    It brushes aside policy proposals as distractions, and politics itself as an immoral bargain.

    Packer writes that as if it’s a problem. A major theme in Coates’ works is that the American social/political/economic order is fundamentally corrupted by racism and that incrementalism will never achieve justice.

  33. 33.

    Major Major Major Major

    September 15, 2017 at 1:22 pm

    @Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD): I thought that was what ‘neoliberal’ meant.

  34. 34.

    Villago Delenda Est

    September 15, 2017 at 1:23 pm

    @Kryptik: Prezactly.

  35. 35.

    Villago Delenda Est

    September 15, 2017 at 1:24 pm

    @Zach: And Coates is correct to assert that, IMHO. This shit MUST STOP if we are ever going to come anywhere near close (as like within 1000 miles) of our stated ideals. “All men are created equal”/”Liberty and justice for all”

  36. 36.

    Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)

    September 15, 2017 at 1:26 pm

    @Major Major Major Major: They’re pretty much synonymous, but one of them implies you also eat babies.

  37. 37.

    TenguPhule

    September 15, 2017 at 1:27 pm

    @Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD):

    They’re pretty much synonymous, but one of them implies you also eat babies.

    It was just a modest proposal!

  38. 38.

    patrick II

    September 15, 2017 at 1:28 pm

    Racism is. in part taught. We all have tribal instincts, but we all also feel some connection fellow man. There has been a concerted education campaign to teach workers the reason they are poorer, their jobs are gone is not because the “free market ” and the 1% have gotten all the money but because the government has taken their money and jobs and given them to black welfare recipients and brawn workers. They are taught that by FOX and Rush and Savage and Breitbart and Infowars and Republican Politicians and importantly their churches. Those entities spread the poison of racism for their own advantage, but to the disadvantage of the rest of the country. People are people, there is no inherent physiological reason that the descendents of the same people who broke off from Virginia over the question of slavery 157 years ago have turned into racists except that is what they are being taught to blame far their losses.

  39. 39.

    Kryptik

    September 15, 2017 at 1:31 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    (I find myself ashamed to have only learned about the Colfax Massacre after folks on Twitter pointed out how horrific the monuments to them were in the wake of the Confederate statues stuff. Like…holy shit, look at this shit.

  40. 40.

    Mike in NC

    September 15, 2017 at 1:31 pm

    Today we’re in Wilmington, NC, where in 1898 a mob composed of 500 former Confederate officers and white supremacists staged a race riot that murdered a couple dozen black folks. But no doubt it was merely a symptom of white economic anxiety.

  41. 41.

    catclub

    September 15, 2017 at 1:32 pm

    @SatanicPanic:

    decades of living in hyper-elite circles made her a non-credible messenger for that platform in any case.

    Thanks goodness a down to earth, so-called Billionaire was available, instead.

  42. 42.

    Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)

    September 15, 2017 at 1:33 pm

    I really don’t get why it’s so fucking hard for some “liberal” white writers to just come out and say that most Tяump voters are assholes. It’s as easy as pie. Look up one line: I just did it myself. Maybe it would be somehow freeing for a few of these tools to give it a whirl themselves. Live a little. Say it with me: Most Tяump voters are assholes. Try it, you’ll love it!

  43. 43.

    Zach

    September 15, 2017 at 1:35 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est: Exactly. For example, there’s no incrementalist approach to correct the disgusting inequality in public education in America that doesn’t exist in any remotely similar form in any similar country and has roots in very recent racist policies.

    Reversing that probably requires a constitutional amendment plus 2-3 seats flipping on the Supreme Court plus a Congress and President that would enforce the law. AKA not the kind of change you get through by paying attention to incremental policy proposals. You get there by first making enough people too ashamed to support the racist status quo that benefits their self interest and Coates is doing more than anyone else to accomplish that.

  44. 44.

    Omnes Omnibus

    September 15, 2017 at 1:37 pm

    @catclub: FDR came from an impoverished background.

  45. 45.

    SatanicPanic

    September 15, 2017 at 1:37 pm

    @Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): They’re afraid of what that means for their plans to get everyone on board with their ideas.

  46. 46.

