That's not really liberal, that's more of a rampant Hilary supporter thing.
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Vox: The Smug Style in American Liberalism
- Thread starter Jintor
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That's not really liberal, that's more of a rampant Hilary supporter thing.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
That's being pissed at people who place a small amount of personal satisfaction higher than the real consequences of a national election
-Pyromaniac-
Member
Great article that articulates thoughts I've felt on occasion but couldn't put into words.
The author's thesis seems to be referring to something deeper than just politics and superficial "smugness" - she seems to be referencing a "cultural" liberalism, which is distinct from any political philosophy -
She acknowledges this type of thinking can exist in any sociopolitical construct, but that it has somehow attenuated the message of liberal political values.
The early portions of the article reference how the aura of liberalism evaporated from the lower working class around the 1950s, and started to permeate into, as she calls it, "elitist" outlets, such as national news publications and popular media -
Interesting article.
She acknowledges this type of thinking can exist in any sociopolitical construct, but that it has somehow attenuated the message of liberal political values.
The early portions of the article reference how the aura of liberalism evaporated from the lower working class around the 1950s, and started to permeate into, as she calls it, "elitist" outlets, such as national news publications and popular media -
Interesting article.
JesseEwiak
Member
No, Bill Maher's the right kind of liberal because he hates Muslims and college kids too.
BennyBlanco
aka IMurRIVAL69
I just read that entire thing and it was a great read. Thanks OP.
It is not the facts that need to be walked back, it is the attitude that attached to it that slyly implies that that these people pretty much should not vote.
Or the one that cannot fathom that perhaps these people may simply have different priorities.
Ex:
Gay Republicans. Is it so hard to accept the idea that some of them might value other things more than they do their sexuality. That they may define themselves by certain things they think more important?
Gentleman Jack
Member
These tendencies are far from endemic to the left. In fact, a lot of the 'smug style' is itself adopted by far right social media circles, convinced that 'the media' and 'big government' have brainwashed 'elites' into pursuing an agenda that is ruining the America that red-blooded patriots like you and me grew up with. Why else would the clarion call of the last several decades worth of conservative politics be on a foundation of 'taking back America' from one un-american influence or another, be it Barack Obama, human rights campaigners or Black Lives Matter? Don't these entitled crybabies get how great america is? If we just made America great, they'd all get with the program, after all!
Stubborn tribalism is a problem but this laundry list of an article isn't helping by fucking that chicken over and over again. Ok, so that wonkette blog goes a little far. People on the internet clearly waste no time in proclaiming their moral an intellectual superiority to a famous face, this happens even outside of a political context. All the time.
The column does touch on the best path, obviously. Empathy. Assuming that the other person over there that doesn't agree with you is still a person who can be reasoned with, or at the very least, deserves better than a name call and a cold shoulder, would do wonders to undo the corrosive split that American politicians stir up every cycle, and it would be nice for a change if wedge issues lost their impact because everyone had awakened to the manipulation and said 'go fuck yourself, Mr/Ms Candidate.'
That's because Republicans turned being liberal into a bad thing around that time.
It's a good thing nobody suggested that then.
God Dayumm
Banned
Conservatives are having the same problem. Isn't this the same kind of salt that Hillary supporters throw against Bernie supporters? : http://www.mediaite.com/tv/msnbc-guest-trumps-alt-right-fans-childless-single-men-who-masturbate-to-anime/
It's the game of politics. To me, it's fun
Writer trying to meet a big word quota?
I'll take the "smug" defense of one's beliefs over the anti-science, anti-intellectual, occasionally violent and bigoted defense system of that other party referenced.
"Smug" is a subjective and generalized minimization of a complex political viewpoint
I'll take the "smug" defense of one's beliefs over the anti-science, anti-intellectual, occasionally violent and bigoted defense system of that other party referenced.
"Smug" is a subjective and generalized minimization of a complex political viewpoint
Every single person here felt it this election season, because liberal smugness turned towards itself, and they know it.
If you are a fervent Sanders supporter, you felt it when people talked down to you for not knowing enough about policy or being too much of a dreamer, even when they added nothing of substance to the debate.
