I mean I do know, and I think it all boils down to the Democrats being labeled the party of the blah people and minorities, but I don’t understand why working class people love the people who hate them:
Some Democrats here in rural Pennsylvania are afraid to tell you they’re Democrats.
The party’s brand is so toxic in the small towns 100 miles northeast of Pittsburgh that some liberals have removed bumper stickers and yard signs and refuse to acknowledge their party affiliation publicly. These Democrats are used to being outnumbered by the local Republican majority, but as their numbers continue to dwindle, the few that remain are feeling increasingly isolated and unwelcome in their own communities.
“The hatred for Democrats is just unbelievable,” said Tim Holohan, an accountant based in rural McKean County who recently encouraged his daughter to get rid of a pro-Joe Biden bumper sticker. “I feel like we’re on the run.”
The climate across rural Pennsylvania is symptomatic of a larger political problem threatening the Democratic Party ahead of the 2022 midterm elections. Beyond losing votes in virtually every election since 2008, Democrats have been effectively ostracized from many parts of rural America, leaving party leaders with few options to reverse a cultural trend that is redefining the nation’s political landscape.
The area they are talking about is basically my area of the world. I am three miles from PA, and nothing is different here. Hell, WV is the most Republican friendly state in the country. And there is no arguing or debating or discussing with them. Literally everything going wrong in their lives can be blamed on Democrats and Joe Biden, including issues that are apolitical. GOD DAMNED DEMOCRATS.
It’s just bonkers.
Urza
Having been born in that area myself its quite simple. Can’t blame yourselves and your forebears for the ever increasing poverty and dying small towns. Blaming Republicans would mean blaming themselves and thats obviously not possible. And everyone of course remembers, or at least heard the stories of when times were better and can’t understand why the poor choices today keep leading to worse outcomes when they listen to Fox, or previously its newspaper equivalents.
The Moar You Know
Since neither party has been able or willing to put a leash on corporate America – the people doing the exploiting of the working class – if you’re white working class you might as well go with the party that offers you the time-honored America pastime of hating on some minorities.
Salty Sam
It’s pretty simple really- propaganda works.
Raoul Paste
The whole focus of outfits like Fox is conditioning people emotionally to hate Democrats. Reason is out the window
UncleEbeneezer
I think you are exactly right. I’ve been saying this for awhile. It’s a perfect example of White Supremacy and the incredible amount of Anti-Blackness (and Woman-ness, Muslim-ness, Trans-ness etc.) that permeates this country.
I do however think there is a way forward which is basically what Obama did: focus our narrative on the fact that being part of the multi-racial coalition and fighting for marginalized groups is the real story of America. It’s the thing that we should be most proud of and the people who did that work are the real heroes. And every one of us can be a part of that. When presented well, we’ve seen that voters will get on board. We’ll never reach the die-hard Trumpers of course, but as messaging experts and people who run GOTV efforts always note, you have to give people a chance to be the hero (or at least think they are doing so). That can at least turn swing voters towards us enough to win some of the razor-thin margin elections we need to save Democracy/the World.
JustRuss
@Salty Sam: Yep.
Betty
I know that area too, and it seems to me that there is a tribal basis to start with that has been exacerbated by Facebook, Fox News and Trumpism. As John says, you can’t argue with them. They have been indoctrinated with this hatred/fear. Outnumbering them is all you can do.
the pollyanna from hell
In linguistics I observe that a joking construction becomes unironically standard to the next generation. 40 years ago my Missouri Ozark coworkers joked about assassinating my black brother-in-law in Denver. Now I expect their rural descendants to forget that anyone ever pretended it was a joke. (Eureka Springs, Seligman, Eagle Rock.)
West of the Rockies
Here’s my guess to explain some of the rural white hatred for Dems. The first point is super obvious and was mentioned here yesterday in the comments: their radio and newspapers are largely hyper-conservative. They encounter conservative perspectives all the time.
Here’s the second point. I think most of these people do not think of themselves as racist or homophobic. They chaff mightily every time they hear those charges. And honestly, I can imagine a young white man encountering the “mediocre white man” jibe and being offended. They do not see themselves as privileged. They think they have a hardscrabble life with ancestors who fought and died in wars. Undoubtedly a lot of them can say their people did not own slaves and maybe even died in the Union Army.
Not sure how to address that stuff, but I think it’s real.
mrmoshpotato
@Raoul Paste:
Yup. Lord knows Fucker Carlson doesn’t offer a nuanced analysis of Democratic policies every night and inform his audience how Republicans would govern better for the people.
w3ski
I live in red California, and I know the pain. I can’t bring up any politics locally without being drowned in the backwash of Rethuganism. They are downright hateful of anything blue. All I can do is be thankful for the more populated areas of my state that are solidly blue.
w3ski
mary s
It’s been said before but bears repeating: Decades of rightwing radio and TV — and, more recently, online content — have really warped a lot of white minds.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/9/8/16263710/fox-news-presidential-vote-study
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/apr/12/fox-news-brain-meet-the-families-torn-apart-by-toxic-cable-news
All this has also seeped into mainstream media coverage of politics, politicians, and policy . . . so it’s warping us all!
The Moar You Know
I was curious about something and found the opposite of what I expected – this is from the BLS (2017, because 2020 was skewed by COVID):
Dems focused on minimum wage workers, which in and of itself is not a bad thing; in fact, it’s a very needful thing, but increasing the minimum wage benefitted a VERY small part of the American “working class” (hourly wage earners) directly. We need to address the other 97% of hourly wage earners AS WELL. AND the people on the bottom end of “exempt” workers as well, because there are still a ton of people being paid shit wages on salary who should fundamentally not be on salary.
MisterForkbeard
I know why. It’s not even being the party of the Blahs and the wimmins.
It’s because the area’s dominant party literally pushes the idea that Democrats hate you, are literal traitors, and are at fault for everything in your life. The entire conservative media network, politicians, and social media presence is aimed at making their voters viscerally hate and want to attack Democrats. That’s it – that’s their entire aim and it’s working.
I mean, look at Tom Cotton blaming Democrats for a bipartisan bill that Trump literally bragged about passing “solely due to his efforts” – and heavily implying that Dems and Black people are to blame for crime. Look at Tucker Carlson’s nightly tirades against Democrats. Look at Trump social media and Fox, full of lies about how Democrats did something worse than watergate by spying on the Trump Campaign and by stealing the election. NONE of these things are true, and they’re all provably and obviously false.
It’s not us. It really is THEM. They want to hate Democrats and intimidate us, and that’s what they’re doing.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
Canuck cops are moving in on the Ottawa occupiers.
As I’ve seen elsewhere on the internet, a Gadsden yellow flag showing a shitty (and they’re always terrible) Canadian goose and the phrase “FUCK ABOOT AND FIND OOT”.
Suzanne
@West of the Rockies: I think the important third reason is that the Democrats (both elected and the members of the coalition) do not tell them that their way of life is admirable or preservable. We don’t tell them that because it would be a lie. But most people don’t want to change. The GOP flatters them. The smarter ones get out, but the dumb ones just grow the resentment. But that’s not a shock, heart attack patients are known for ordering hamburgers and fries in their hospital rooms.
H.E.Wolf
Yes.
Speaking only for myself, I’m less interested in the “why” (we know why) – and more interested in being part of the “how”.
The problem often is that “how” takes effort; and “why” is exhausting, and can lower one’s energies for getting to work… which is why I limit my engagement with the outrages du jour. For me, it gets in the way of doing my (very small share) of the work.
Off to write 5 voter-registration postcards. Maybe one of those 5 will be a deciding vote in an election someday. :-)
scav
There could also be a competitive self-reinforcing cycle going on. One gets higher in-tribe standing based on the spleen and violence one spouts against the designated enemy. Continue that and more and more actual violence is required to maintain face.
Baud
We do need to do more as a party to recognize our rural Dem heroes who are on the front lines.
mike t
For the last 40 years we’ve had a growing propaganda machine that relentlessly churns out increasingly feverish grievances to blame on Democrats. It used to be just talk radio, then Fox News, and now with Facebook it has metastasized into an existential crisis
Suzanne
@West of the Rockies:
I agree with you 100% here. And I will still continue to use the “mediocre white man” because I think it’s critical for white dudes to experience what it’s like to be called out as a type (getting to conceive of yourself as a total individual unaffected by social forces is a privilege). And also to point out that most people really are mediocre — myself included — and so they need to stop seeing themselves as “the best one for the job but who lost out due to affirmative action” or whatever.
ian
I read the AP article and this
Is the closest they get to the fact that those of us who are Dems in these areas are literally targeted for vandalism, harassment, and violence in these areas. The entire piece is a condemnation of Dem rural outreach, with barely the finest whisper of the extremism that has turned our neighbors into borderline domestic insurrectionists. The author- Steve Peoples- lives in NY city. If he would come live out here, he might understand the why a little better.
Baud
@ian:
Only Dems have agency — Green Acres edition.
mrmoshpotato
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Gonna be hilarious when it’s the Canadian Trump trash that get punched in their fucking fascist faces by Canadian Lady Justice.
