Frank Rich: "No Sympathy for the Hillbilly"

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

How do you gain votes from an electorate convinced that tax cuts spur economic growth, and that healthcare costs can be lowered by letting insurance companies operate beyond state lines (whatever that entails...), that unionization of the manufacturing sector lowers workers' standards of living -- and all that other rot -- that their deeply held political principles are just shibboleths? Efforts by the Democratic Party to argue otherwise just amounts to Democrats lecturing voters that their false beliefs are indeed false -- and no likes a lecturing hectoring know-it-all.

Well, for starters, the Democrats could study how the Republicans convinced these voters of those things in the first place.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Good to see some pushback against the bizarre media fellation of Trump voters because they once drove a truck.

Yes, clearly the most serious problem with the mainstream media these days is that they pay too much attention and are too sympathetic to economically disadvantaged groups. That explains everything!

Airhead journalists are weekly dispatched in their millions to empty diners in Michigan or whatever to ask fat guys in MAGA hats if they still like Trump and then return to write fawning pieces about how this noble working man thinks lynching is good. This genre did not exist before November 8th and does not exist for any other demographic. Not sure where you got the rest of your wild extrapolation from but I understand the urge to sermonise.

"The urge to sermonize" tends to be a byproduct of having meaningful political views and at least generically caring about the deleterious impact that the smugness of the socio-political group I happen to be a part of ends up having on the goals said group is supposed to be championing. You could try that sometimes.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

I don't have the statistics on me, but I recall hearing that, despite the attempt by the Clinton campaign to win due to a combination of urban and suburban voters, it was not only the latter that failed her. At the anecdotal level, I recall seeing someone on here or the other forum repost the story of an African-American woman who asked for Hillary signs in one of the postindustrial urban Hellholes our resident bourgeois liberals loved to despise (nearly as much as they despise postindustrial rural Hellholes!) who was promptly turned away, being informed that, demographically, the campaign didn't need to devote resources to her area. Where are the articles from the "appropriate groups" condemning minority groups from failing to be appropriately enthusiastic?

[Intell]

This website has a serious obsession with defending rural voters at any opportunity and calling anyone who disagrees with placating them an elitist bigot. 

What happened to the Republican up by the bootstraps mentality.  Rural areas generally receive more from the government than they pay in taxes, this is simply a fact.

The pull your self up the bootstrap argument is the worst one out there.

[Intell]

How do you gain votes from an electorate convinced that tax cuts spur economic growth, and that healthcare costs can be lowered by letting insurance companies operate beyond state lines (whatever that entails...), that unionization of the manufacturing sector lowers workers' standards of living -- and all that other rot -- that their deeply held political principles are just shibboleths? Efforts by the Democratic Party to argue otherwise just amounts to Democrats lecturing voters that their false beliefs are indeed false -- and no likes a lecturing hectoring know-it-all.

Maybe because all of them don't believe that, especially considering how many of these voters were democrat before.

[Storebought]

How do you gain votes from an electorate convinced that tax cuts spur economic growth, and that healthcare costs can be lowered by letting insurance companies operate beyond state lines (whatever that entails...), that unionization of the manufacturing sector lowers workers' standards of living -- and all that other rot -- that their deeply held political principles are just shibboleths? Efforts by the Democratic Party to argue otherwise just amounts to Democrats lecturing voters that their false beliefs are indeed false -- and no likes a lecturing hectoring know-it-all.

Well, for starters, the Democrats could study how the Republicans convinced these voters of those things in the first place.

I think it's a form of aspirational politics (ok, magical thinking)  -- people making less than 40k a year voting for "Paul Ryan" (not that he himself represents all that working class a congressional district) because policies that favor the rich now will benefit those who hope to become rich later. The idea of voting for "Paul Ryan" to stick it to the layabouts and welfare queens was a potent motivation for voting GOP in the 1980s, but I don't think that revenge politics is so strong nowadays. In those interviews with the Midwestern Trump voters, you here a good of "Trump's rich, so he knows what to do" rather than the divisive welfare queen rhetoric.