If you are a fervent Hillary voter, you felt it when people continually said you are not liberal enough, and you are voting against your own interests. You've seen the dismissal of minorities as uninformed, and the south as irrelevant.
If the outcome of the past couple of months doesn't cause some self-inspection, I don't know what will.
If you are a fervent Sanders supporter, you felt it when people talked down to you for not knowing enough about policy or being too much of a dreamer, even when they added nothing of substance to the debate.
If you are a fervent Hillary voter, you felt it when people continually said you are not liberal enough, and you are voting against your own interests. You've seen the dismissal of minorities as uninformed, and the south as irrelevant.
If the outcome of the past couple of months doesn't cause some self-inspection, I don't know what will.
I'm sure a lot of it too is just rampant anger in general for anyone outside of your mindset, with Hillary happening to be the cornerstone rallying point for this election. A lot of people seem to make wrong and mean assumptions about the character of someone who doesn't vote democrat in every single election throughout their life no matter what. Hopefully over time though that will change...
...but not today. Sigh.
JesseEwiak
Member
Cool. Have different prioties. That's your right. But, if stopping women you don't know from making reproductive choices, stopping gay people you don't know from getting married, and stopping trans people you don't know from using the bathroom their comfortable with is more important the expanding access to health care for yourself, protecting Social Security, and expanding labor rights, don't come crying to men when you've got a $30,000 medical bill, Social Security has been handed over to Wall Street, and your boss can fire you for sneezing wrong and you can't qualify for unemployment.
Well, according to this article, I can't ever criticize them for their racist, sexist, or homophobic feelings, because the white working class are special snowflakes and us evil coastal liberals are smug assholes who aren't even part of the Real America.
JesseEwiak
Member
.
Deserted Maniac Island
Member
I think that Political "Smugness" in America comes from American exceptionalism (For conservatives) and Western exceptionalism (For Liberals, because liberals believe in one progression of culture, and that progression is at it pinnacle of progress). People just think they have the answers, just if people lesson to them. Similarly to colonists mindset, I would say.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
Look, I can't speak to your personal preferences. If there is a conservative candidate you'd prefer to Hillary, go for it, if its Hillary vs Kasich and you like Kasich that's fine. I'm not going to get into that with anyone right now. But I have actual anger towards people who deliberately sit out elections. I have serious problems with Bernie Sanders, for example, to the point that I think he would actually do harmful thing in office, but I wouldn't dream of not voting for him in November if it came to it
You started, however, with the assumption that this "happens to be the cornerstone rallying point for this election". You've gone one beyond, and misrepresented whatever point was made, by assuming that such a person was making character judgements on anyone "who doesn't vote democrat in every single election throughout their life no matter what."
You've provided no evidence for it other than your own cognitive bias, and you immediately dismiss another post with a long, condescending sigh.
Do you see how this is precisely part of the problem?
Exactly.
Once we start swinging that axe with less and less criteria, everything we don't like looks like a tree.
As someone posted earlier in the thread, this type of viewpoint has (indeed often is) been used against (or perhaps more precisely in opposition to) other liberals. So to take the "the other side are idiots!" hatchet to the argument is both leaning hard into the Smug Style, so to speak, and also finds problems when your opposition is less strictly defined.
ThusZarathustra
Member
I think the article makes some good points.
As a guy who grew up on construction sites around framers, tiles setters, plumbers etc etc but who always loved books, history and intellectual debate for its own sake it's really important to be able to bridge that class/education/desire-for-intellectual-engagement gap.
I have a cousin up in Portland who lives a stones throw from Reed College and who's a reedie alum and a self-described die-hard liberal. He got his degree in women's studies. And I can remember visiting him for the first time since I was a kid a couple of years ago and describing some of the guys I was working with at the time and how I tried to bridge the seeming gap with them. We were working on a big remodel in Marin and most of these guys were off-roaders, rock-crawlers, hunters, and cross-fit enthusiasts. Most couldn't remember the last thing they read that was longer than a paragraph. I had headphones in one ear and listened to podcasts and audiobooks while running romex and mounting boxes and throwing verbal jabs around when I could. They loved to talk shit and most could not have given two fucks about ideas or as they put it, I swear, "book learning".
