Many I speak to can’t believe the Trump/Vance victory is real. Two weeks later and they are still in shock. Some I know are thrilled. I’m neither shocked nor thrilled.
First, you significantly presume the characteristics of Trump as being the characteristics of the people who voted for Trump. That's a very distorting presumption. It never even occurred to me to see my neighbors as being like Kamala Harris, for the mere fact that they voted for her. How is that a real way to understand real people? (That's old style stereotyping. It's wrong in principle in this case, and it's wrong in fact.)
Here are the top three reasons, among many others, that voters swung toward Trump in this election cycle:
1) Inflation makes wage earners, people who typically live paycheck to paycheck, poorer, week by week. (An overwhelming majority of people fit this description.) The pinch gets tighter every time they go to a cash register, every time they go to a gas pump. The Democrats’ answer to inflation was the “Inflation Reduction Act,” a one trillion dollar government spending program. (seriously)
2) The wage/labor market is extremely competitive. Increased availability of low wage labor puts downward pressure on wages in the markets in which those laborers compete. The Democrats’ answer to the huge influx of people at the border, of low wage labor and competing needs, was to not answer; to look aside, to pretend to be helpless as they helped immigrants into the country. (seriously)
3) Donald Trump is a person. He presents as a person, albeit a very flawed one. Kamala Harris acted as a professional presenter….a construction of the Democratic Party…a messenger of the moment’s DNC positions on everything. This election wasn’t a referendum on Trump against Harris; it was a referendum on him, a person, against them, a giant partisan political machine.
I’d distill the Democrats’ problem down to this: they couldn’t hear the cries of the people they were trying to help because they were filled with belief in the great plans they hold for those people. They, the college educated financially stable Democratic political class, were somehow able to stay focused on a better tomorrow while the people they were trying to help moved backward, in the present.
Generally speaking, people want their lives to improve. They want that improvement today, this month, this year. How much of today can you put aside in pursuit of a better tomorrow? Answer: as long as you feel financially secure today, you can focus on [an abstract vision of] tomorrow. But if you don't feel financially secure, how much of today can you put aside? Almost none. When you have little, there is little to give up. And tomorrow...what about tomorrow? That's why the impatient focus is on improvement today, now, on what matters most. ("The rent is due next Tuesday. The refrigerator and cupboard are almost empty.") Improvement today, in what matters most, is a normal person's road to tomorrow.
What matters most. To the voter. Today. [No excuses.] Understand, big guy?
Actually, yes. It may be that I should not have titled the piece as I did (I did not intend the presumption you attribute to me). I agree with--and have made--your 3 points in conversation with people. I'm constantly amazed at how people on the left don't realize they are talking down to Trump supporters and don't realize what those supporters (or those who are borderline supporters) want. Combine "it's the economy stupid" with really bad leftism that speaks down to people, and you have our current situation. (So maybe the title is fitting, though it shouldn't be taken to have that presumption you attribute to me.).
I regret that. It was, in retrospect, a snarky call to view the election not from your perspective, but from the many-faceted views of the voters who chose the candidate.
Sorry for the snark. It's not a pretty look. (I'm not a snarky type.) It's nasty. It reflects some of my now raw feelings. I regret that.
I'm in that second category of voters "who find the man appalling but [...]" I've been routinely insulted and denigrated for years now, in sudden knee-jerk reactions from left-leaning people, for merely indicating that I have doubts about a current Democratic policy (read: "doctrine"). Merely indicating a difference with Democratic policy is typically treated as a pro-Him indicator, a de facto shibboleth, and a priori evidence of hate and moral rot in "a person who speaks that way."
They don't even let me get to a discussion. The moment they get a hint of "where I'm coming from," I get a couple of presumptuous insulting barks intended to address *them*, not me. They then terminate any further conversation, exasperated. I am left standing as a lingering problem in the room. Their disdain does not dissipate quickly. I try to leave them alone. I certainly, promptly, go quiet.
All of that happens in seconds, and I have to ask myself what it is that I said that warranted that reaction.
Ironically, I'm an unusually warm person, comfortably open to all kinds of people. I'm much more tolerant of differences than most people. After years of being treated like the spawn of Satan, rarely having even engaged in argument, I am angry. I hope you're not one of "them." I suspect you are not. (Them are the intolerant, illiberal, dogmatic, narrow-minded people who have been attacking me, without reasonable justification, for years.)