    Gelfling 545

    September 15, 2017 at 1:40 pm

    @Nicole: There will be a very small percentage who don’t watch news, only read the sports page and step into the voting booth in presidential elections and reflexively vote republican, no thought required, because they always have. A very small and diminishing percentage. There was another small percentage who just wanted to raise hell (-success!). Predominently, it was race.

  47. 47.

    germy

    September 15, 2017 at 1:41 pm

    I liked when TNC referred to Anthony Bourdain as a “theoretician”

  48. 48.

    TenguPhule

    September 15, 2017 at 1:42 pm

    Oh this is all kinds of fucked up and bullshit.

    A judge in St Louis has found a white former police officer not guilty of murder in the death of a black man who was shot dead following a high-speed chase in 2011.

    Jason Stockley shot 24-year-old Anthony Lamar Smith five times with his own AK-47 assault rifle rather than his service weapon. The officer said he saw Smith holding a gun and felt he was in imminent danger. Prosecutors said Stockley planted a gun in Smith’s car after he shot him.

    Assistant circuit attorney Robert Steele emphasized during the trial that police dashcam video showed Stockley saying he was “going to kill this motherfucker, don’t you know it”. Less than a minute later, he shot and killed Smith. Stockley’s lawyer dismissed the comment as “human emotions” during a dangerous police pursuit.

    Thomas Harvey of Arch City Defenders, a St Louis civil rights law firm, said: “If police can announce they are going to murder, carry personal AK-47s, plant weapons and shoot unarmed people five times at close range with no consequences, no black man in America is safe.”

  49. 49.

    Barbara

    September 15, 2017 at 1:43 pm

    Sorry, I am not in the mood to beat down George Packer today. I think he makes relevant points about Coates, and especially, I believe that Coates fails to address the misogyny embedded in Trump’s campaign and voter behavior. Coates is a great writer, but right now I am furious at the willingness of anyone to omit discussion of the sexism that permeates our economic and political life. And yes, I know white women also voted for Trump, in fewer numbers. Packer’s most salient point:

    He omits the weird statistic that slightly more black and Latino voters and slightly fewer whites went for Trump than for Mitt Romney. He doesn’t even mention the estimated eight and a half million Americans who voted for President Obama and then for Trump—even though they made the difference. No need to track the descending nihilism of the Republican Party. The urban-rural divide is a sham.

    Racism explains a lot, indeed, it very nearly explains the current Republican Party in its entirety over the last 40 years, but misogyny also explains a lot with respect to the last election and Donald Trump, and together they have given us our daily nightmare. I want Coates — and everyone — to stop acting as if the sexist pattern in the wallpaper is just the way things are and not something to fight about.

    ETA: Packer’s “defense” of himself also falls well short. Just by going to WV and putting race off to the side makes it clear that he doesn’t want to talk about race, not really. And that’s reprehensible.

    ETA again: In explaining Trump, Coates has to address why a black male was elected president but a white woman was not. He doesn’t even try.

  50. 50.

    Gelfling 545

    September 15, 2017 at 1:44 pm

    @? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: A bank here recently got fined for redlining. It’s very much a thing.

  51. 51.

    rikyrah

    September 15, 2017 at 1:45 pm

    1: RE-FOCUSING ON THE THREAT OF REPEAL: Here’s where things stand. Bottom line: A non-zero threat is a serious threat.
    — Topher Spiro (@TopherSpiro) September 15, 2017

    2: They do not currently have the votes. All that follows is based on public reports.

    3: MCCAIN is still insisting on regular order. COLLINS is a hard no; she objects in particular to the Medicaid per capita cap.

    4: RAND PAUL is a no (for different reasons but who cares?) pic.twitter.com/5b2fTe4cp5

    5: MIKE LEE sounds like a no.https://t.co/QVXbGaO7sk

    6: They’ve always had 45-48 votes. The challenge has always been the last 2-5. Press should be skeptical of whip counts by Graham, Cassidy.

    7: A media narrative that this is gaining momentum can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. It’s *exactly* what Graham and Cassidy are up to.

    8: All this said, be very vigilant. Do not rest or lose focus before Sept. 30. The stakes are too high.