UncleEbeneezer
I think another thing that would help is to start framing anti-racism and other work (both on ourselves and in the way we effect systems- voting, etc.) as positive goods that are effectively the Deeds part of Words & Deeds from Christianity. Start highlighting that THIS is What Jesus Would Do: He would fight for Voting Rights. He would protect Transgender kids. He would support full equality for Women. Etc. Frame things like Collective Action and Public Service as positive goods. While alot of people have been indoctrinated with the Rugged Individualism bullshit, people also love to be a part of something good/cool. We need to build excitement for the prospect of joining the efforts to fight for what is right. Be excited about telling the truth about our history (warts and all) because it makes us all better to do so. Celebrate the people throughout history who did the right thing. Basically sell it as: the other side doesn’t want you to hear all of these AMAZING stories about Harriet Tubman, MLK, John Brown, etc. Polls show that most people actually do want those stories told. I think we’d be better off focussing less on the GOP assholes trying to stifle them and more on our dedication celebrating them. Basically be Ted Lasso about the Democratic Party and our values. Positive, positive, positive. Because at the very least, we know that endless negativity about the GOP (as completely justified as it is) doesn’t really move people. Excitement and firm belief in what WE are doing, does.
dmsilev
On the lighter side of “news of the wingnuts”,
“As God as my witness, I thought pillows could fly”
Anyway
Dems are coming to get your guns!
The Moar You Know
@West of the Rockies: it would offend anyone. Think about it.
It offends me, and I know that I’m the beneficiary of literally everything this society has to offer white folks, benefits that people of other racial groups will NEVER get.
hw3
My experience growing up in the 80s in WV was that the brand of politics which involved hellfire and GOP talking points was a scary beast even then. Now it’s a national cult. An uncle in rural northern WV talked about rifle shots at Biden yard signs.
Demonizing a group of people is long established Authoritarianism 101, tho.
UncleEbeneezer
@Baud: Very true. They really are heroes. I can’t even imagine trying the to do Dem organizing in those environs. I’m forever grateful for Betty, Kay and others who are in that slog :)
Kelly
Here in wingnutty rural Oregon environmentalists are root of all evil. Spotted owls ruined profitable pillaging of the national forests. There’s plenty of bigotry. Only opportunity to exercise their bigotry is Hispanics and few gays. They’d hate on some blacks and Muslims if any were around.
Kay
@ian:
Because it’s always you, never them.
Here’s the other thing. It’s gotten much, much worse since Trump. The fact is whatever issues Democrats had with white rural Democrats did not make white rural Republicans much, much worse in just the last 6 years. Donald Trump did that and the Republican Party was happy to egg him on.
mrmoshpotato
@dmsilev: Hot damn. Was this guy always a crackpot?
And I’m reminded that I need to check out Pillow Fight. (I do actually need new pillows.)
VOR
@Kelly: Just last week there was the woman complaining that the real problem with “wokeness” was that she and her students were no longer allowed to mock and harass transgender kids. It’s like bigotry is now seen as a bad thing.
E.
I live in deep red California and am soon moving. This story is absolutely my world: Democrats are so reviled here that you really do have to watch your step. I did not realize just how toxic it was until Covid came along and I started insisting people wear masks in my bakery. Within six months I’d lost half my business and it wasn’t Covid, it was people so angry with me and my politics that they not only quit coming but they told their friends to quit coming. I was attacked on social media as a communist and worse. It didn’t ever get better and I get harassed about it if I go to the tavern. I feel deeply unwelcome here and the truth is these people have been successful in their efforts to bankrupt me and run me out of town. It amazes me. I did not know this country until Covid.
mrmoshpotato
@Kelly:
Spotted owls being in the pocket of big tree!
Betty Cracker
@dmsilev: I have a post in the hopper that predates your comment on this topic — with that WKRP clip. Old minds think alike! :)
West of the Rockies
@Suzanne:
I agree entirely with you. But remember that a lot of people see themselves within their own narratives as heroic and brave. We tend to see ourselves as Frodo or Sam, not as a faceless, nameless orc.
And most people aren’t orcs. They’re more like Proudfoots at the Green Dragon, a little drunk and tired and looking for a little fun.
Sorry for going all LoTR.
Kay
It is the fault of Democrats that this immigrant doesn’t feel safe in her own town.
Boy you really have to have political reporter brain to reach that fucked up conclusion.
Is anything, ever the fault of Republicans? Not even their own godammned behavior? What’s the immigrant supposed to do? Conduct “outreach” with her neighbors? The people she thinks will harm her? They’re incapable of crossing a street or approaching someone in an ordinarily polite way?
rikyrah
Clinging to the Whiteness
MomSense
@The Moar You Know:
When you increase the minimum wage, all wages increase.
UncleEbeneezer
@E.: Ugh. Where in CA, if I may ask? (always good to know what areas to avoid or be careful in)
JCJ
A very wise man once said “they cling to their guns and religion.” The Repukes celebrate that to use these people to the benefit of others.
rikyrah
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
I want a breakdown of those who are arrested.
And, follow the money.
Kelly
Yep. I got out and returned when I retired. I gradually found most my old high school buddies intolerant assholes. I always lived within a few hours of here so I wasn’t completely out of contact. At first my financial success in the city was admired but gradually I’ve become just another environmentalist lib. I still love the forests and rivers I grew up in around here.
Kay
@E.:
Every accusation is a confession. The same conservatives who have created an entire cottage industry around insisting they are a silenced minority act like fucking monsters in the places where they are a numerical majority. Good riddance. They don’t deserve your bakery and your tax revenue. Move somewhere decent. Maybe they can cleanse the town of all “communists” and it’ll fucking collapse. Then they can whine some more about how they’ve been forgotten.
Betty Cracker
My post yesterday referenced an article about DCCC research that said people perceived Democrats as “preachy” and “judgmental,” and honestly, I do find plenty of Democrats preachy and judgmental (including me sometimes). What I can’t understand is how that perception sticks to Dems only. Those qualities are absolutely bipartisan!
The Moar You Know
@dmsilev: cocaine is a hell of a drug.
Bugboy
Nothing new here. Johnny Rebel, who was never, ever, going to be wealthy enough to own slaves, was conned into fighting for the Confederacy’s right to own slaves. “The south shall again!” is kind of a sick joke, if you think about it…
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Same with “elitism.” The GOP is elitists as all get out, but the slander sticks to Dems.
artem1s
It’s not a working class people problem. It’s a rural and suburban perception problem. the majority of working class people live in urban areas – the majority of American’s are NOT Conservatives or White or Male or R’s. rural and suburban America is not all of America. they just act like and believe they are the only REAL AMERICANS! they have also been systematically trained since white flight to believe that if they leave their little homogeneous communities the minorities will hijack their cars and kill them. they have been lead to believe that they have to go around armed to the teeth and ready to stand their ground or else they will be killed by dirty immigrants or transsexuals or whoever Fuckup News has told them to be scared of today. I grew up in rural, white flight OH. It is as White and ignorant as the day I graduate HS. Maybe worse because rural farm kids used to dream of getting a college education and getting the hell out of hicksville. now they are afraid of going off to college and getting corrupted by lie-iberals and CRT. the only coping skills they have ever been given are gun and football related – every situation is a war or competition. even if you aren’t a democrat, you’d be insane to NOT be afraid that your neighbor might find out you don’t 100% agree with them. even middle of the road GOPers are afraid of letting their country club pals know that they think TFG is a loon. I’ve been afraid of putting bumper stickers on my car since the Raygun administration at least – I’d rather not have it get keyed. I live in the city so I don’t worry about lawn signs. but I know lots of people in my old home town who have been playing at being Winston Smith for a long time. they have gotten good at hiding in plain sight and avoiding the gaze of Big Brother Conspiracy Wingnuts. they are afraid of leaving and afraid of staying.
I blame 4-5 generations of leaded gas poisoning.
Betty Cracker
@E.:
I am sorry about what you’ve endured and hope you find a better place soon.
I remember thinking I didn’t know this country until the 2016 election, and that is true, but you’re right — the pandemic revealed the depths of our dysfunction and depravity just as starkly. It’s all related, I suppose, since Trump politicized the pandemic. His imitators and fans just ran with it, taking it further than even he was willing to go.
Baud
@E.:
What @Kay said.
I hope the transition goes smoothly.
WhatsMyNym
Keeping rural areas and towns going is hard work. You have the young ones leaving as fast as they can, and businesses that need reinventing/rebuilding. It takes many people with different skills, working together to survive and recover.
Too many of these areas would rather let Uncle Sam pay the bills to keep the old ways. When that doesn’t happen, they resort to blaming anybody but themselves. Republicans are just playing their tune.
Brachiator
@UncleEbeneezer:
Good message.
I note that the GOP message is “Whatever is wrong with America is someone else’s fault.” They foster resentment, create enemies, and then claim that Democrats are helping these enemies.
This ropes in the suckers all the time.
This is the Fox News template, or I should say the Murdoch and right wing template.
It worked wonders in the UK. “Vote BREXIT and keep immigrants out and your life will be wonderful again.”
Betty Cracker
@Baud: Excellent point!
Suzanne
@Kay: One thing that didn’t get discussed in this piece is this incident outside Pittsburgh in which our SLOP (Second Lady of Pennsylvania) was called a racial slur while in a grocery store. Does anyone really think that people like that can hack it in an urban area, where they have to be exposed to lots of things that challenge their simple-ass worldview? No way.
sukabi
@Suzanne: what’s “fun” is to ask one of these guys bitching about affirmative action hires exactly what jobs they’ve been denied in their entire careers….most of them can’t come up with one….but I’ll bet they’ll recall a time when they’ve lied to help their girlfriends get food stamps….