I’m with you. I don’t think of myself as a particularly warm person, but I think I am a very fair person, open to hearing different points of view. I admit I tend to judge people, but on all sides and without condemnation. (More “wow they seem to know alot and have a very different perspective” or “oh, they don’t know what they’re talking about; nice they agree with me, but better if they knew more.”). That said, I’ve had the sorts of experiences you describe. A lot. With people on the left and on the right. Perhaps more on the left. Not sure.
It's funny. It seems evident to me that you are not of the problem people. If you were, you might have at least slipped in a *concerned* word of caution to me, or a hypothetical question to elucidate why people would react to me as they do. (Rarely, in addressing me, do they not use the term "MAGA," which is kind of ghastly to me.) You might have explained why sensitive people who believe in our institutions might be upset by people like me. (???) They always understand why people get upset with me. They don't understand why I wouldn't want to be less objectionable. And all of that is offered without even knowing my differences, or my manners.
It's astounding how wide and undiscerning their "MAGA net" is. By their incessant teaching, I now share the same space in the world as hated ones. I am, they say, MAGA. And that has become true in a very important measure: MAGA and I are hated the same way by many people on the left. MAGA and I now have the same political adversaries. I have been cast, by them on the left, to be among the "deplorables." It's an extraordinary exercise of bigotry, now second nature, widespread and common in the Trump-hating population.
Fortunately, I have a rich sense of humor. This time is probably more bizarre for me than it is for them. A lyric comes to mind: "Clowns to the left of me...jokers to the right...here I am, stuck in the middle with you." LOL.
There’s a lot of that. It’s one of the reasons the far left is killing the left. They push out those who are moderate left, many of whom then actually move to the right. (Fortunately, some of is stay moderate… but then usually party-less.)
Generally speaking, people want their lives to improve. They want that improvement today, this month, this year. How much of today can you put aside in pursuit of a better tomorrow? Answer: as long as you feel financially secure today, you can focus on [an abstract vision of] tomorrow. But if you don't feel financially secure, how much of today can you put aside? Almost none. When you have little, there is little to give up. And tomorrow...what about tomorrow? That's why the impatient focus is on improvement today, now, on what matters most. ("The rent is due next Tuesday. The refrigerator and cupboard are almost empty.") Improvement today, in what matters most, is a normal person's road to tomorrow.
Improvement. In what matters most to each voter. Today. [No excuses.] Understand, big guy?
First, you significantly presume the characteristics of Trump as being the characteristics of the people who voted for Trump. That's a very distorting presumption. It never even occurred to me to see my neighbors as being like Kamala Harris, for the mere fact that they voted for her. How is that a real way to understand real people? (That's old style stereotyping. It's wrong in principle in this case, and it's wrong in fact.)
Here are the top three reasons, among many others, that voters swung toward Trump in this election cycle:
1) Inflation makes wage earners, people who typically live paycheck to paycheck, poorer, week by week. (An overwhelming majority of people fit this description.) The pinch gets tighter every time they go to a cash register, every time they go to a gas pump. The Democrats’ answer to inflation was the “Inflation Reduction Act,” a one trillion dollar government spending program. (seriously)
2) The wage/labor market is extremely competitive. Increased availability of low wage labor puts downward pressure on wages in the markets in which those laborers compete. The Democrats’ answer to the huge influx of people at the border, of low wage labor and competing needs, was to not answer; to look aside, to pretend to be helpless as they helped immigrants into the country. (seriously)
3) Donald Trump is a person. He presents as a person, albeit a very flawed one. Kamala Harris acted as a professional presenter….a construction of the Democratic Party…a messenger of the moment’s DNC positions on everything. This election wasn’t a referendum on Trump against Harris; it was a referendum on him, a person, against them, a giant partisan political machine.
I’d distill the Democrats’ problem down to this: they couldn’t hear the cries of the people they were trying to help because they were filled with belief in the great plans they hold for those people. They, the college educated financially stable Democratic political class, were somehow able to stay focused on a better tomorrow while the people they were trying to help moved backward, in the present.
Generally speaking, people want their lives to improve. They want that improvement today, this month, this year. How much of today can you put aside in pursuit of a better tomorrow? Answer: as long as you feel financially secure today, you can focus on [an abstract vision of] tomorrow. But if you don't feel financially secure, how much of today can you put aside? Almost none. When you have little, there is little to give up. And tomorrow...what about tomorrow? That's why the impatient focus is on improvement today, now, on what matters most. ("The rent is due next Tuesday. The refrigerator and cupboard are almost empty.") Improvement today, in what matters most, is a normal person's road to tomorrow.
What matters most. To the voter. Today. [No excuses.] Understand, big guy?