    9: On the House front next week, GO TO TOWN HALLS. VISIT LOCAL OFFICES. https://t.co/rrZ6U0NNg4

    The House is now going home until Sept. 25. When they come back, they may vote on ACA repeal. You know what to do this recess, right? https://t.co/O8rQmMmyJC

    10: On the Senate front, CALL THESE OFFICES. https://t.co/wFGg38Q3Oy

    Senators to target because their states will lose big: CAPITO, COTTON, FLAKE, GARDNER, MCCAIN, MURKOWSKI, PORTMAN https://t.co/O8rQmMmyJC

    11: Upcoming town halls. The CA and CO ones are really important; those states get screwed under Graham-Cassidy. pic.twitter.com/3Od55sIuVM

  52. 52.

    Roger Moore

    September 15, 2017 at 1:45 pm

    I’ll say what I always say when this comes up: if race isn’t the dominant factor, why do we treat the white working class as a completely separate entity with completely different interests and voting patterns from the minority working class? By accepting the framing of the white working class as a distinct entity, you’re already accepting that race is a dominant factor.

  53. 53.

    TenguPhule

    September 15, 2017 at 1:45 pm

    Ivanka Trump is what we always knew she was.

    Ivanka Trump believes liberals are harboring “unrealistic expectations” of what they can expect from her as a moderating influence on her father’s presidency.

    The comments came in an interview with the Financial Times, published on Thursday.

    Trump said: “Some people have created unrealistic expectations of what they expect from me. That my presence, in and of itself, would carry so much weight with my father that he would abandon his core values and the agenda that the American people voted for when they elected him. It’s not going to happen. To those critics, shy of turning my father into a liberal, I’d be a failure to them.”

    Her place up against the wall is assured.

    In the FT interview, Trump said she chooses not to publicly disagree with her father, even if she does in private, because she is a team player. “To voice dissent publicly would mean I’m not part of the team. When you’re part of a team, you’re part of a team,” she said.

  54. 54.

    rikyrah

    September 15, 2017 at 1:45 pm

    Michigan teacher ‘violently snatches’ black 6th-grader out of chair when he refuses to stand for pledge https://t.co/9w44xSbwzl
    — Deep State Seahawk (@word_34) September 15, 2017

  55. 55.

    John Cole

    September 15, 2017 at 1:46 pm

    Kristof and Packer are from Harvard and Yale, respectively. Maybe wingnuts are right about Ivy League schools?

  56. 56.

    DougJ

    September 15, 2017 at 1:46 pm

    @Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD):

    I mean his original article was a troll

  57. 57.

    DougJ

    September 15, 2017 at 1:46 pm

    @Roger Moore:

    I agree

  58. 58.

    germy

    September 15, 2017 at 1:47 pm

    @rikyrah:

    7: A media narrative that this is gaining momentum can be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

    the villagers want to push this over the finish line so they can have more stories of heartbreak and suffering to report and win prizes for.

  59. 59.

    Lyrebird

    September 15, 2017 at 1:48 pm

    From Packer’s response…

    In this essay and other recent work, [Coates has] turned away from the self-examining quality of his earlier writing to a literary style that’s oracular. He has become the most influential writer in America today; this latest Atlantic essay is already being taught in college courses. He has never written more powerfully, and the sentences sweep you along because they don’t yield for a second to anything.

    But the style of no-compromise sacrifices things that are too important for readers to surrender without a second thought. It flattens out history into a single fixed truth, so that an event in 2016 is the same as an event in 1805, the most recent election erases the one before, the Obama years turn into an illusion.

    What does this mean?
    What is he smoking?
    How can Packer not notice that it’s a little telling that TNC’s views matter so much to him?
    Okay maybe I should ask questions worth answering:
    How can self-respecting news editors let writers get away with publishing this “It’s all about the white working class” stuff, when college-educated whites (UGH BUT NOT ME) and wealthy people, helped by the GRU, put this Republican administration in place?

    ETA: I don’t agree with everything TNC says, but I dream of the day when this claim that he’s the most influential writer in the USA would become true!