Another aspect is identity politics, especially In TX and the rest of the South. But I don't want to go into that because I think that Democrats' attempting to change the political discourse there is mostly foolish and doomed to fail, no matter how much hope they put into NC and the Atlanta suburbs.

[JA]

How do you gain votes from an electorate convinced that tax cuts spur economic growth, and that healthcare costs can be lowered by letting insurance companies operate beyond state lines (whatever that entails...), that unionization of the manufacturing sector lowers workers' standards of living -- and all that other rot -- that their deeply held political principles are just shibboleths? Efforts by the Democratic Party to argue otherwise just amounts to Democrats lecturing voters that their false beliefs are indeed false -- and no likes a lecturing hectoring know-it-all.

Maybe because all of them don't believe that, especially considering how many of these voters were democrat before.

The overwhelming majority of Americans don't believe those things. If the polls are accurate that an overwhelming majority of Americans actually oppose Republican policy proposals, it raises the question of why they don't vote Democrat. Obviously tribalism plays a role to an extent, but the bigger issue is simply that Democrats are so incompetent and despised that even when they hold overwhelmingly popular  positions the majority of people still hate them.

87 - 10 percent against slashing of public funding for medical research
84 - 13 percent against cutting funding for new road and transit projects;
67 - 31 percent against cuts to scientific research on the environment and climate change;
83 - 14 percent against cutting funding for after-school and summer school programs;
66 - 27 percent against eliminating the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities;
79 - 17 percent against eliminating the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program
64 - 35 percent against border wall
85 - 13 percent for increasing funding for Department of Veterans Affairs
58 - 39 percent for increased military funding
74 - 22 percent against cutting taxes on the wealthy (including 50 - 43 percent against among Republicans)
73% are very or somewhat concerned about the climate crisis
59% want the US to do more to address climate change
63% are very or somewhat concerned about Trump's relationship with Russia
65% believe alleged Russian interference in our election is very or somewhat important
56 - 17 percent against Republican AHCA
57 - 30 percent prefer ACA to AHCA
54 - 40 percent disapprove of Trump

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/03/24/trump-budget-horrifies-majority-voters-poll-finds
http://www.businessinsider.com/quinnipiac-poll-shows-17-percent-of-american-support-trumpcare-ahca-2017-3
https://www.aol.com/article/news/2017/03/22/poll-majority-prefer-obamacare-to-trumpcare/21904839/
http://www.gallup.com/poll/201617/gallup-daily-trump-job-approval.aspx

Yet, these are the party numbers...

52 - 36 percent disapprove of Democratic Party
48 - 37 percent disapprove of Republican Party

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/king-democratic-party-doesn-unpopular-article-1.2993659

And the only national politician with high approval ratings is still fought by the Democratic Establishment,  is actually willing to visit "Trump country" and treat those voters like they're human beings with equal dignity, and is a self-described "Democratic Socialist."

61 - 32 percent have favorable opinion of Sen. Bernie Sanders

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/the-administration/325647-stunning-polls-show-sanders-soaring-while-trumpcare

[Oakvale]

Good to see some pushback against the bizarre media fellation of Trump voters because they once drove a truck.

Yes, clearly the most serious problem with the mainstream media these days is that they pay too much attention and are too sympathetic to economically disadvantaged groups. That explains everything!

Airhead journalists are weekly dispatched in their millions to empty diners in Michigan or whatever to ask fat guys in MAGA hats if they still like Trump and then return to write fawning pieces about how this noble working man thinks lynching is good. This genre did not exist before November 8th and does not exist for any other demographic. Not sure where you got the rest of your wild extrapolation from but I understand the urge to sermonise.

"The urge to sermonize" tends to be a byproduct of having meaningful political views and at least generically caring about the deleterious impact that the smugness of the socio-political group I happen to be a part of ends up having on the goals said group is supposed to be championing. You could try that sometimes.

I think the premise of the article is stupid 'voting against their own interests!' nonsense - for all its veneer of elitism etc. it's actually a boilerplate "maybe Trump will make the sheeple wake up!" piece. But I don't see it as any more embarrassing than the plethora of paeans to 'economic anxiety' published hourly.