Constance Reader
@Urza: Plus, since you can’t vote against the existence of not-white people, you can keep the grievance train going and dodge any responsibility for action for generations. That’s also why they refuse to accept that a large part of the blame falls on the predations of corporations – they could vote against that by voting D or G or L, anything but R. (Yes, L’s are cosplaying R’s but they’ll never have enough numbers to swing an election, so voting for them is benign. There have been times down-ballot when the only candidates were L or R, so I voted L to actively deprive R of a vote.)
E.
@UncleEbeneezer: Siskiyou County. It’s a whole lot worse one County south in Shasta County. They’ve booted the whole right-wing political establishment there and installed slobbering fascists.
danielx
Why yes, yes it is.
The Moar You Know
@MomSense: not good enough, as a response. Do things for the rest of the wage earners. Show your work. SHOW IT TO THEM. Don’t just assume “a rising tide lifts all boats” because we’ve been told that before, and it turns out that was a fucking lie.
Brantl
@The Moar You Know: You’re missing all the people between what the minimum wage is, and what it will be, it’s not just those at minimum wage.
Suzanne
@sukabi: The reason that many people deny that white privilege is real is because they have it and they still haven’t amounted to anything. That’s harsh but it’s true.
Brachiator
@E.:
Really sad that you have had to endure this.
In some places a new wave of intolerance appears to be building and reaching a fever point.
E.
@Kay: I grew up here and I have resisted leaving all my 56 years. It’s deeply saddening. I don’t want to leave but I have no way to support myself any more here. Luckily most of these people are so awful I won’t miss them at all. But I miss what they used to be.
Baud
@sukabi:
No one has ever been prevented from praying, but they believe it’s happening all the time.
TerryTime
@Brantl: He’s also missing the fact that so many states and localities have much higher minimum wages than the federal wage, so his original argument was bogus as well.
West of the Rockies
@E.:
I’m in purple Butte County. Yeah, CA is not a pure azure parcel. It’s got lots of red pockets.
Kay
I’ll be honest with you-articles like this make me want to end Medicaid and Social Security and all the rest. None of these people defend any of the programs they use and they demonize the politicians and activists and voters who do defend them.
They’re not actually “entitled” to “entitlements”. Democrats and liberals got all of them and the Republicans and conservatives they vote for will be thrilled to take them away.
They won’t have to wear a mask! But they also won’t get the millions and millions in government subsidies it takes to treat the covid they got because they refused to get vaccinated. I can’t even imagine how much this is costing Medicaid and Medicare. Hundreds of millions.
Based upon where I live I would bet 40% or better of those under 65 are on Medicaid. Who do they think votes for that? Not them! You do.
Geminid
@Bugboy: A lot of those Confederates were drafted. A common refrain among them was “Rich man’s war, poor man’s fight.”
Brantl
@The Moar You Know:
And honestly, I can imagine a young white man encountering the “mediocre white man” jibe and being offended.
@West of the Rockies: it would offend anyone. Think about it.
It offends me, and I know that I’m the beneficiary of literally everything this society has to offer white folks, benefits that people of other racial groups will NEVER get.
That’s why you don’t frame it that way, you frame it as a black person looking for a job, driving his car, etc., can’t afford to make any mistake at all, without getting into trouble, and even then, may get into trouble having done nothing wrong.
West of the Rockies
@E.:
Oh, good lord–“State of Jefferson” territory.
Which is more Jefferson Davis than Thomas Jefferson.
Brantl
@The Moar You Know: Hope they arrest him for littering. What an asshole.
Kay
@E.:
That is sad. I have a business and although I’m sure I have lost business because I’m a public Democrat, it hasn’t been fatal. I also get a lot of Democrats so it kind of evens out. 40% is a lot of people. My husband was recently belligerently challenged by a clerk at the hardware store, out of nowhere, because he’s a Democrat. No other reason. He was rattled by it, not because he’s fearful but because it’s bizzare. We hadn’t seen that kind of behavior prior to Trump.
I had this ridiculous encounter with a Trump douche in a pickup the day of the election but I don’t take assholes who use big trucks to intimidate people seriously. What a chicken. They have to get out of the vehicle if they want to fight with me.
I love bakeries. I wish we had one. But don’t set up here. They’re getting meaner by the minute :)
Baud
@Brantl:
Not white privilege but black burden.
Baud
@Kay:
Oh wow. Do you have a bumper sticker on your car?
Brantl
@Suzanne: They don’t notice how many tickets they got out of, and how often they weren’t pulled over, when a black/hispanic/asian person would have been.
zhena gogolia
@Kay: It’s so disgusting.
IdahoGoatGirl
I can’t even walk to my mailbox without skulking around and making sure my neighbors are not home. They moved in a couple of years ago and the woman would wait and watch for me to walk past to get the mail. She would come out and bully me until one day she pushed me too far. She said the mobile morgues were not real, she had me so pissed I was in tears as I stood in my driveway and called her a fucking idiot. I tried not to engage, I tried to change the subject and now I either drive up to the mailbox or have my husband walk up. So yeah, I understand the hiding and do it myself. We should move from Idaho, but then why should I give up the natural beauty of the state, the fishing, the wildlife and my home for those assholes? I won’t.
Chris
@WhatsMyNym:
This.
However it started, at this point it’s self-perpetuating. Rural America is so suffocatingly bigoted, entitled, and aggressively hostile towards anything that isn’t constant validation that anybody who might actually be able to help it unfuck itself high-tails it for the cities at the first chance they get. What stays behind is a mess that’s constantly spiraling downwards into more of the same politics that screwed it already.
Baud
@IdahoGoatGirl:
It’s awful that they force you to act in a way that you would prefer not to. But I for one am proud you told her off.
Subsole
@E.:
I feel you. Deeply. I spent over a decade as a Dem out in west TX. I feared for my job and property on the good days. And that was before Trump gave them permission to go mask off.
I do not miss anything about that town. The only people I cared about got out about the time I did.
A bunch of people voting to slit their own throats then taking it out on the people trying to stop them. And for some reason, the important folks up on the fancy floors at News, Inc. have determined we should all coddle them.
Truly. If I could do one (just ONE) thing by fiat, it would be to force every single presstitute and pundidiot to live three years as an out and open democrat in those little towns they are so enamored of…
The Dangerman
Propaganda works, no doubt it’s contributory, but the real cause of the problem is that the other side knows, at some level, they have lost. It may not be today, this week, this year, this decade, or whatever, but their movement is stone cold fucked…
…and they’re pissed.
Rugosa
@The Moar You Know:
Payback’s a bitch, isn’t it? Women and minorities have put up with so much crap from white men for so long that a pretty mild joke shouldn’t be so hard to take.
You know what’s offensive? Being legally chattel to a white master or to a husband. Not having property rights. Not being able to vote. Not being allowed to pursue an education or a profession. Being stereotyped as ignorant or criminal. Always knowing that the white guy has a better chance at a job, and that he’ll be paid more, too.
Kay
@Baud:
No. I don’t like bumper stickers. I’m in the local paper every couple of months for something with Democrats. We also had a brick thrown at the side door window of the law office during the referendum campaign on labor unions. I know it was one of them. It’s a double paned window and they only crazed the outer pane, which amused me. Throw harder, assholes. I thought it was a frost pattern at first, walking into a dark office, looking from the inside. My assistant had to tell me the window was broken :)
I called police and they took photos of the brick on the ground and I never heard another word.
Old Man Shadow
Forty-five years of constantly being told THOSE people are Satanic baby killers who hate Jesus, America, and God from their preachers probably hasn’t helped either.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: It’s definitely gotten worse in my town too since Trump lost. Trump gave them permission to be insufferable, loud-mouthed pricks when he won, and he gave them permission to be whiny, violent sore losers when he lost.
Redshift
@The Moar You Know:
“A rising tide lifts all boats” is a fucking lie because it’s saying when the economy does better, everyone benefits.
A rise in the minimum wage causing wages above the minimum isn’t a lie or a fairy tale, it’s reality shown by lots of historical data. I’m all for telling a better story about how people benefit, but it doesn’t start with agreeing with the lie that only the lowest-paid people benefit and we have to do something else for everyone else or they get nothing.
Ohio Mom
@E.: I am so sorry for you — there’s the betrayal of the community you long belonged to, the community you were so committed to, you built them a bakery that made their lives better.
And then there is the worry about your own future, social and financial. You surely have a pragmatic side, to create and run a small business, I hope you are able to leverage those skills to make the right new life for yourself.
I know you will keep us updated so we can cheer you on every step.
Chris
@Betty Cracker:
There’s a real problem in that every election, no matter the outcome, ramps up the crazy. If they win, they feel like they’ve been vindicated and given license to indulge themselves, so they level up in crazy. If they lose, they’re furious because their country’s being taken away from them, so they level up in crazy. Happened after 2008, happened after 2016, happened after 2020.
SFAW
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
They imported (so to speak) cops from Quebec?
scav
@Rugosa: It’s also important to remember that the economic anxieties of women (all flavors) and non-vanilla men are entirely unimportant, if not completely nonexistant.