  60. 60.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    September 15, 2017 at 1:48 pm

    @SatanicPanic:

    especially how she barely mentioned her own platform in her advertising, and how her long history of triangulation, buckraking secret speeches to Wall Street banks, and decades of living in hyper-elite circles made her a non-credible messenger for that platform in any case.

    The first one in that list, I could give him. But the rest? The speeches were just boilerplate stuff. Cooper also should know by now that in national politics, the rich landed elite often rise to the top there. In any system that is true, from the Soviet Union to the Ancient Roman Republic, to modern-day Sweden, I’m sure. It’s just how it works. That doesn’t mean what they have to say isn’t worthwhile. FDR was a rich patrician too. Look at what he did.

  61. 61.

    Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)

    September 15, 2017 at 1:49 pm

    @DougJ: Then he should have thicker fucking skin.

  62. 62.

    germy

    September 15, 2017 at 1:49 pm

    @TenguPhule:

    Her job title is literally "Advisor to the President." https://t.co/S8Udh32BJC— Schooley (@Rschooley) September 14, 2017

  63. 63.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    September 15, 2017 at 1:49 pm

    @Lyrebird:
    Because they believe the same shit?

  64. 64.

    Major Major Major Major

    September 15, 2017 at 1:55 pm

    @catclub: Would’ve been much better off if we’d run the shouty old man who couldn’t hold down a steady job until he was elected mayor at 39 and has held government sinecures since. Now he can speak for the masses!

  65. 65.

    schrodingers_cat

    September 15, 2017 at 1:55 pm

    @Barbara: Also all of TNC’s article is about black vs. white. He does not address the xenophobia on which T piggybacked to gain the WH. Everything and everyone does not fall into those two nice little boxes. As for the Holier than thou Kristof, the less said the better. The white man’s burden schtick was old and shop worn, a century ago.

    ETA: I am sympathetic to TNC’s POV, but he does seem to see everything from one lens. I also remember his articles about how Obama was not black enough and hence disappointing.

  66. 66.

    Barbara

    September 15, 2017 at 1:55 pm

    @Lyrebird: It means that Coates doesn’t try to explain why a black man was elected to be president. To see Trump only in terms of racial panic is wrong. It’s not totally wrong, of course not, it’s a huge element that has been an escalating force in our political divide for more than 40 years because Republicans have used it to gain and keep power, but it needed the right substrate to succeed. And in 2016 that substrate was misogyny directed at the white woman running for president. If Obama had run again he would have been elected. I believe that if Biden had won he would have been elected.

  67. 67.

    Kay

    September 15, 2017 at 1:55 pm

    It leaves an opening for someone to write about the AA and Latino working class. One would think the punditry would have exploited this underserved market by now.

  68. 68.

    NotMax

    September 15, 2017 at 1:56 pm

    In line with the “Assholes” tag, missed this tidbit the other day regarding a sheriff who qualifies for inclusion in that woeful club.

    A Florida sheriff is facing a lawsuit after announcing police would check for arrest warrants at hurricane shelters.
    [snip]
    “The purpose of these pedestrian ‘checkpoints’ is to conduct a fishing expedition to find any possible basis, no matter how tenuous, for issuing citations to or arresting human beings seeking refuge from a Class 5 hurricane,” according to the lawsuit filed by Virginia resident Andres Borreno, risk manager for Nexus Services Inc., which funds legal services for immigrants. “The problem is that these searches and seizure are not based on any suspicion of criminal conduct. Suspicion is not raised by trying to gain entry into an emergency shelter to save one’s life and the lives of family members.” Source

  69. 69.

    SatanicPanic

    September 15, 2017 at 1:58 pm

    @? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: That is a particularly dumb hill for the left to die on, but there’s a vocal contingent that seems to love nothing better than to find hills to die on.

  70. 70.

    Barbara

    September 15, 2017 at 1:59 pm

    @Doug!:

    It is weird that Berniebros are attacking Coates, given that Coates said he was voting for Bernie.

    I think Coates came to see Bernie in much the same light that a lot of other African American voters did — a white man who wants to make everything about something other than race. Try to imagine a black man with Bernie’s record — having a kid out of wedlock, receiving welfare, writing erotica, not holding down a full time job until being elected to something — running for any higher office. I can’t even fathom it.