I think we tend to overrate the impact of a vague sense of being condescended to - but is there anything more condescending than the aforementioned 'Chris Cilliza empathises with a laid-off steelworker' series?

[ApatheticAustrian]

besides the stupid frank rich rhetoric and the even sillier lead and headline, i think the notion that also rural white people are often playing the victim card, which is usually shoven to "urban areas", isn't the worst kind of relevation.

[Chunk Yogurt for President!]

As someone who doesn't support Trump, I want the opposition to keep him in check.  But the opposition is trying to be as ridiculous and unlikable as the Orange one himself.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

It is pretty funny how the various narratives being spun about the mysterious Midwest whites is very similar to competing colonial depictions of natives. Are they a vast tribe of aggressive unreasonable non-woke types who should be feared and despised? Are they a dying, noble breed more in touch than the effete observer? Do they merely need to be tamed and introduced to microbreweries and coding lessons so they can be brought into the brave world if the future?

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

It is pretty funny how the various narratives being spun about the mysterious Midwest whites is very similar to competing colonial depictions of natives. Are they a vast tribe of aggressive unreasonable non-woke types who should be feared and despised? Are they a dying, noble breed more in touch than the effete observer? Do they merely need to be tamed and introduced to microbreweries and coding lessons so they can be brought into the brave world if the future?

I think there's actually a lot about the current relationship between urban and rural/small-city America that replicates the metropole/periphery dynamics of colonial empires.

[ApatheticAustrian]

It is pretty funny how the various narratives being spun about the mysterious Midwest whites is very similar to competing colonial depictions of natives. Are they a vast tribe of aggressive unreasonable non-woke types who should be feared and despised? Are they a dying, noble breed more in touch than the effete observer? Do they merely need to be tamed and introduced to microbreweries and coding lessons so they can be brought into the brave world if the future?

Again and again i wonder, why this board is not .....endowed....with a "like"-Button which would make it possible for me to praise such postings without spam-posts like that.

[Oakvale]

It is pretty funny how the various narratives being spun about the mysterious Midwest whites is very similar to competing colonial depictions of natives. Are they a vast tribe of aggressive unreasonable non-woke types who should be feared and despised? Are they a dying, noble breed more in touch than the effete observer? Do they merely need to be tamed and introduced to microbreweries and coding lessons so they can be brought into the brave world if the future?

The Ohio factory worker is the noble savage of American journalism.

[Deblano]

People like this foolish, classist man make me wonder if Democrats will win back power for the foreseeable future, despite their various advantages.  I've read several articles with this kind of tone, and they all make me simultaneously angry and very worried.

The Republicans are good at campaigning and winning elections, but are terrible at governing.

The Democrats are good at governing, but are terrible at campaigning and winning elections.

[Xing]

There is a lot of this attitude ("Anyone who disagrees with me a stupid racist sexist Nazi POS!") on the Democratic side, unfortunately. (Let's not pretend that there isn't a similar attitude on the right, but I digress...) This is not a productive attitude, and it's certainly not going to serve any of us well in the future. While it's true that many Trump supporters are not going to be convinced to turn against him, there are certainly some who could potentially be swayed. The type of argument presented in this article is what has pushed many people away from the Democratic Party. Also, maybe convincing people in rural America to pull the lever in the voting booth a certain way shouldn't be our end goal. Perhaps empathy should be about recognizing that we don't have to see each other as enemies, rather than just winning elections.

One thing I do want to point out, though, is that I think that the pain from Trump winning is still very fresh for a lot of people on the left. Lashing out at those who made it possible is the only way some people have of dealing with that pain. I don't defend what Frank Rich said. Of course constantly attacking all Trump voters is not the right way to go. Still, many people saw Trump's election as a giant middle finger being shoved in their face. I know many women who think that the "lesson" from this election is that no matter how qualified and hard-working a woman is, a morally reprehensible man is still preferable. I know immigrants and Muslims who take his election as this country's way of saying "you don't belong here. This is my country. Get out."

