Calling Republicans “weird”, and demanding “Joy”, is about as substantive a policy discusion as you’re going to get from a 2024 Democrat.
As Richard Fernandez reminded us in 2016, it’s largely Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert’s fault:
The process went something like this: Someone said something on Fox News that mainstream liberalism didn’t like; Stewart and/or Colbert aired a sustained critique of the idea and the thinking behind it; liberal internet publications hailed it as the greatest rhetorical victory since Darrow argued for Scopes; liberals’ Facebook feeds full of liberal friends filled up with clips of the takedown. No one learned anything, no one engaged with an idea, and nothing outside of a very specific set of ideas was given any real credence. As Emmet Rensin so perfectly put it:
Finding comfort in the notion that their former allies were disdainful, hapless rubes, smug liberals created a culture animated by that contempt. The result is a self-fulfilling prophecy. … Over 20 years, an industry arose to cater to the smug style … and culminated for a time in The Daily Show, a program that more than any other thing advanced the idea that liberal orthodoxy was a kind of educated savvy and that is opponents were, before anything else, stupid.As Rensin deftly discerns, this sort of intellectual elitism is probably part of the reason that the Democratic Party went from getting 66 percent of the manual laborer vote in 1948 to outpolling the GOP by just 2 points in 2012. It’s the inevitable consequence of eight years of reducing George W. Bush and all of his supporters to dumbass hicks, and choosing to denigrate the poor and uneducated (if only they read The Atlantic!), rather than doing real outreach to them. But as Christopher Hitchens learned on Bill Maher’s show, people don’t want to consider that possibility:
I – and many smarter than I – have been observing for well over a decade that the Democrat party’s messaging seems to be aimed exclusively at people who might have an MA or PhD, but left their critical thinking skills at graduation.
but left their critical thinking skills at graduation. – I would argue they are dumb enough never to have had any thinking skills, nevermind critical. Because if they did, they could tell white from black and right from wrong without anyone telling them what to think.
Unfortunately, even people that are angry enough to be somewhat open minded don’t even consider the truth of the underlying reality.
I listened to your show from Sunday, and I really appreciated your question to Reverend Tim, “How can the GOP win your vote?” I’m summarizing, but his answer was basically that the GOP needs to just successfully deliver all of the goodies that the DFL promises. *Head Desk*
Most of us here understand that government can renovate an old building (over budget), plant a politically connected non-profit that doesn’t solve anything, and keep that non-profit in place indefinitely with government funding. The locals might be able to get a couple of prepaid Visa cards, but nothing actually gets better.
Rev’s idea that the GOP can successfully do the same thing but replace the non-profit with an entrepreneur is fundamentally flawed. Without a systemic change in Minneapolis, sustainable business growth won’t happen long term.
I’m not convinced that Minneapolis’ current death spiral is inevitable. I think that the City can still recover. The issue is that it took decades to get here and it happened because the voters kept voting for politicians that were further Left than the existing politicians. Until the voters repeatedly vote for less Woke Leftists, the City Council will keep charging ahead to their Leftist Utopia.
“but left their critical thinking skills at graduation.”
no, this cohort of the educated elite never dove into the Critical Thinking pond, instead they excelled in their ability to embrace and extend Received Knowledge
I must dare suggest that the proportion of “low information voters” is such that the thinking skills needed to maintain a society are…disintegrating before our eyes.
Remember when “populism” was a lefty brand? Today, globally, populism is conservative in nature though you might not recognize it by the new “far right” term used to lump anyone who doesn’t agree with the elites. Global populations are finally having enough of the lies and gaslighting and are taking their frustrations out at the ballot box – and on the streets. Trump is the figurehead of the same process in the US, but it is a global reaction.
The elites are justifiably scared after Italy, Germany, the Netherlands and much of the European Parliament have gone more conservative. Meanwhile, France cobbled together a Left and Farther Left coalition to defeat LePen’s National Rally in a deal very reminiscent of 1934 Spain and will likely see a similar result since the largest block of voters are rebels. And while the UK managed to get a Leftist PM who is doing lefty totalitarian things, the public is now fighting things out in the streets. Unbridled immigration, failing economies, rampant inflation and taxation are having their predictable effect.
Funny story: When we were touring some Mayan ruins earlier this year our Mayan guide told us that it wasn’t the Spaniards that ended the Mayan civilization. “That was gone 300 years before the Spanish arrived.” He said the Mayan elites maintained their power by convincing the rest that they had favor with the gods and could control the weather. After 7 years of drought, the people rose up and said, “What do we need you for? Go throw YOUR babies in the cenotes.”
Today’s leftist elites are really pretty poorly educated, but more than a few paid attention in history classes.
I listened to your show from Sunday, and I really appreciated your question to Reverend Tim, “How can the GOP win your vote?” I’m summarizing, but his answer was basically that the GOP needs to just successfully deliver all of the goodies that the DFL promises. *Head Desk*
I was in a back and forth on FB last night about Trump’s shortcomings vs Walz’s shortcomings (among other things, bone spurs vs stolen valor). The guy asked “Why do you think African Americans have voted overwhelmingly Democrat for the last several presidential elections?”
I answered his question with one sentence, which also applies to Reverend Tim’s instance above:
LBJ was a smart and shrewd politician.