  71. 71.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    September 15, 2017 at 1:59 pm

    @rikyrah:

    According to the 12-year-old, he was sitting during the pledge as he has done without incident since he was in the second grade.

    “I don’t stand because I don’t pledge to a flag. I pledge to God and family,” the student explained, adding that the following day, another teacher yelled at him for the same offense.

    Well, fuck. I bet some fundy heads will explode because of this

  72. 72.

    schrodingers_cat

    September 15, 2017 at 2:01 pm

    @Barbara: I am not a black man but to me Bernie is as big a charlatan as the man currently in the WH.

  73. 73.

    TenguPhule

    September 15, 2017 at 2:02 pm

    @Kay:

    One would think the punditry would have exploited this underserved market by now.

    Not enough money in it.

  74. 74.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    September 15, 2017 at 2:02 pm

    “…they insist on seeing humanity through tote-colored glasses.”

    That wins Teh Internetzez for today.

  75. 75.

    schrodingers_cat

    September 15, 2017 at 2:03 pm

    @Kay: WWC who vote for Rs are the only demographic prestige media is interested in. WWC who don’t vote for Rs, MSM could care less. Women and minorities of course are chopped liver.

  76. 76.

    Mike E

    September 15, 2017 at 2:04 pm

    @Mike in NC: the 1898 ‘riot’ in Wilmington was a deliberate overthrowing of the duly elected gov’t…a coup. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

  77. 77.

    Dave

    September 15, 2017 at 2:14 pm

    @Hunter Gathers: In my quite poor area I actually see more breakdown of barriers happening between poor white and poor black communities. Resulting in more mixed relationships, families, and of course children. I see almost none if it once you hit solidly middle-class aand up with the exception of the major universities which is the only area outside of the poorer communities I see any significant interaction. This is all anecdotal of course but it is what I do perceive.

  78. 78.

    schrodingers_cat

    September 15, 2017 at 2:16 pm

    @Dave: Was there a time when this was not true?

  79. 79.

    FlipYrWhig

    September 15, 2017 at 2:19 pm

    @Doug!:

    It is weird that Berniebros are attacking Coates, given that Coates said he was voting for Bernie.

    This is decidedly NOT weird. The whole Berniebro grand unified theory is that establishment neoliberals use people of color as human shields. Hence anyone with an influential political or media position who talks about race is obscuring class and making excuses for capital. This is what Ryan Cooper’s article virtually explicitly was.

  80. 80.

    trollhattan

    September 15, 2017 at 2:20 pm

    @? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
    Isn’t that a thing with Jehovah’s Witnesses?

  81. 81.

    FlipYrWhig

    September 15, 2017 at 2:21 pm

    @Dave: In Tidewater Virginia where I am it certainly seems like interracial couples and biracial offspring are increasingly commonplace in the social stratum that runs between working poor and enlisted military.

  82. 82.

    Nicole

    September 15, 2017 at 2:24 pm

    @Gelfling 545: Oh, I also think it was predominantly about race (with a healthy dose of misogyny- as Damon Young pointed out in the days right after the election, 13% of black men voted for Trump). My point was the media spends a lot of time and energy and pixels trying to make it sound like the voters were motivated by something else.

  83. 83.

    Citizen_X

    September 15, 2017 at 2:33 pm

    @Kryptik: Oh, a “riot.” With 3 casualties on one side, and 150 on the other.

    I’ll point out that that historical marker was put up in 1950–the hay day of the integration-fighting Dixiecrats. Heritage, errbody, not hate!

  84. 84.

    Nicole

    September 15, 2017 at 2:35 pm

    @Barbara: My irritation at Packer’s response is that I don’t recall him really pushing the misogyny of the voter as a theme- he’s running to hide behind, “But but misogyny too!” when confronted with the many words he’s written about the white working class (read: white men). Dare I say, having been called out for ignoring racism, he’s running to hide behind a woman’s skirts. ;)

    I agree with you that misogyny was a HUGE factor in the election. I see it in the endless pieces lambasting white women for being the reason Trump won- yes, white women voted 53 percent for Trump, but they’re being singled out to be attacked because it’s always easy to blame women for things (see also: Hillary Clinton, being entirely responsible for not being in the White House and how dare she write a book anyway, now’s not the time).