Jackie
It’s pretty toxic for Democrats in my Red south central district in WA. Lots of “FY Biden and FY for voting for Biden” stickers on big trucks. Several Trump flags displayed proudly. Loren Culp – a Trump wannabe who lost his bid to oust Gov Inslee – is now running to primary 4th Congressional District Rep Newsom (who voted to impeach Trump) and has just been endorsed by Trump. Yay us.
In 2020, Benton County had Culp for Governor yard signs EVERYWHERE. Only a few brave Inslee signs were visible.
It’s going to be ugly around here for the next several months.
eversor
Race and religion (religion gets you lgbtq, abortion, sex, gender roles, women in power all in one) and then guns are there to get their way on race and religion.
I’ve got in-laws in that area for them it is 100% about religion. The thing is they aren’t doing Christianity wrong. The horrific thing is that the freaks like Dreher are doing Christianity right. It’s the none violent fundamentalists who are doing it wrong. And worse, just like good conservatives, or good Republicans, all they do is give an excuse not to deal with the problem of Christianity.
That’s why on Jan 6th they were praying, carrying crosses, flying the Christian flag, and had signs covered in psalms and prayers. It’s why the warm up for Jan 6 was the Jericho March and explicitly Christian.
I don’t see a solution other than waiting this out till the younger generations get into power and saying “I’m a Christian” get’s you in as much hot water as saying n-clang.
gene108
@The Moar You Know:
Seems to me the energy of most Democratic activists focuses on issues that affect a “very small part of the American________(fill in the blank)”.
Not wanting to leave marginalized people behind is important, but not something that directly impacts the lives of most people, and has been used successfully against Democrats by right-wing media.
I really don’t know the solution.
Cermet
This is 100% the so called fake (aka fox) news and the rest of the media that is their echo chamber. If a thug does something terrible, the fake news ignores it and the regular news quickly drops it for the next sound bite. But if anything, even minor occurs for a dem, the fake news screams 24/7 and the regular media has to focus on it as well. So everything and I mean everything bad always seems to be dem related because the thugs have the shrill called fake news.
UncleEbeneezer
@artem1s: It’s a WHITE, rural and suburban perception problem. The Black people in the rural/suburbs don’t fall for this shit.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
What I’ve been thinking more about lately is why they believe the propaganda. I think it is that some are offended by white people bashing, which I also get. But that isn’t all of it. Obama did focus more federal spending on urban areas to address a real need. These places had been neglected. Trump reversed it, and concentrated federal dollars into rural areas. They aren’t irrational for being happy about that.
In general, though, rural America is taking a beating, in part, BECAUSE the GOP keeps cutting taxes. Their roads are falling apart and they really resent it when they see nice roads in the cities and suburbs. Granted, when resources are limited, you have to do cost benefit analyses on where you spend your dollars and those ARE going to go where most tax payers live.
The opioid epidemic also really hit hard, which Democratic administrations really haven’t done enough to deal with. Trump didn’t either, but at least he talked about it. It doesn’t matter that the resources weren’t there because the GOP has fought subsidizing drug treatment for at least a generation. They felt ignored.
They are suffering from brain drain. What is left are the few people who can work there plus the dysfunctional who can’t leave. Right wing media just keeps emphasizing over and over that everyone BUT them is getting help and plays the liberal white bashing on repeat.
What they see is that Democrats focus on things that they consider to be urban problems. No matter how racist the locals are, racial equality isn’t seen as a big issue if a community is 99.99% white. Gay rights and trans rights are seen to be attacks on their ability to raise their children without those ‘satanic influences’. Plus, programs to prevent poverty versus needed infrastructure investments? Food stamps, disability, and the like don’t go very far in urban communities. Those people are really poor. But if you are living in a trailor on land your family has owned for generations while supplementing your diet with hunting and gardening? You can live really well. Plus, its easy to cheat, because it costs too much to police cheaters in big areas with low population density. The people who work really hard in these communities and make very little are resentful of it.
Nothing is going to change if we don’t at least acknowledge these issues.
VeniceRiley
“I won’t miss you at all. But I miss what you used to be.” Is a great final sign to put in the window of your empty shop when you go.
Just One More Canuck
@West of the Rockies: They might think of themselves as Proudfoots (Proudfeet!) but too many people are like Bill Ferny
Subsole
@E.: I am sorry to hear this. I spent a long time out in the middle of oil country Texas, so I feel you. I feared for my job and property on the good days, and that was pre-Trump.
The nicest thing I can say about the region is that it was full of people who religiously voted to slit their own wrists, then shot at the paramedics who came to help while blaming the folks who had tried to stop them in the first place.
And yeah, Godabove help you if you stuck out. At all.
The only good thing I can say for them is they taught me how…negotiable a concept whiteness really is. And how utterly, irredeemably hollow conservatism is. Those folks believe all kinds of stuff, but they don’t stand for shit. Look at their embrace of Trump if you doubt it.
Moved to the city a couple years ago. Much, much better. Makes you see how ridiculous the whole conservative grievance treadmill is. People hating folks they’ll never meet for looking down on them…as if the city folks are stopping to think about Bent Pecker, Texas even once in a year…
robmassing
“The larger political problem facing the Democratic Party” is that Republicans are the party of hate and violence and fascism, and people are afraid.
Baud
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
What’s the basis for you stat on federal spending and talking about opioids? Not saying your wrong, but it would be news to me.
UncleEbeneezer
@Betty Cracker: The problem is White Fragility (and Male and Christian etc.) is so ingrained and powerful that there really is no way to advocate for marginalized groups that won’t be seen as preachy or judgmental. Such a simple phrase as “Black Lives Matter” caused half (probably more) of our country to freak the fuck out and feel attacked. Lincoln nailed it with his Cooper Union speech. Anything less than “Racism is good” will get you an extremely defensive reaction from 40+% of voters. And a lot of Independent and Swing Voters just don’t want there to be ANY discussion about Racism/Sexism etc.
When someone says they think Dems are too “preachy” maybe ask them why preaching is bad. Assuming they have a religion (most likely) they spend several hours every week listening to preachers. And don’t they want their politicians to follow and amplify the insights/wisdom of preachers?
Baud
@UncleEbeneezer:
Meh, preachy is bad. It turns me off. But you are correct in your analogy to the Cooper Union speech.
Kelly
@E.: There is a busy park across the river from us. The first election after we moved in I wanted to put up signs for the candidates and measures we support. Great visibility! Mrs Kelly said absolutely not. She’s right. Might have been OK at first but by now we’d have assholes in big pickups with “OREGUNIAN” decals driving by.
Subsole
@Old Man Shadow:
This is part of it.
Never forget the pastor giving an overtly political sermon about Obama. At my granddad’s funeral.
Not enough millstones, man. Not. by. half.
Suzanne
@Rugosa:
What I find most hilarious/obnoxious about it is that “mediocre” is only an insult if you conceive of yourself as exceptional. But of course not everyone is exceptional, the term would have no meaning. Literally, mediocre means the average. But we’ve built a social hierarchy in which white dudes as a cohort got to think of themselves as exceptional. To the point that even the note that they are probably AVERAGE is considered OFFENSIVE.
Betty Cracker
Around the turn of the century, I thought maybe the internet would change the urban/rural opportunity imbalance by allowing more people to work from home or from outposts outside of cities. (I realize lots of people flee the sticks for non-career reasons, but it is a driver for many.) It didn’t happen then, but it sort of has since the pandemic, at least in some sectors. I don’t know how it will shake out.
cain
@Brachiator: This template was also used by the British Empire where they used hate to control the populations of the country they control – except it is social media to spread the messaging.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Oh no, you mean 2000 and not 1900. Slow down, time, SLOW DOWN!!!
matt
@IdahoGoatGirl: I was looking at a state by state map of approval for mask mandates – Idaho was 50th. Sad situation.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Kay:
Oh I hear you! I find myself thinking that too. Ultimately, though, I wouldn’t support ending those programs. I would consider sinking real money into policing aid program cheats in those communities, though. I know it would cost more than it would save, but that isn’t the point. Resentment about the cheaters helps undermine support for those programs.
matt
@Betty Cracker: At least at my company, the option of going somewhere low cost and working remotely is pretty restricted. You have to put yourself into a ‘remote worker’ self ghettoized status that involves incrementally lower pay based on cost of living in exchange for never having to go in to the office.
cain
@IdahoGoatGirl: I would not waste being angry. If you want to piss her off, make her seem like she doesn’t matter. Entitled people hate that.
UncleEbeneezer
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: Hillary had an extensive and detailed Opioid policy. And the Biden administration has been doing a bunch. Dem Sen. Markey is currently proposing legislation as well, but my guess is that not enough Republicans will go along to let it come to a vote. Without Googling, I’m also gonna hazard a wild guess that Obama and Dem Congress tried to push for various forms of legislation but that the GOP prevented them from happening.
Hungry Joe
@E.: Your sad tale makes me acutely aware of my own bubble: blue neighborhood in increasingly blue San Diego, about every fourth house on our street an LGTBTQ iteration, muttering with neighbors during dog walks about the two Trump flags (out of many hundreds of houses) that have recently re-appeared, putting out any damn yard sign we want — with the only response being knocks on the door from people who want to know where they can get one. The peace of mind that all this generates is incalculable.
