I have read both that left-wing scold Thomas Frank’s “Listen,
Liberal” screed and J.D. Vance’s autobiographical “Hillbilly Elegy,” both of
which excoriate left-wing elites for ignoring the pain of hillbillies, blue
collar worker and white working class. Vance, however, despite his redneck
upbringing and subsequent Yale law degree (he now works for Trump enabler Peter
Thiel) was honest. Much of the problem is that these people (mainly
Scots-Irish) are very much responsible for their own circumstances. They have
been trouble for several hundred years, and wallow in their checkered ancestry.
They resent “outsiders” -- like Northerners, blacks, Hispanics, educated people etc., but turn to an elitist who double crosses them by
pretending to be an outsider. They are strung out on meth, they lie in bed when
they don’t feel like showing up for work, disdain school, and get government
handouts while blaming minorities for taking “their” livelihoods.
These hillbilly redneck racist dropouts who voted for Trump may
not be able to tame the Wall Street or media Jews (and anti-Semitism is what is
really behind a lot of this), but they certainly have had plenty of
opportunities they bypassed for getting an education and saving money rather than
bowling, boozing, and having multiple marriages and affairs. And that, friends,
is the only thing that binds them to Trump – cavalier sex and financial
irresponsibility.
So, I would ask the liberal and Democratic pundits who blame
themselves for ignoring the white working class to shut up and actually, this
time, blame the “victim.”
I was strongly opposed to Sanders on grounds of governing
competence and temperament. But now, in weighing whether he could have beaten
Trump, I realize that he was a terrible campaign strategist, too. He SHOULD have
cared about her “damn emails.” Doing so would either have defeated her or inoculated her.
Hillary won more votes than Trump but in the wrong places, so “we” ARE in the majority, and maybe we
should divide up and move to swing states. In the meantime, the evil that lives
after us is named “white working class.”
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