    In some ways, I think misogyny is even harder for society to discuss than racism, because it’s so, so deeply ingrained in our behaviors, from the time we’re born, and half of the population is women, and we are enculturated to think less of ourselves, too. But it’s important to keep up the focus on both sexual and racial prejudices, and to let them overlap and intersect with each other, because the end result of not doing it is still white men on the top of the pyramid.

  85. 85.

    rikyrah

    September 15, 2017 at 2:47 pm

    @TenguPhule:

    Liberals never thought she was anything but shyt in the first place.
    This unqualified grifter needs to sit down and STFU

  86. 86.

    p.a.

    September 15, 2017 at 2:51 pm

    Packer (and to be honest I just skimmed his response) et al seem to hang their hat on ‘the sense of economic decline’. Well and good; but the target of their ire about real or perceived economic decline isn’t the corrupt WHITE political process that recently gained full economic expression in Kansas and Louisiana. Their targets are minorities and women, not Wall St, the 1%, and their political enablers. So they are to be absolved of the charge of racism when, for them, an obvious 1+1= a top-down attack on the middle & lower classes instead = ni*clang*?

  87. 87.

    Matt McIrvin

    September 15, 2017 at 3:02 pm

    @? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: The flags replace the red and blue in the US flag with black–and they’re derived from a simpler flag that just had a blue stripe on a black field. The official symbolism is that the black represents grief at fallen comrades. But when I look at it, the most sympathetic reading that comes to mind is that it represents a thoroughly paranoid mindset, in which we live in a chaotic, terrifying world in which police are the only thing keeping us from being swallowed up in darkness. And the less sympathetic reading is that it’s saying we need cops because we’re overrun with black people.

  88. 88.

    MomSense

    September 15, 2017 at 3:07 pm

    @Kryptik:

    I agree completely.

  89. 89.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    September 15, 2017 at 3:11 pm

    @Matt McIrvin:

    when I look at it, the most sympathetic reading that comes to mind is that it represents a thoroughly paranoid mindset, in which we live in a chaotic, terrifying world in which police are the only thing keeping us from being swallowed up in darkness. And the less sympathetic reading is that it’s saying we need cops because we’re overrun with black people.

    Precisely. I see them as decals on cars too. It’s really tone-deaf, given all of the murders by police of black people.

  90. 90.

    ruemara

    September 15, 2017 at 3:24 pm

    @Doug!: if you don’t show fealty to Bern, you will be punished. Because he can do no wrong.

    So over left, right, cops, America and humanity. I don’t know where they all went wrong, but I am sick of them.

  91. 91.

    Matt McIrvin

    September 15, 2017 at 3:33 pm

    @? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: There’s some kind of kink-community flag that has black and blue stripes on it. I confess that for years I got confused and thought those car decals were just people happily professing their kink in a semi-secret way. Was sad when I realized otherwise.

  92. 92.

    ruemara

    September 15, 2017 at 3:33 pm

    @Barbara: I believe he did. The white woman was a continuation of the black man. The white woman also had a very clear position supporting minorities, including mentioning systematic oppression. This ain’t oppression Olympics, but don’t take a stand that misogyny was the prime mover. It was a great mix of both. And there were more than enough examinations of the navels of Obama->Trump voters. Some just kept voting for something different, like it was menu item. But many felt betrayed by Obama for his support for BLM and, explicitly called out his statements on the death of Trayvon Martin. It’s a toxic brew that harms all, yes. But race is a big enough factor that white women turned against a white woman to support white supremacy, which is his point. And your numbers show it.

  93. 93.