Actually, yes. It may be that I should not have titled the piece as I did (I did not intend the presumption you attribute to me). I agree with--and have made--your 3 points in conversation with people. I'm constantly amazed at how people on the left don't realize they are talking down to Trump supporters and don't realize what those supporters (or those who are borderline supporters) want. Combine "it's the economy stupid" with really bad leftism that speaks down to people, and you have our current situation. (So maybe the title is fitting, though it shouldn't be taken to have that presumption you attribute to me.).
But also: why am I "big guy"?
I regret that. It was, in retrospect, a snarky call to view the election not from your perspective, but from the many-faceted views of the voters who chose the candidate.
Sorry for the snark. It's not a pretty look. (I'm not a snarky type.) It's nasty. It reflects some of my now raw feelings. I regret that.
I'm in that second category of voters "who find the man appalling but [...]" I've been routinely insulted and denigrated for years now, in sudden knee-jerk reactions from left-leaning people, for merely indicating that I have doubts about a current Democratic policy (read: "doctrine"). Merely indicating a difference with Democratic policy is typically treated as a pro-Him indicator, a de facto shibboleth, and a priori evidence of hate and moral rot in "a person who speaks that way."
They don't even let me get to a discussion. The moment they get a hint of "where I'm coming from," I get a couple of presumptuous insulting barks intended to address *them*, not me. They then terminate any further conversation, exasperated. I am left standing as a lingering problem in the room. Their disdain does not dissipate quickly. I try to leave them alone. I certainly, promptly, go quiet.
All of that happens in seconds, and I have to ask myself what it is that I said that warranted that reaction.
Ironically, I'm an unusually warm person, comfortably open to all kinds of people. I'm much more tolerant of differences than most people. After years of being treated like the spawn of Satan, rarely having even engaged in argument, I am angry. I hope you're not one of "them." I suspect you are not. (Them are the intolerant, illiberal, dogmatic, narrow-minded people who have been attacking me, without reasonable justification, for years.)
I’m with you. I don’t think of myself as a particularly warm person, but I think I am a very fair person, open to hearing different points of view. I admit I tend to judge people, but on all sides and without condemnation. (More “wow they seem to know alot and have a very different perspective” or “oh, they don’t know what they’re talking about; nice they agree with me, but better if they knew more.”). That said, I’ve had the sorts of experiences you describe. A lot. With people on the left and on the right. Perhaps more on the left. Not sure.
It's funny. It seems evident to me that you are not of the problem people. If you were, you might have at least slipped in a *concerned* word of caution to me, or a hypothetical question to elucidate why people would react to me as they do. (Rarely, in addressing me, do they not use the term "MAGA," which is kind of ghastly to me.) You might have explained why sensitive people who believe in our institutions might be upset by people like me. (???) They always understand why people get upset with me. They don't understand why I wouldn't want to be less objectionable. And all of that is offered without even knowing my differences, or my manners.
It's astounding how wide and undiscerning their "MAGA net" is. By their incessant teaching, I now share the same space in the world as hated ones. I am, they say, MAGA. And that has become true in a very important measure: MAGA and I are hated the same way by many people on the left. MAGA and I now have the same political adversaries. I have been cast, by them on the left, to be among the "deplorables." It's an extraordinary exercise of bigotry, now second nature, widespread and common in the Trump-hating population.
Fortunately, I have a rich sense of humor. This time is probably more bizarre for me than it is for them. A lyric comes to mind: "Clowns to the left of me...jokers to the right...here I am, stuck in the middle with you." LOL.
I do appreciate your moderating voice.
There’s a lot of that. It’s one of the reasons the far left is killing the left. They push out those who are moderate left, many of whom then actually move to the right. (Fortunately, some of is stay moderate… but then usually party-less.)
Oh, and apology accepted. Thank you.
Thanks for that. Regrets.
Generally speaking, people want their lives to improve. They want that improvement today, this month, this year. How much of today can you put aside in pursuit of a better tomorrow? Answer: as long as you feel financially secure today, you can focus on [an abstract vision of] tomorrow. But if you don't feel financially secure, how much of today can you put aside? Almost none. When you have little, there is little to give up. And tomorrow...what about tomorrow? That's why the impatient focus is on improvement today, now, on what matters most. ("The rent is due next Tuesday. The refrigerator and cupboard are almost empty.") Improvement today, in what matters most, is a normal person's road to tomorrow.
Improvement. In what matters most to each voter. Today. [No excuses.] Understand, big guy?
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