I would urge conservatives to try and see why people are so upset about Trump, rather than dismissing them as "sore loser crybabies" or saying that they just have "Trump derangement syndrome." Empathy needs to go both ways, or in other words, "both sides need to do it."

[afleitch]

Here's the thing, the left have long fetishised the 'working man', in whatever guise it is presented because 'everything is about class' (Marx ad nauseum) and so 'why can't they be on our side?'. But sometimes class has nothing to do with it, or economics. Sometimes people who are dirt poor, have nothing and need actual help can be assholes and make bad decisions and be dismissive of people with their own problems because they aren't their problem. And that's okay; sometimes you need to let people take responsibility for their own actions and their own lack of action. Then work out why, without tearing your heart out about appealing too much to gays and urban minorities and people who want gun control.

When Trump talks of 'inner city Chicago' he know's what he's doing. Because that's where crime 'is' for some people because that's where it was in the 1970's/80's. It's where it was when people fled from there (like when New Yorkers fled to the Poconos. And Trump won't talk about NY that way because of his own interests) But this may as well be now, because the same people say 'why go to the city'? That the inner cities have some of the best adult education programs doesn't matter. That there is a serious drug problem in rural America doesn't matter.

What's also happening is that the US culturally (even low culturally) and economically is drifting back to the cities. Small town America is a bit 'bigger' than it was 90 years ago; actual small towns have been in decline since the depression. Small town America is now where families planted since the depression, either as quasi suburban communities; the heartland of Eisenhower boomer babies who were adults under Reagan - post card, commercial, tv sitcom America. Or places where people moved to find work. People still move to find work, often cross country, or to new industries.

And you have to keep on moving when the jobs move or when they disappear. That's not changed. And people can't take the piss out of modern start up industries, of new industries because somehow they are 'effete' because that's how industry has always worked. So what if they're started by trust fund hipsters; their great grandfathers opened factories and mines. The pursuit is the same and at least most of the new 'starters' on industry have an ounce of social conscience to be asking these big questions in the first place.

[Deblano]

There is a lot of this attitude ("Anyone who disagrees with me a stupid racist sexist Nazi POS!") on the Democratic side, unfortunately. (Let's not pretend that there isn't a similar attitude on the right, but I digress...) This is not a productive attitude, and it's certainly not going to serve any of us well in the future. While it's true that many Trump supporters are not going to be convinced to turn against him, there are certainly some who could potentially be swayed. The type of argument presented in this article is what has pushed many people away from the Democratic Party. Also, maybe convincing people in rural America to pull the lever in the voting booth a certain way shouldn't be our end goal. Perhaps empathy should be about recognizing that we don't have to see each other as enemies, rather than just winning elections.

One thing I do want to point out, though, is that I think that the pain from Trump winning is still very fresh for a lot of people on the left. Lashing out at those who made it possible is the only way some people have of dealing with that pain. I don't defend what Frank Rich said. Of course constantly attacking all Trump voters is not the right way to go. Still, many people saw Trump's election as a giant middle finger being shoved in their face. I know many women who think that the "lesson" from this election is that no matter how qualified and hard-working a woman is, a morally reprehensible man is still preferable. I know immigrants and Muslims who take his election as this country's way of saying "you don't belong here. This is my country. Get out."

I would urge conservatives to try and see why people are so upset about Trump, rather than dismissing them as "sore loser crybabies" or saying that they just have "Trump derangement syndrome." Empathy needs to go both ways, or in other words, "both sides need to do it."

I pretty much agree with all of this.

[KingSweden]

There is a lot of this attitude ("Anyone who disagrees with me a stupid racist sexist Nazi POS!") on the Democratic side, unfortunately. (Let's not pretend that there isn't a similar attitude on the right, but I digress...) This is not a productive attitude, and it's certainly not going to serve any of us well in the future. While it's true that many Trump supporters are not going to be convinced to turn against him, there are certainly some who could potentially be swayed. The type of argument presented in this article is what has pushed many people away from the Democratic Party. Also, maybe convincing people in rural America to pull the lever in the voting booth a certain way shouldn't be our end goal. Perhaps empathy should be about recognizing that we don't have to see each other as enemies, rather than just winning elections.

