We covered the new book about white rural rage and how the Left is resorting to outright hatred of people with whom they politically disagree because Joe Biden’s re-election chances are poor right now. It’s because of these people that progress can be made in America. It’s one of the many liberal undercurrents these folks have toward those who don’t reside in the concrete jungles of America. The book, written by Paul Waldman and Tom Schaller, is the favorite porno for progressives:
This might be the most overtly racist thing I’ve seen people say on TV… pic.twitter.com/ucPnlupa0e
— EducatëdHillbilly™ (@RobProvince) February 29, 2024
They [white rural voters] are the most racist, xenophobic, anti-immigrant, anti-gay geographic group in the country. Second, they’re the most conspiracist group…third, anti-democratic sentiments—they don’t believe in an independent press, free speech…they’re the most strongly white nationalist…fourth, they’re most likely to excuse or justify violence as an acceptable alternative to peaceful public discourse.
Yet, as Matt Taibbi wrote on his Substack, this hatred toward rural voters is nothing new. Since the 19th century, the established elites have always had antipathy toward the little people, who, as Taibbi noted, were essential during the COVID pandemic. He also noted how it's a Sam Kinison comedy act behind the layers of analysis and pseudo-intellectual gobbledygook that hide the unbridled hatred toward rural communities.
Specifically, the Left wonders why these people don’t just move to the cities where things matter. They can’t afford it. Kinison had a funny bit about how we shouldn’t send any more food aid to Africa because these people should relocate to where the food is (via Racket):
White Rural Rage, which I made the mistake of reading, is a vicious manifesto in the anti-populist tradition nailed by Thomas Frank in The People, No. When rural voters in the late 1800s defied New York banking interests and demanded currency reform to allow farmers an escape from one of the original “rigged games” in finance, relentless propaganda ensued. Rural populists were depicted as dirty, bigoted, ignorant. They refused expert wisdom, represented a “frantic challenge against every feature of our civilization,” and waged a “shameful insurrection against law and national honesty.” A populist caricature in Judge magazine showed a violent, destructive idiot, a real-life Lennie from still-unwritten Of Mice and Men, standing over the defiled corpse of civilized America
The theme is back, condescension multiplied. Despite a pandemic that just graphically demonstrated the social contributions of farmers, truckers, train operators, and other “essential workers,” the people working those jobs were demonized during the crisis as murderous horse-paste eaters and insurrectionists. Their chief crimes: protesting lockdowns and school closures that disproportionately affected them, and being consumers of supposed foreign-inspired “misinformation” that led them to refuse appropriate political choices offered them.
Nobel-winning columnist Paul Krugman of the New York Times spent the last year telling “ignorant” Middle America its negative feelings about the economy are “demonstrably false,” because despite what their bank accounts or home evaluations might say, “Bidenomics is still working very well.” When White Rural Rage came out this week he rushed to review it, the intransigent refusal of yokels to accept his wisdom being his favored current hobby horse. “The Mystery of Rural White Rage” is remarkable on multiple levels, one being that after spending so much energy talking about the health of the economy, he pulls out an economic version of Sam Kinison’s classic “Move to the Food!” routine…
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“For so long,” complained Waldman on Morning Joe, “Democrats have been told… that in order to get rural voters… you have to go there… you have to show them that you understand… You have to put on a Carhartt jacket and go down to somebody's farm, right? Maybe milk a cow?”
“Yes!” exclaimed* Mika.
But it turns out, a sad Waldman pronounced, that you “don’t have to do any of that,” because Donald Trump didn’t. He just “gave [rural voters] a way to essentially give a big middle finger to Democrats, to people who live in cities and to the rest of the country.”
The Morning Joe set looked perplexed. Why would that work better than wearing a Carhartt jacket and milking a cow? It didn’t make sense.
Educated America. We’re in good hands!
Democrats aren’t the party for everyone, and their presidents are only for the established elites along the coasts and in the cities. It’s the only area where people care about pronouns and other policies that don’t put food on anyone’s plate.
On Super Tuesday, CNN broke down working-class voters and found that they’re gravitating to the GOP for these reasons—they’re the party that doesn’t mock them for not being educated, condescend to them for living in rural America, and lecture them over how they should live their lives. White working-class voters are flocking to the GOP, and it’s starting to rope in the non-white working class, which, yes, Waldman, Democrats will have to venture into these communities to reverse what could be a seismic shift in national elections. Obama went into these communities, and while he didn’t win them, he could clinch enough of this voter bloc to win two presidential elections. Hillary did not—look at the result.
The appalling lack of tolerance among liberals has been a primary driver in this ‘hate the poor rural folk’ sentiment, which is perilous since these people number in the tens of millions, most Americans aren’t college-educated, and our elections system favors geographic diversity. You will never win by just winning cities, but I won’t stop Democrats from destroying themselves.
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