NYT - Timothy Egan: How the insufferably woke help Trump

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

By Timothy Egan | The New York Times

Among the people I love is a sibling who works at Walmart cleaning toilets at night in a thinly populated part of eastern Oregon. She’s been there more than 25 years and has trouble saving a dime and certainly no path to retirement. She’s likely to vote, again, for President Donald Trump.

No matter how much I point out that Trump is trying to take away her health care protections by litigating to kill Obamacare, that his tariffs have made it harder to pay her bills, that he is the most repulsive and creepy man ever to occupy the White House, she holds firm.

Why? One reason is what she hears from the other side. Many Democrats, she says, are dismissive of her religious beliefs and condescending of her lot in life. She’s turned off by the virtue-signaling know-it-alls.

It’s no mystery why so many Democrats can no longer connect to the white working class. Progressives promise free college, free health care, free child care, and scream in bafflement, What’s wrong with you people?

No doubt, some of those people are racist and xenophobic. But many others simply feel insulted and dismissed. And these are voters who can still be persuaded to save our country from a disastrous second term of a corrupt and unstable president.

Barack Obama, still the smartest politician in the land, knows this; a week ago, he rightfully called out the call-out culture that marginalizes so many people who are ready to vote against Trump.

“This idea of purity and you’re never compromised and you’re always politically ‘woke’ and all that stuff,” he said, to a round of applause. “You should get over that quickly.” He was talking about an attitude, not necessarily policies — an attitude that dominates the bullying fringe of his own party. Predictably, he was called out for being paternalistic, with a boomer attitude.

If anyone should feel victimized by social media hatred and cancel culture of a different sort it is Obama. More than a third of Republicans tried to delegitimize him, believing in the monstrous falsity that he was born in Kenya.

Joe Biden has picked up Obama’s charge against the puritanical keepers of undiluted progressivism, in self-defense. He wrote this week of a “my way or the highway” approach that is “condescending to the millions of Democrats who have a different view.” He said, “It’s representative of an elitism that working and middle class people do not share: ‘We know best; you know nothing.’”

For the record, I’m agnostic on the Democratic field. I would vote for a tree stump if it could beat Trump. Biden, Obama and Nancy Pelosi, along with recent polling and the election results Tuesday, all show that the best way to rid this country of Trump is for Democrats to dial back the condescension of their natural allies and dig into the gritty concerns of daily life.

Pete Buttigieg, looking to pick up the moderate left vote if Biden falters, has already taken Obama’s lesson to heart. “I’m not about being in the right place ideologically, whatever that means,” he said in Iowa last week. “I’m about having answers that are going to make sense.”

One of the biggest takeaways from the recent New York Times/Siena College survey of battleground states is that Elizabeth Warren is not connecting with the very people her policies are supposed to help. Trump beats her or runs even in every tossup state but one. The persuadable voters in these states, many of them working class, say political correctness has gotten out of control, and they prefer someone seeking common ground over someone with a militantly progressive agenda.

It’s worth remembering that nearly two-thirds of all American adults do not have a four-year college degree. Warren, the Harvard professor who recently suggested that moderate Democrats belong with the other party, could be more effective with these folks if she showed more of her daughter-of-a-janitor side.

You can try to win the election by expanding the pool of progressive voters overall. But the inconvenient fact remains that a relatively small pool of working-class voters in the handful of battleground states are still likely to determine the fate of the country next year.

Democrats flipped 40 House seats in 2018 and attracted more white working-class voters — without insufferable wokedness. They hammered away on health care and kitchen table concerns. The same approach helped Democrats pull off an apparent upset in the Kentucky governor’s race this week.

Next year, Trump will be the greatest motivator and unifier for a majority of Americans poised to throw him out. For his core 40%, there’s no crime or debasement that will change their minds. He can indeed shoot someone, as a focus group participant helpfully clarified this week, and likely get a pass from the Cult of Trump.

But for others, those like my sister, a word to Democrats: Talk to them. Don’t talk over them. Save the piety, the circular firing squad, the shaming on social media for after the election. Otherwise, the woke will wake next Nov. 3 to a tragedy.

[_Maksutov]

Next year, Trump will be the greatest motivator and unifier for a majority of Americans poised to throw him out. For his core 40%, there’s no crime or debasement that will change their minds. He can indeed shoot someone, as a focus group participant helpfully clarified this week, and likely get a pass from the Cult of Trump.

But for others, those like my sister, a word to Democrats: Talk to them. Don’t talk over them. Save the piety, the circular firing squad, the shaming on social media for after the election. Otherwise, the woke will wake next Nov. 3 to a tragedy.