Get out. It’ll change the way you feel almost every minute of the day. You’ll see. Good luck.
Ruckus
Everyone gets it.
It is about getting and keeping the monied in the money. faux news is a perfect example of the bullshit that conservative politics will make you rich. If you follow the policy exactly. The policy is that you follow them. The policy is not that you get better off it’s that those who own faux news and their “friends” get rich. They not so subtlety imply that if you support conservative policies, your life will get better. It is of course a fucking lie/bullshit/propaganda. Conservative politics will never give you anything but an excuse as to why you are not living in a mansion, driving a Rolls, eating high on the whatever, jetting around the world and that excuse is democrats/liberals and the lie of equality. What liberal policies will do is exactly what they say theirs will do and their’s never, ever, fucking does, because they are fucking lying their asses off. But decades of convincing people who never see different around them that they are right and democracy is wrong has worked.
Someone on here the other day said that we have to actually talk more about policy, about what works and who is fucking them. And that is true. Whenever President Biden does something good for the country/people, conservatives lie about it and do it for themselves. faux news requires vaccines to work there but lies about what the public should do and what the government is doing to them. No masks, vaccines, closure. All of which has made the pandemic far worse than it needed to be. And it’s that way around the world, in almost any actually monied country the money grubbers/conservatives have argued massively against actual science because it would have fucked with their precious bottom line for what 3-6 months. While keeping massive amounts of people alive. We had an insurrection over keeping the worst example of conservative politics in charge so the conservative money class could keep the scam going. And look how well it didn’t work in actual liberal areas. It worked in areas that are fucking their own constituents over money – conservative areas. (Yes you have to take into account that most liberal areas are much more densely populated and in a pandemic will suffer worse – but don’t have to, conservatives live there too.)
J R in WV
KInd of OT update from our WV hollow:
The day after I brought Wife home from the hospital, our deep well pump died and we lost our water supply. Today a new pump was hung, plumbed and wired, so water is now abundant again.
Hurray!!!
Also had a visit from the mechanical contractors who take care of our HVAC and house plumbing. He cleaned parts that deal with condensate from the furnace burner, did not find errors from the various computerized sensors, etc, so no parts replaced, just maintenance work.
An afternoon nap is looming on the horizon…
Also, Wife is doing OK, trying to get stronger for planned surgery sometime in the not too distant future, using a walker to help keep her balance walking in the house. New prescriptions make her daily medication management a bigger hassle. Otherwise the new home health support folks seem to be kind and helpful youngsters.
It is difficult to type with a cat standing on your tummy and arms…. ;~)
cain
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
The cheaters themselves are Republican voters.
Ella in New Mexico
I think it boils down to the fact that most of these people have inherited brains wired to reduce anything that provokes uncertainty, fear or anxiety.
In my experience with my husband’s Republican family members who live in rural Pennsylvania, I have found that they have always voted R since before Reagan (being Republican is an identity, not a party) like black and white answers to things, tend to be “churchy” and rigid in their tolerance of different social or moral views.They don’t want to see things change because they perceive change a potential loss of control which is very threatening.
They have not gotten out of the area in which they live for any length of time to see the bigger world, and tend to associate with the same people they have been friends with since kindergarten. They don’t like to try new things, from food to activities to music. So not only would it be threatening to be different from their typical selves, they would lose their social support. So it’s constant reinforcement they choose, not new ideas and exposures.
Now, even wrapping themselves in their bubble of comfort doesn’t completely block the message from the rest of the world out there that life is changing, society is progressing, the world is asking them to keep up with the rest of us. Which is why they only tune into FOX Spews and Radio Rethuglican: they are reassured that it’s not them. They’re the good guys, the victims, actually. They don’t have to change–its “those other people” who need to change. Keep life cozy for them.
I don’t really have a lot of hope for flipping these people, any more than I have hope of turning an introvert to an extrovert. I can only hope they’ll die out, as their choices lead to their numbers decreasing over time.
I
Soprano2
@West of the Rockies: Oh, absolutely it’s real. They think of privilege as having money, so when you mention white privilege they say something like “I’m not privileged, I’ve worked hard for everything I have, I never got a government handout how dare you imply that I’m privileged”. If I get the chance, I tell them it has nothing to do with money, but instead is all about the assumptions people make about them, that they have the privilege of being seen as an individual by society while the black or Asian or Latin or gay person is seen not as an individual by society, but as a representative of their group, and every person in that group is tarred by the actions of one bad individual. Sometimes they actually get it. Sometimes I ask them how they’d feel if everyone thought they were just like someone like Timothy McVeigh or Jeffery Dahmer, for example.
UncleEbeneezer
@Baud:
• Black people should be allowed to vote
• Women deserve equal pay
• LGBTQ kids shouldn’t be bullied
• The rich should pay their fare share of taxes
Are any of those “preachy” to you? Because I’m guessing the people who say the Dems are too “preachy” are just using that as an excuse because they don’t like the statements Dems are making.
Obama was hella preachy, often using preacher-style oratory and yet he was/is extremely popular. Bill Clinton too. Reagan too, though obviously he was preaching for evil. And all were electoral juggernauts. Some of our most famous/beloved public servants were/are preachy.
Starfish
@ian: Yeah, I was going to point this out. It is not the Democratic brand that has gone bad. It is the Republican violence and terrorism that has gone totally unchecked. Republican violence and terrorism is not violence and terrorism, it is first amendment and second amendment rights, but only when Republicans do it.
Baud
@UncleEbeneezer:
Preachy is a style. It’s not about substance. Obviously, some people can “preach” well, and others can’t, and the latter turns people off. It’s like how some people can do humor better than others.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
GOP (and a few Dems) obstruct good legislation, the media ignores, and folks say “why won’t Dems do (or talk about) X?”
Soprano2
If I ever hear people here talking like that, I ask them how it’s possible in this heavily Republican, 90% white area that Democrats and black people are responsible for the increase in crime. That usually makes them go away, because they don’t want to think about that.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Baud:
https://www.rd.usda.gov/newsroom/news-release/trump-administration-highlights-record-levels-investment-2020-build-rural-american-prosperity
https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-shifts-focus-of-transportation-grants-from-city-to-country-1522242005
Subsole
I don’t have much to add.
I think a lot about sundown towns. Rosewood. Black Wall Street.
Even if we lived apart, like some folks advocate, gave them the whole town, they’d pile into their trucks and DRIVE to us, to hurt us.
Because their hate, their fear, are all they have. If Jesus came down on a golden sunbeam and plucked those emotions out of their hearts, they’d dry up and blow away.
It’s like an old Bradbury story I read when I was, like, 14. All the black folks were emigrating to mars, and filing by an establishment run by the local Klan. One calls out
“What you gonna do at night, now, Mr. Teece? What you gonna do with yourself?”
Soprano2
@UncleEbeneezer: This is an argument that Amanda Marcotte has been making. She says being a Democrat used to be seen as fun and cool by young people, but now it’s just gloom and doom and all the fun has been sucked out of it by constant talk of how we can’t accomplish any of our goals.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: Agreed. I think the key is to convey moral concepts without coming across as self-righteous. Tricky!
kindness
I live in a red part of California. I can’t avoid dealing with idiot Trump humpers. More often than not when I’m talking politics with those folk, they are shocked to learn some of the things I support are things they support. They believe our side are traitors and unfit to be considered fellow Americans. Usually after a bit they tell me I’m not a liberal and I’m fooling myself. I tell them they believe lies of what we think, not what we actually think. They refuse to change their minds about our side and prefer to think I’m the one who is crazy. I let them because who has time for crazy tribal idiots in life? Not me.
Baud
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
The first is a Trump administration press release. I have no idea how they cooked the numbers.
The second involves only a small shift the transportation budget.
I thought there would be stats about overall spending levels across all areas.
Ruckus
@WhatsMyNym:
People are weird.
They like what they know. Food, where they live, their politics, the local market, their hairdresser/barber, etc.
A better way to say it is that people like what they are used to, because different might be worse. And faux news reenforces that day in and day out. “What you have is better than the crap we show you!” Strange isn’t it that all they try to show/tell you is crap?
Subsole
@Soprano2:
Which is part of the reason so many people are jumping on the socialists with both feet when they complain about things.
James E Powell
I know I am tossing this question into the wind, but does the AP or the FTFNYT ever publish articles from places where Republicans and Trump are regarded with fear & loathing?
The only Democrats they talk to are “But Some” Democrats bitching about something.
Ksmiami
@E.: eventually they’ll be on disability from Covid.. so take heart
Philbert
@Betty Cracker: We can dream rural broadband might keep some of the kids not having to move away for decent work.
UncleEbeneezer
@Soprano2: Anyone can get it. Everyone here probably has:
• Been called out on our privilege
• Felt bad/stung/attacked, whatever…
• Sat with it and thought about it for a bit
• Realized that yes, it’s true: we do have various forms of privilege
• Went about our day, work, lives and hopefully being better people now that we see how privilege works
It’s a fairly simple process that any mature adult can go through, and frankly should go through. It’s like understanding that some girl/boy that you are attracted to may not be attracted to you. Accepting that fact and moving on.