    Rob in CT

    September 15, 2017 at 3:34 pm

    Coates is right, but he did largely leave out misogyny (I do think there was a brief aside about it, but that’s all) and also didn’t go into the xenophobia much. To the extent you can boil down Trump’s appeal to a simple line, it was “I’ll stomp on The Other for you” or “I’ll put Those People in their place” where The Other was primarily immigrants and Those People was a broad category that included (or rather could include, depending on the voter’s resentments) criminals, black folks (one & the same in the minds of many), uppity women, etc. There was more, of course, because he said all the words, the best words…

    ETA: misogyny helps explain Trump’s vote share amongst minority men, whereas race absolutely has a lot to do with keeping white women from voting for Democrats.

  94. 94.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    September 15, 2017 at 3:49 pm

    @Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.):

    Because they live surrounded by them in the form of friends and relatives, whom they like.

  95. 95.

    Barbara

    September 15, 2017 at 3:53 pm

    @ruemara:

    The white woman was a continuation of the black man.

    I am sorry, but that makes me angry. A BLACK MAN was elected to be president. And, I believe, would have been reelected.
    Misogyny is not an extension of racism. It’s real and different. Women can’t even be whole people when it comes to being fucked over.

  96. 96.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    September 15, 2017 at 4:03 pm

    @ruemara:

    Lots of white women just don’t like feminism and are happy staying in their suburban cocoons maintained by their husbands’ income and status with the other stay at home moms – which is premised on maintaining their status by not rocking the white supremacist boat. They don’t pay any attention to politics and have not heard anything bad about Trump, or don’t believe it.

  97. 97.

    TomatoQueen

    September 15, 2017 at 4:35 pm

    @trollhattan: I had the same thought. And if this student has been behaving in the same way since 2nd grade, it seems quite likely as an explanation, and a fact that perhaps should’ve been known by his teacher(s). At 12, however, one is maybe a little taller and therefore more visible than at age 7.

  98. 98.

    Tim C.

    September 15, 2017 at 5:02 pm

    @Matt McIrvin: *slow claps*

  99. 99.

    Raoul

    September 15, 2017 at 5:55 pm

    Nick Kristoff keynoted a conference I attended a couple years ago on the east coast and I was, to put it mildly, underwhelmed. He rambled for less than half an hour and I can’t remember a damn thing he said, and then he stood behind a table piled high with books the conference planners had bought for all the attendees and he signed them with a grin. That was it. That was the headline of an otherwise big deal event. I shudder to think what fee was paid to him.

  100. 100.

    Aussie Sheila

    September 15, 2017 at 6:13 pm

    @rikyrah:

    Exactly. Why aren’t there articles pondering the very different responses of the non white working class to the political strategies deployed by Republicans and Trump?

    The very fact that the US pundit class almost uniformly ignores this critical difference, is the pointer here. Their refusal to confront how racism has been deployed to both construct WWC identity, as well as to keep the US working class so abjectly divided and relatively powerless is the silence of the lambs in relation to this issue.

    It is dreary and depressing to read articles about why a proportion of WWC voted for Trump, at the expense of any serious consideration of why the rest of the working class didn’t, most particularly, working people who aren’t white.

  101. 101.

    Steeplejack

    September 15, 2017 at 7:09 pm

    @Roger Moore, @DougJ:

    Late to the thread, but I’ll offer this thought:

    Perhaps “we” treat race as the dominant factor because it is the dominant factor that we see. Sexism/​misogyny is so pervasive that it is invisible to many male pundits and commentators. To the point that when they think of the white working class they are unconsciously thinking of white working-class males. They don’t even see that part of the white working class—women—could have (some) different concerns, like “Why am I making 70% of what that jagoff at the next desk does?” or “Why am I passed over for promotions and job offers because men think that as a woman I’m automatically not as capable, even though they’re ‘not prejudiced’?” (See that study that somebody mentioned in one of the threads today.)

  102. 102.

    Barbara

    September 15, 2017 at 7:39 pm

    @Aussie Sheila: In other words, to even frame it as the white working class gives up the game. Why would white working class men (women barely figure in their conception of the working class) have different concerns from other workers? And their conception of the WWC is framed as factory or construction workers. Never secretaries or home health aides. Thomas Edsall is the king of this game and the reason why it is destructive in addition to being unfair is that it conveys an implicit conviction that only white people are actually working, and that jobs that women do (by and large) don’t count as real work.

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