.............

Not all are MAGgots. Some can be reasoned with. It's worth a shot. The pole smoker types are acceptable losses.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Next year, Trump will be the greatest motivator and unifier for a majority of Americans poised to throw him out. For his core 40%, there’s no crime or debasement that will change their minds. He can indeed shoot someone, as a focus group participant helpfully clarified this week, and likely get a pass from the Cult of Trump.

But for others, those like my sister, a word to Democrats: Talk to them. Don’t talk over them. Save the piety, the circular firing squad, the shaming on social media for after the election. Otherwise, the woke will wake next Nov. 3 to a tragedy.

.............

Not all are MAGgots. Some can be reasoned with. It's worth a shot. The pole smoker types are acceptable losses.

I agree that the pole smokers, ldsfats, and Ajaxes of the world are terminally retarded and nothing can be done about them. Just remember, the Left was full of hubris in 2016, and no amount of finger pointing will alleviate us from the fact that we had a role to play in our own demise.

- Doc

[_Maksutov]

Next year, Trump will be the greatest motivator and unifier for a majority of Americans poised to throw him out. For his core 40%, there’s no crime or debasement that will change their minds. He can indeed shoot someone, as a focus group participant helpfully clarified this week, and likely get a pass from the Cult of Trump.

But for others, those like my sister, a word to Democrats: Talk to them. Don’t talk over them. Save the piety, the circular firing squad, the shaming on social media for after the election. Otherwise, the woke will wake next Nov. 3 to a tragedy.

.............

Not all are MAGgots. Some can be reasoned with. It's worth a shot. The pole smoker types are acceptable losses.

I agree that the pole smokers, ldsfats, and Ajaxes of the world are terminally r____ and nothing can be done about them. Just remember, the Left was full of hubris in 2016, and no amount of finger pointing will alleviate us from the fact that we had a role to play in our own demise.

- Doc

I hear you. The Green New Deal Medicare for All fantasists have to put down the bong and start paying the bills. Protesting and resisting are warm fuzzies that have been countered and superseded. The conservatives learned organization from the leftists when they (Paul Weyrich) created the Free Congress group that finally countered the liberal dominance. The liberals need to explore other and broader strategies and a longer view. Too much focus on Trump and not the greater web he is part of. Working with limited attention spans and imaginations.

Here's Rahm Emanuel of all people making some sense:

"The Democratic candidates who have prevailed in battleground contests since 2016 didn’t embrace pie-in-the-sky policy ideas or propose a smorgasbord of new entitlements. They didn’t talk constantly about providing a guaranteed basic income. Or promising to make college free. Or eliminating private insurance and replacing it with a government-run health care system. Or giving $250 more each month in Social Security benefits. Or enacting the Green New Deal. Or calling for the immediate and abrupt end of fossil fuels. Or vowing to seize guns from people’s homes.

During both cycles, we won swing districts and battleground states by using the same playbook: sticking to an agenda that meets voters where and how they live their lives. In tone, tenor and talent, those winning candidates spoke to issues that middle-class voters face every day. Which raises the question: Why aren’t our leading presidential candidates looking to replicate that success?"

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story ... 09?cid=apn

[_Maksutov]

Doc, I found your Christmas present:

https://www.closeoutzone.com/donald-tru ... gIW3vD_BwE

And cheap!

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

I see your Jesus Trump calendar, and raise you some Rex Kwon-Do MAGA pants:



- Doc

[_Some Schmo]

So the moral of the story is, even though Trump voters have acted insufferably stupid, pretend you don't care.

Sounds a little like being a Trump sycophant.

If enough people are dumb enough to elect Trump, that is the state of the country, and people should start to reevaluate just how great this country is. If the white trash, grievance worshiping know-nothings have taken over as the dominant political force, that's what America has become.

I am not a pundit; I am simply observing the situation, and I'm not going to sugarcoat it for dummies. Nobody worries about Independents and Democrats. Why should anyone give a damn what Trump supporting morons think?

[_EAllusion]

I feel like the NYT publishes a variation of this op-ed once a week.

[_moksha]

Save the piety, the circular firing squad, the shaming on social media for after the election.

Shaming works big time for Trump. He uses it in his tweets and in every speech he makes. He leaves no doubt that he is the best one in the room. Trump does not soft-pedal, whether it is excoriating immigrants or wrapping his arms around an American flag.

[_Some Schmo]

Sen Kennedy told a Trump crowd that "It must suck to be that dumb." Apparently it's not so bad; they cheered about it. Seems to me they revel in being that dumb.