I’m so tired of the way we (not you or anyone in particular here, but our society in general) continues to act as if being aware of our privilege is some horrible and incredibly onerous burden. It really isn’t.
Admitting that I don’t have to worry about being killed by the police the way that Black people do, or being sexually assaulted the way women are, or snatched up by ICE the way Undocumented people do etc., really isn’t that hard. Not compared to actually having to deal with those things as members of those marginalized groups must. I really wish there was a way to drill this into the heads of people of privilege. We as a society spend way too much time coddling people from actually acknowledging and confronting their privilege. Sorry for the rant. Like I said not aimed at you :)
Brachiator
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
So then you say, “Well, shoot, I’m doing OK. I don’t need no minimum wage. And I don’t want my taxes raised to help take care of anybody else. They should be able to do like I do and scramble to feed themselves. Those lazy people are just taking my money.”
Kinda hard to address this myopia.
Steve Gravelle
Keep in mind, the smartest, hardest-working 60% (or so) of every high school class has been leaving these places as soon as they can for the past 60 (or so) years. So this is what’s left.
Miss Bianca
@Betty Cracker: Oh, don’t get me started on rural broadband. And the fact that the most regressive elements in my county are actively monkey-wrenching plans to improve broadband access, on the grounds that it might mean Those People (ie, anyone not a white straight Christofascist) might be able to move here and make a living! Can’t have that! So yeah…we also can’t have good broadband access for remote schooling, either. But since all the kids should be in school anyway, infecting everyone around them to the point where the school and county shut down because they’re all sick…it’s all good. Really. Trust them.
Soprano2
@artem1s: In my city anytime someone from out of town asks on the “You know you’re from Springfield” FB page where they should buy a house the vast majority either say “anywhere but in Springfield” or “as far south as you can get” (which means away from the ‘black’ part of town, which is where I live). One person was actually honest about it; he drew a map with a line running east and west; south of the line was labeled “good”, north of the line was labeled “hood”. Here is the demographic makeup of my city:
So, in a city that’s over 90% white, they feel like they cannot live in the part of the town where the majority of minorities live. I can only imagine what the panic here will be like once that number reaches something like 80%. We don’t have voter suppression here because the minority population is so small, but I think once it reaches 20 or 25% it’ll start happening here.
UncleEbeneezer
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: Forgot to add this and missed editing window:
Biden’s Action on Opiods
Miss Bianca
@Soprano2:
That’s a good way to approach it! I’ll have to remember that one.
Chris
@Ella in New Mexico:
The analogy I keep coming back to is that the difference between small towns and urban/suburban environments is basically the difference between high school and college. One of them is much more small, more close-knit, and more of a controlled environment. Therefore, it’s much easier to end up with a suffocatingly conformist hell, where the cool kids dominate, the outcasts and weirdos find it very hard to find other people like them or forge an identity that won’t be immediately squashed by the social consensus, and everybody else is struggling furiously to ensure that even if they’re never Cool, they at least never fall all the way down to Weirdo.
The people who loathe their small towns and fucked off to the big city as soon as they could are, disproportionately, those weirdos who never fit in. The people who loved their small towns and stayed there their whole life are the people who had it good in high school. (And, arguably, peaked there).
Citizen Alan
@sukabi:
Ooo! Ooo! [/Arnold Horshak voice] I’ll play!
When I was 20 or so, I applied for a clerical job for which I was not particularly qualified and didn’t get it. My mother, an incorrigible gossip, spread the sad news among all her friends. The next Sunday, I went with her to church and was startled when FOUR different people (including the preacher!) came up to me to pat me on the back and reassure me that “they probably had to give it to a black.” FOUR!
I consider that the moment I understood what white privilege was: the mindset that it was an inconceivable violation of the natural order that a (hypothetical, since I had no idea who even got the job) black person could be more qualified for something than a white man.
Soprano2
@Baud: You mean like the fictional “we can say Merry Christmas again!”. I always ask them when it was they couldn’t say that, and they have no answer.
Chris
@Miss Bianca:
There’s also John Scalzi’s explanation: having white male privilege is like playing a video game on the easiest setting. It doesn’t mean you won’t still have setbacks! It doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed to win! It doesn’t even mean you won’t have to work hard to get to the end! But literally every obstacle you encounter is one that would have been harder to overcome if you were the same person you currently are, but with black skin/the female gender/wev.
Citizen Alan
@Baud: Hell, they still think Obama somehow prevented them from saying “Merry Christmas” until Trump restored their right to do so.
Betty Cracker
@Subsole: Lots of young folks think the democratic socialists are the “fun and cool” Democrats.
agorabum
The number one message Fox puts out is “Democrats hate you and want to hurt you.” It’s important for them to feel that their hate is a reaction to something someone else did (“Look what you made me do!”)
Miss Bianca
@Chris: Yeah, I like that one too. I’ve actually used that one with my white techbro acquaintances who get really textbook-style offended at the notion of white privilege because yeah, I get it, “you’ve worked hard all your life, you’ve earned everything you’ve gotten,” etc.
Philbert
@Miss Bianca: Well, I did say dream.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@UncleEbeneezer: Of course, Hillary had detailed plans. She is awesome. Under Obama, the epidemic exploded and it wasn’t a big focus. When I said Democratic administrations, I also meant governors. Jay Nixson didn’t make it a big focus in Missouri, for example, though he really should have.
Subsole
@Betty Cracker:
And this grumpy old centrist is fine with that!
I just wish their actions didn’t make helping them so damn hard sometimes. Or that some of the loudest of them cared more about getting it done than they do about being cool and fun.
Soprano2
There is one video with a country song that makes this so obvious. The singer, a big burly guy in a plaid shirt with the sleeves torn off and driving a big truck pulls up beside a city slicker lawyer type in preppy clothes driving a car. The attractive woman with the preppy man casts longing looks at the burly singer as he revs up the pickup, and the preppy man sneers and looks down his nose. Then they race, the burly singer pulls ahead in his pickup while the preppy man’s car stalls out. The singer laughs as he pulls away. I mean, they couldn’t make it any more obvious what the message is; I couldn’t tell you what the lyrics to the song are, but the message is crystal clear.
Kay
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
I’m sorry but it’s infuriating. During Obamacare – which was GREAT for rural hospitals, btw- the CEO of our local for profit hospital wrote an op ed in the local newspaper complaining that he would have to cover his employees if it passed. I brought it up to Sherrod Brown and Brown told me NO ONE calls his office more demanding health care subsidies like rural hospitals do.
I’m sick of them lying constantly, is the thing. 40, 50, 60% of what holds these places up is government spending. Medicaid, housing vouchers, food stamps, various Social Security programs. Just stop lying. Then we can debate health care. The health care they all use and that the government pays for.
It is disrespectful to rural people to treat them like children who have to be coddled and “reached out” to. Let’s just treat them like everyone else. They’re not addled 6 year olds – they don’t require an interpreter from the NYTimes political desk. I’ll be happy to talk to them- I already do- but it’s not going to be based on some bullshit where they’re bootstrapping and rugged and hate government because it’s not true.
Soprano2
@Subsole: OMG that is so awful.
UncleEbeneezer
@Citizen Alan: I have been pulled over multiple times but never been asked to get out of the car or had police gun pulled on me. I know several law-abiding, Upper-middle class Black colleagues who cannot say the same.
Hell, I RAN from police (multiple times) when they busted up keg parties I during high school and I didn’t even THINK about the possibility that they might shoot me. We all ran and laughed about it one time. Another time, the police ended up catching us and just gave us a ride home and a stern talking to with our parents. Talk about White Privilege…
Ruckus
@UncleEbeneezer:
This.
The world has changed and will change more. Conservatives are fighting hard against change because that is what conservatism is all about, conserving what is. Change is scary to them because much of what is changing is against their ideal of things are OK. And we talk like we agree with them AND WE DON’T. I’m in my 8th decade and I’ve seen the world change massively in that time. Much for the better and much not nearly enough. If you are 40 yrs old, the world will not look like it’s changed as much as if you are 3/4 of a century old. Because it hasn’t. It takes time to change, or a big event like a pandemic. Look at work, a bigger percentage work in offices now and how many places found out in a pandemic that working from home can be as or more productive? Quite a few. Do most people need to get up, commute to work, sit at a computer for 8 hrs and commute home? No they do not. When I worked in professional sports I worked in an office, when I was in town, which for about 8 months a year was one or two days a week. I could have just as easily done what I did in the office at home, now. We had employees that came into the office 1 or 2 days a year. They worked on the road the rest of the time.
The world has changed massively in my lifetime. It will continue to change but that change will happen slowly because humans. Some humans are afraid of change because it might get worse, some are afraid of change because it might lower their BS social standing. Some are afraid of change because someone might get a freedom and prove themselves to be a better human. Some humans are really selfish, and some not so much.
Soprano2
@Subsole: OH god, part of the Martian Chronicles, that was a great story.
different-church-lady
It’s just how bullying works.
Jeffro
My son and I were joking around the other day about how much fun it would be to get a seriously HUGE pick-up truck, put a gun rack in the back (no gun, just the rack), ‘truck nuts’ on the hitch, the whole nine yards…and then plaster the back with AOC and ACLU bumperstickers.