One thing I do want to point out, though, is that I think that the pain from Trump winning is still very fresh for a lot of people on the left. Lashing out at those who made it possible is the only way some people have of dealing with that pain. I don't defend what Frank Rich said. Of course constantly attacking all Trump voters is not the right way to go. Still, many people saw Trump's election as a giant middle finger being shoved in their face. I know many women who think that the "lesson" from this election is that no matter how qualified and hard-working a woman is, a morally reprehensible man is still preferable. I know immigrants and Muslims who take his election as this country's way of saying "you don't belong here. This is my country. Get out."

I would urge conservatives to try and see why people are so upset about Trump, rather than dismissing them as "sore loser crybabies" or saying that they just have "Trump derangement syndrome." Empathy needs to go both ways, or in other words, "both sides need to do it."

I pretty much agree with all of this.

This. Also:

It is pretty funny how the various narratives being spun about the mysterious Midwest whites is very similar to competing colonial depictions of natives. Are they a vast tribe of aggressive unreasonable non-woke types who should be feared and despised? Are they a dying, noble breed more in touch than the effete observer? Do they merely need to be tamed and introduced to microbreweries and coding lessons so they can be brought into the brave world if the future?

I think there's actually a lot about the current relationship between urban and rural/small-city America that replicates the metropole/periphery dynamics of colonial empires.

Post of the day. This is depressingly true, especially with the power concentrated in DC wielded as a club by competing coalitions

[dead0man]

Indeed.  Some of us are always trying to take the club away, but most of you just make the club bigger when you're holding it then bitch about it when it's hitting you a few years later, then totally forget that part of it again next time you pick it up.

[Phony Moderate]

I'm sorry but...is that this guy's *real* name?

[Tintrlvr]

How do you gain votes from an electorate convinced that tax cuts spur economic growth, and that healthcare costs can be lowered by letting insurance companies operate beyond state lines (whatever that entails...), that unionization of the manufacturing sector lowers workers' standards of living -- and all that other rot -- that their deeply held political principles are just shibboleths? Efforts by the Democratic Party to argue otherwise just amounts to Democrats lecturing voters that their false beliefs are indeed false -- and no likes a lecturing hectoring know-it-all.

Well, for starters, the Democrats could study how the Republicans convinced these voters of those things in the first place.

Race baiting (and similar, like gay baiting)? I mean, you have to accept that the reasons these sorts of voters turned to the Republicans, both in their voting patterns and in their ideology, are mostly unsavory, either explicitly, or, more often, implicitly.

[Tintrlvr]

How do you gain votes from an electorate convinced that tax cuts spur economic growth, and that healthcare costs can be lowered by letting insurance companies operate beyond state lines (whatever that entails...), that unionization of the manufacturing sector lowers workers' standards of living -- and all that other rot -- that their deeply held political principles are just shibboleths? Efforts by the Democratic Party to argue otherwise just amounts to Democrats lecturing voters that their false beliefs are indeed false -- and no likes a lecturing hectoring know-it-all.

Well, for starters, the Democrats could study how the Republicans convinced these voters of those things in the first place.

Race baiting (and similar, like gay baiting)? I mean, you have to accept that the reasons these sorts of voters turned to the Republicans are mostly unsavory, either explicitly, or, more often, implicitly.

Well there is always the fact that it is TRUE that tax cuts spur economic growth, as many economics professors would tell you.. mostly those professors would debate about how to distribute the tax cut for optimal growth.  But your point is more directly the issue... Republicans have won these voters over on cultural issues (anti-BLM, anti-gay causes)...  This board is blind if it thinks they will win these voters back by offering them free health care, etc.  Obamacare was already passed and the biggest beneficiary states aren't voting Democrat.

Agreed entirely. Social issues are a much more powerful voting motivator than economic concerns, which voters almost unanimously (wealthy and poor, urban and rural, white and minority alike) do not really understand. People talking about "outreach to the white working class voters" seem to be in denial that doing so in a serious fashion requires hurling minorities under the bus, which I for one am not willing to countenance. Any attempt at outreach that does not involve dropping minorities like a hot potato is talking past the issues on which the white working class votes.