Maybe even print a few of our own: something like “flaming libs open carry too”, “if you don’t like socialism, defund the police”, etc.
Heads would be exploding ALL OVER central Va
Kay
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
If they really want “government” out of their lives we can do that. It could all end tommorrow. All the subsidies and programs and payments- gone. If they don’t actually want that then they are going to have to stop saying they do and say something real and specific about what they do want, and if it’s “we get the benefits but no one else does” that’s a non starter.
They can’t just be “the opposition” because they don’t actually oppose any of these things. What they are now is not “the opposition”. What they are now is free riders. It’s like I’m paying union dues and they get all the benefit of the contract, while insisiting they hate me, the contract and the benefits.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Brachiator: “Kinda hard to address this myopia.”
It is human nature to resent it if you work hard for little and other people are doing well without working as hard. That will always be an issue. What mitigates that resentment is when the people who are getting help seem to genuinely need it. Do I resent the urban poor who get benefits in my community? No! Anyone with eyes can see they need help. I have met people in rural areas who are cheating the system. Even when they are reported for being a cheat, nothing gets done. That DOES undermine faith in the system.
@cain: “The cheaters themselves are Republican voters”
I’m sure some of them are. The ones I have met don’t bother to vote.
UncleEbeneezer
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: Dems are not free of fault. My point is, anyone who uses Dem failure on Opioids as a justification for voting GOP, needs to explain why they would support the GOP who DIDN’T EVEN HAVE A PLATFORM (let alone a plan for Opioids) in 2020 and now again in 2022. Biden at least campaigned on doing quite a bit to address the problem.
Citizen Alan
@Ksmiami: I am LIVID at the thought of people who petulantly refused to get vaxxed showing up in 5 to 10 years demanding SS disability in such numbers that it bankrupts the system.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Kay: Agree completely.
Ksmiami
@Citizen Alan: I only hope they die quickly
Chris
@Kay:
Honestly, this is literally everything.
I still remember hearing my wingnut uncle debating with my dad around the time the teabagger movement started up and saying something like “it’s just that you can’t just keep spending your way out of every problem, we’ve got to be responsible with our money at some point…” … And, just ignore the actual argument for a moment, the only appropriate response to that would have been “David, you’re full of shit.” We’re supposed to pretend for the sake of civility that you were deeply concerned with all the spending in the Bush era, pretend that you didn’t spend the last eight years completely ignoring record deficits, and pretend that you’re going to keep caring about this issue you just discovered the second a black Democrat is no longer in the White House? Fuck no. You’re transparently lying because you don’t want to say out loud “if it’s being spent on These People, I’m against it” or “if it’s being done by a Democratic president, I’m against it.”
It’s why I refuse to even engage with them and have for years and years. Even when it isn’t deliberate trolling, every “argument” you’ll ever have with a conservative is happening in bad faith. I completely understand if you don’t want to actually go there because it would destroy the relationship, but for God’s sake, stop engaging with stuff that they transparently don’t even believe themselves. Just talk about the football season or the latest movie or the nephew’s upcoming wedding or something.
Ksmiami
@Soprano2: in reality, the woman is scared burly guy has a gun and will not abandon her preppy city slicker as he owns the entire town singer lives in and they are just driving through making sure rents are paid….
Kay
And Democrats supposedly patronize rural white Republicans. Political reporters don’t even hold them to normal adult standards for behavior. They’re somehow not accountable for their individual actions in this town. Instead it is the fault of professional Democratic political operatives. It’s like “the savages in this rust belt town …”
Could there be anything more patronizing?
Brachiator
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
RE: “Kinda hard to address this myopia.”
People assume or create false images of lazy, non-working people. Anything to rationalize their resentment and hatred.
And some people who lie and cheat think it is OK for them, but wrong for anybody else.
Real life example. I was skimming YouTube for tax related videos. Two real actual, honest to God videos from a “Tax Consultant.”
The Democrats are giving poor people money they do not deserve. Tax credits bad.
How to get tax credits for your business and pay zero tax. Tax credits good.
Citizen Alan
@UncleEbeneezer:
About 10 years ago, I had a friend who bitched that he’d never had the benefits of white privilege. And I looked him straight in the eye and said “I was FUCKING WITH YOU in the car that time you got stopped at a police checkpoint when you didn’t have your wallet or any ID, had clearly been drinking, and weren’t even wearing A FUCKING SHIRT! And the cop just shook his head and waived you on through!”
He at least had the decency to blush and say “yeah, that probably wouldn’t have gone that way if we’d been black, I suppose.”
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@UncleEbeneezer:
The logic goes more like this, “The Democrats always say they are going to help, but then they just help people in the cities. At least if I vote Republican, they’ll defend my family from the gay agenda and protect my job from the immigrants.”
We are NEVER going to align with rural voters on social issues. However, I think it is possible to undermine some of the hatred if we do address the issues we agree on. Or, as Kay suggests, we just say ‘screw it’ and give them what they are asking for by ending all those programs at the federal level (or converting them to block grants). A lot of people would suffer, though.
Citizen Alan
@Kay: I’ve said for decades now that most Republicans would be perfectly fine with Scandinavian Socialism if there was a way to ensure that only white Christians got it.
UncleEbeneezer
@Soprano2: Another good way to simply illustrate privilege, especially to conservatives is to note that simply by being born in the US, they can own a gun. Whereas had they been born in China (and stayed there) they would not. Simply by being born in one place vs. another (that they have no control over) determined whether or not they get awarded a crucial right, that they did nothing to earn. That’s privilege. Same goes for the right to go on Facebook and criticize the govt etc.
IE- You didn’t do anything to get that right and your doppelgänger in China did nothing to NOT get that right. That is the privilege of US citizenship. You were just lucky.
Lyrebird
THANK
YOU
MR. (if appropriate, begging pardon if not)
IAN!
Totally agreed on wanting to be part of the “how” of changing it, but when you’re one of the people being demonized, it’s really hard. Part of why I left rural PA. Over-educated female head of household, obviously multiracial children, no guard dogs, you think I am going to put up a yard sign there?
Brachiator
@UncleEbeneezer:
It’s even crazier than that.
GOP: Vote for us!
Voters: What’s your agenda?
GOP: McConnell says vote for us and we tell you our agenda later.
More craziness. The Republicans are falling back on racist attacks. “Democrats want to hand out crack pipes.” Their drug policy, even opiod treatment is being demonized as catering to non-white dope fiends, the only people who use drugs.
And then they will still come around with “The Democrats hate innocent lamb white people who have some kind of mysterious substance abuse problem.”
UncleEbeneezer
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: These people are so exhausting. I appreciate those of you who have these conversations in the wild. I don’t know if I will ever have the patience to do so without having my head explode.
I bounce back and forth between the optimistic vs. pessimistic view/approach depending on the day (hour).
geg6
@Brantl:
The people around here would laugh in your face at that. They’d say he’s probably a drug dealer or his mom was a single mom who got loads of government handouts and on and on and on. This idea that talking rationally to these idiot scum people will work is beyond laughable.
I don’t go to local bars or restaurants any more. I only hang out with my family and friends. I was doing this long before COVID. The last time I sat at the bar in our local (as in across the street from our house) watering hole, some asshole threatened to follow me out to the parking lot and fist fight with me. And I’m a woman over the age of 50. This was in 2016 and was all because I didn’t agree with him that Donald Trump would be the best president we’ve ever had. When he said it, I kinda gave a little laugh, thinking he was at the other end of the bar and wouldn’t even notice. My John and the bartender had to take me out to the car for fear he’d try to sucker punch John and/or me on the way to our car. We have gotten takeout from there and all local restaurants (it’s a small town) ever since.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Brachiator:
In small towns, they do really know the cheaters. They grew up with them. There really are lazy, non-working people in these communities. Its not false if they exist. I am not at all saying they EVERYONE getting government benefits is a cheat. I’m not. I’m saying that by letting some people get away with openly cheating, it undermines faith in the whole system.
On this, we completely agree.
Chris
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
They have to actually accept the help before they can complain that the Democrats never help people who aren’t in cities.
The ACA literally made a ton of money available to people in all fifty states, with no discrimination whatsoever between urban/blue and rural/red. Half the states in the Union – the ones with people complaining that “Democrats never do anything for us” – refused to take the money. In their obscenely entitled minds, this translates as “Democrats never do anything for us.” Like, we sent you a bus, a boat, a helicopter. What were we supposed to do, knock you out and forcibly throw you into them?
The Moar You Know
@Soprano2: Irony: song and video written, performed, and filmed in California.
The song is probably performed by those two dopes from Florida/Georgia Line, whose ghostwriters (same production team as Nickelback’s) write about prayer and Republicans and the good old white boy country life in a southern drawl so manufactured I find it offensive. They both now live in Los Angeles. Oddly enough, they don’t advertise that.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Chris: This is true.
Brachiator
@Citizen Alan:
Increasingly, there are also right wing Scandinavians saying the same thing.
Suzanne
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
I remember when we moved to Mesa, AZ, when I was a kid. It was my family’s first time encountering Mormons in significant numbers. Many of the families had eight children or more, and usually only the dad worked. I remember when my mother found out that it was very common for those families to have free or reduced lunches and breakfasts due to their income. It pissed my mother off a great deal, as she was divorced and working, didn’t qualify, and she hated that they voted Republican while taking benefits for their own families while lecturing others about responsibility.
Chris
@The Moar You Know:
The most revealing thing about Republicans, Democrats, and the societies they create will always be that the vast majority of Republicans who have the money for it always end up living in or in close orbit around a big blue city.
Even, maybe especially, the cultural elites. Tucker Carlson lives in San Francisco, Donald Trump moved to Palm Beach after a lifetime in New York City, Pat Robertson lives in Virginia Beach. These are rich and famous people who could live anywhere they want. They could move to rural Alabama, West Virginia, or Idaho any time and be in the red heartland with the real Americans. But they don’t want to, because even the richest man in Alabama is still in Alabama. They know better than anyone how much it sucks to live in a red society; they’re the ones who make it that way.
Chief Oshkosh
@ian: Yep. I know a small businessman in western NC who’s town’s elected leadership has actively tried to run him out of business for years solely because he is a Democrat, and they are very clear and open about why they were doing it. Hell, the guy is a veteran, a combat Marine, a pillar of the community, volunteers for youth initiatives AND retiree initiatives. Married to his high school sweetheart, two grown kids; right out of a Norman Rockwell painting. Shit, he’s even a white country boy. But, he’s a Democrat, so he must be a commie child molester somehow. Of course, it just galls them that he’s successful in family life and in business.
Chris
@Chief Oshkosh:
There’s nothing they hate more than a Godless Commie who did capitalism better than them.
It reminds them that no matter how incessantly they talk about their supposed values, at the end of the day, they’re full of shit.
Salty Sam
I think I see the problem!
Chief Oshkosh
@E.: I’m so sorry this is happening to you. Good luck wherever you move. Reactions to Covid certainly have been revealing. Some of the worst reactions I’ve experienced are from people who I would have never guessed in a million years would’ve reacted as they have. I think in some instances, Covid amplified the darkness in their souls. For others, I think Covid broke something in them. Either way, everyone else has to deal with the hideous behavior. Again, I’m sorry this is happening for you and I hope you land on your feet in your new place.
Subsole
@Kay:
O Jesus don’t get me started.
I lost count of the number of rural hospitals who depended on reimbursement for indigent care to stay open, voted for a Republican, then squalled like a scalded goose when the people they voted for CANCELLED THE MEDICARE EXPANSION AND REIMBURSEMENTS THAT KEPT THEM VIABLE, and blamed it on that uppity community irganizer from Chicago.
Like I said. They slit their own throats, try to stab the paramedics that show up, and blame the whole mess on the people who told them it was a bad idea from the jump.
And they’ve been doing it since Reagan!! That, more than anything, is what makes their incessant passive aggressive simpering victimhood so infuriating!
Literally the only people they’ve ever been victims of is themselves!
They victimize themselves then turn around and victinuze everyone else because they don’t have the sand to face the fact that they victimized themselves!!
And I’m sorry, but after almost half a century, they’re not even victims anymore – they’re just assholes.
Chris
@Salty Sam:
“Look, learning to use a computer is simple! All you need is a desk, a chair, and some common sense.”
“I got the desk and the chair!”
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Suzanne: I believe it. I’ve often thought the way you could smash through the right wing propaganda machine is to have a Democrat who decided to really go after cheaters.. TANF, disability, taxes, all of it. It would cost more than it saved, but when people in these small towns actually saw enforcement happen, they would support it and support that Democrat. They love seeing the guilty get punished.
Chris
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
You’re assuming that they or the people they identify with aren’t themselves the guilty, which of course they commonly are.
When you say “they know who the cheaters are,” part of that equation is that they’re okay with many of the cheaters, because they’re good people who really deserve it. (See also, “that makes me smart!”)
Subsole
@Kay: I have long maintained that the Beltway wants a white noble savage to give them validation and provide them a distraction from the myriad neuroses that come with being an ivy-educated suit and tie yuppie in a nation that dies not value such things.
They want white folks to be salt of the earth pragmatic self-made savants out of Fenimire Cooper, too sly to fool, too simple to lie. Speaking the florid poetry inherent to people rooted in the soil, but also talkin’ authentic down-home cornpone dialect like a piedmont peasant farmer. Defined by ancient spirutual traditions and folkways and utterly unconcerned with culture – which is just yuppiespeak for “entertainingly benighted”.
Soprano2
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: Trust me, they all know someone who cheated the system and got away with it. The difference is, if the person is well-off they admire them for it, but if they’re poor all they feel is scorn.
Chris
@Soprano2:
It really can’t be said enough how hideously snobby and class-conscious red state society is.
Not the finance and oil and media tycoons who own the GOP, but the average guy on Main Street.
Soprano2
@The Moar You Know: Nope, that’s not him. It’s not a duo, it’s one guy. What’s funny is he has a long pony tail. I’ll have to try to see who it is the next time I see the video. It’s the most blatant of the “country grievance” songs I’ve seen.
Brachiator
@Subsole:
Sadly, this is not a mystery. There would be no budget deficit, and plenty of money for the right, white people, if only the Democrats did not insist on giving money to undeserving people.
ETA: This is how certain right wingers think everywhere. Or the lies they use.
In the UK.
Tories: Vote BREXIT. Undeserving immigrants are taking your jobs AND keeping your wages low.
Suckers: We voted for BREXIT. We still don’t have good jobs.
Tories: The evil European Union is doing something bad to prevent full BREXIT from happening. Keep voting for us and we will make Britain great again.
The suckers keep falling for this because a simple lie is easy to sell.
Chris
@Brachiator:
Brexit is an exceptionally ironic case, since it involves people driven by resentment of East European immigrants voting in droves for a campaign backed to the hilt by shady East European money. (Russian and other ex-Soviet kleptocrats need a new laundromat since EU regulations in Cyprus and American pressure on Switzerland have made those two places increasingly difficult. A Britain “freed” of EU regulations is just what the doctor ordered).
Picture the Donald Trump campaign, if Trump’s main foreign backers were the Mexican cartels.
Subsole
@Brachiator:
Every black kid who got shot dead in the street was taking drugs that increased their aggression.
Me? I’m white. I don’t take drugs. I suffer from a tragic history of substance abuse.
gvg
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
In my experience perception of cheaters is faulty. People jump to conclusions about aid programs that are not correct. They don’t actually know the rules, they don’t know what peoples income really is, they don’t know peoples health situation. I got food stamps and WIC automatically as a foster mom. Nothing to do with my income, it was for the foster kids in state custody. There are lots of situations like that, but my sister a well off doctor avoided being the one who shopped for the kids because people assumed…We were required to use some of those coupons to make us get healthy food for the kids. And I approved of it, it made sense to me, but people think they know when they are really just making stuff up.
I am a financial aid counselor and years ago I found out that people would report other cheaters based on their own imaginations. You don’t actually know what someone elses income is. If they are struggling they really don’t want you to know. You also don’t know the rules, they aren’t what you assume they are. And then there are the medical costs….that reduce their real income a lot. The tattletales never caught us any crooks. Rational audits did.
Subsole
@Chris: Honestly, at this point I wouldn’t be surprised if they were involved…hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if actual slave traders were backing the guy.
Soprano2
@Chris: It’s one of the things they love about TFG, that he smirks and winks and cheats and gets away with it. They think that makes him smart.
JustRuss
@Jackie: Most of my in-laws are there in Benton county. Several of their kids have moved near us in blue Oregon.
Frank Wilhoit
@dmsilev: never heard of the concept of sovereign airspace, has he? Now can he find a pilot who is equally ignorant. Better yet, he tries to take the bird up by himself because how hard can anything be?
dnfree
@Betty Cracker: Telecommuting was too late for the small city we lived in for 34 years, about two hours west of Chicago. It had bustling industries when we moved there in the mid-80s. I thought of telecommuting for my previous employer over a dial-up modem but it didn’t work out. But there were 4-5 businesses with viable IT jobs, or we wouldn’t have moved there. (We moved for my husband’s job.)
Fast-forward to now and the good jobs and industries are gone. The hospital and school district are the biggest employers. The school district is something like 70% free and reduced lunch, shorthand for poverty, and the IT and middle-management jobs disappeared with the industry. If my husband were offered a job there now, we wouldn’t take it: no job for me, mediocre or worse schools for the kids. It’s really too bad. There are a lot of people working to bring out the best in the town, and even more people just badmouthing it. But when things reach a certain level it’s hard to recover.
Wvng
@Salty Sam: Yep. I live is eastern WV, across the state from the blogmaster. Been watching the “they’re coming for you guns” and “they kill babies” lies reliably work since at least 2004, and the number of reasons not to support and to hate democrats have just proliferated with every new lie pushed by rw media. It just feels toxic. Our county Democratic executive committee might not even exist now because it feels so hopeless. Our state has benefited tremendously from actual Dem policies but I don’t think policies matter at all. Butthurt matters, grievance matters.
Wvng
@Chris: Most country folk I know know “cheaters” in their neighborhood or even their own family and have nothing but disdain for them.
Ella in New Mexico
@Chris:
i really think you’re on to something here. I can say that’s what I’ve seen, anecdotally, in my life history.
Frank Wilhoit
@Ruckus: No longer “conserving what is”. Now it is about conserving what never was.
jame
I blame Republicans. They’ve done wrong for decades.