[Hindsight was 2020]

How do you gain votes from an electorate convinced that tax cuts spur economic growth, and that healthcare costs can be lowered by letting insurance companies operate beyond state lines (whatever that entails...), that unionization of the manufacturing sector lowers workers' standards of living -- and all that other rot -- that their deeply held political principles are just shibboleths? Efforts by the Democratic Party to argue otherwise just amounts to Democrats lecturing voters that their false beliefs are indeed false -- and no likes a lecturing hectoring know-it-all.

Well, for starters, the Democrats could study how the Republicans convinced these voters of those things in the first place.

Race baiting (and similar, like gay baiting)? I mean, you have to accept that the reasons these sorts of voters turned to the Republicans are mostly unsavory, either explicitly, or, more often, implicitly.

Well there is always the fact that it is TRUE that tax cuts spur economic growth, as many economics professors would tell you.. mostly those professors would debate about how to distribute the tax cut for optimal growth.  But your point is more directly the issue... Republicans have won these voters over on cultural issues (anti-BLM, anti-gay causes)...  This board is blind if it thinks they will win these voters back by offering them free health care, etc.  Obamacare was already passed and the biggest beneficiary states aren't voting Democrat.

Agreed entirely. Social issues are a much more powerful voting motivator than economic concerns, which voters almost unanimously (wealthy and poor, urban and rural, white and minority alike) do not really understand. People talking about "outreach to the white working class voters" seem to be in denial that doing so in a serious fashion requires hurling minorities under the bus, which I for one am not willing to countenance, and anything else is talking past their concerns.

That is depressingly true the true key going forward is not "outreach to the white working class voters" but Trump like Carter is so clearly bad they aren't motivated for a second round while also putting forth a progressive dem who wins back people who protest voted for Johnson and Jill

[Associate Justice PiT]

People like this foolish, classist man make me wonder if Democrats will win back power for the foreseeable future, despite their various advantages.  I've read several articles with this kind of tone, and they all make me simultaneously angry and very worried.

     This is something I've been saying across many threads. While there certainly is time to change their tune, so many Democrats are coming forth and speaking about the situation with the same condescending tone that drove people to vote for Trump in the first place. If they learned their lesson from the party's collapse in the Midwest, they're doing an excellent job of hiding it.

Umm, perhaps his tone could have been less argumentative, but there is an element of truth that Democrats should not be completely placating voters in a handful of states just to win the electoral college.  Also, they shouldn't think that just because Michigan, Wisconsin, etc. were the closest states in this election that these are necessarily the states they must target next time.

     Reality is, this is a block of voters that used to be solidly Democratic, but has been trending Republican because they don't see the Democrats as caring about the issues they care about. Their concerns are not the end-all be-all, but it would be hard to put together a winning coalition by simply writing them. At the least, harder than it would be to put together a winning coalition by drawing them into the fold.

OK. And?  To win some voters you will turn off others.  If 100% of people wanted the same thing we wouldn't have elections.  Many of these voters are simply not in line with democrats on social issues and many people vote on social issues nowadays.  The fact of the matter is that the Democratic coalition consistently gets more votes in Presidential years and all segments of this coalition are growing in population.  To suddenly appease rural whites as a short term fix would be dumb and threaten to break apart the already fragile coalition Democrats have been building for years.

     Talking about these people like they're hardcore conservatives is a bizarre predilection of many Democrats. Sure there are plenty of conservatives and partisan Republicans in any state, but the Obama-Trump voters who swung these states really aren't a part of that. They would be quite easy to swing back, but it doesn't sound like you're interested in doing that.

     With that said, making this about Presidential elections is an ongoing strategic failure of the Democrats, who have long underemphasized Congressional and state races. Your party has been thoroughly gutted in many state governments, a trend that has been particularly marked in the Midwest. Losing power in so many states is going to have long-term effects on your ability to compete for higher offices, not to mention the mere continued failure to focus on growing state parties. The idea that the Democratic Party is in a healthy electoral situation now is frankly absurd.