One guy lost the use of one of his thumbs in a crabbing accident, was covered in tattoos and had a shaved head. White guy. Built like a brick shithouse. Loved to be a dick. Thought the government was poisoning him with chemtrails and GMOs. Living stereotype. He also thought China was going to invade and he'd have to take to the hills with guns to defend himself. Lunch was fun. Another guy was from a ranching family going back like four generations or something and they couldn't make ends meet that way anymore and he'd turned to tile setting to make a living.
The trick is just to treat the person with respect and empathy, like the article says. I used to ask Mike, the plumber with a limp thumb about his girlfriend and how his house was doing, if it was in good shape, what music he was listening to etc etc. Luke, the tile setter, was really into WWII cause it was the last good one and we used to talk about Rommel the Desert Fox and the north african campaign. I eventually helped him put up new drywall in his house and replace his well motor.
You have to establish rapport on common ground and then spread that commonality slowly into other areas, not just expect people to be able to leap right to where you're at with nothing inbetween, especially if they have no desire or training in it.
I remember talking with Paul the reedie about all this and when I got to the fact that most of these guys were misogynist assholes who openly hated gays and the liberal media, he was baffled as to why I'd bother putting up with these people. Because they were people, I said. These were men I worked right alongside and who took pride in their work. And if I wanted them to be better people it was my duty to make an effort towards that without blaming them for simply being who they were. I showed them respect. I listened to their problems and offered solutions. And I didn't intellectually bully them or put them down except in ribbing jest (sometimes it's okay to call an idiot an idiot if you're on good enough terms).
It's like the opposite of "It's not my job to educate you."
I never understood that. Maybe that's because my education mostly happened at such a far remove from the ivory tower of the higher education system. I never finished my own degree and was intensely frustrated with the whole process. Maybe I'll go back someday and finish it.
There's an unspoken expectation among those who've never swung a hammer, hooked up an electrical panel or laid a tile that they're better than those who do. Blue collar people are looked down upon and are rarely offered a hand up, even rhetorically, by those who believe them to be their inferiors. I used to ask my cousin Paul "Who's the "worst" person you'd invite to your dinner table?" as sort of an intellectual exercise. "How different a person from your own sociocultural experience would you be able to actively connect with and whom you'd offer your hospitality to?"
He didn't have an answer. Not that the answer was really the point or anything.
That basic dignity and hospitality and ability to connect on more than just an ideological level has largely been lost in the culture, so loud is it.
I believe it's also called dining with the opposition.
Anyway, I didn't mean to make this so frigging long when I started it, but I feel like I've myself viscerally and personally experienced both sides of this thing. I could go on and on but ultimately it's about finding common ground and common values and slowly expanding from there. Simple as that.
As a guy who grew up on construction sites around framers, tiles setters, plumbers etc etc but who always loved books, history and intellectual debate for its own sake it's really important to be able to bridge that class/education/desire-for-intellectual-engagement gap.
I have a cousin up in Portland who lives a stones throw from Reed College and who's a reedie alum and a self-described die-hard liberal. He got his degree in women's studies. And I can remember visiting him for the first time since I was a kid a couple of years ago and describing some of the guys I was working with at the time and how I tried to bridge the seeming gap with them. We were working on a big remodel in Marin and most of these guys were off-roaders, rock-crawlers, hunters, and cross-fit enthusiasts. Most couldn't remember the last thing they read that was longer than a paragraph. I had headphones in one ear and listened to podcasts and audiobooks while running romex and mounting boxes and throwing verbal jabs around when I could. They loved to talk shit and most could not have given two fucks about ideas or as they put it, I swear, "book learning".
One guy lost the use of one of his thumbs in a crabbing accident, was covered in tattoos and had a shaved head. White guy. Built like a brick shithouse. Loved to be a dick. Thought the government was poisoning him with chemtrails and GMOs. Living stereotype. He also thought China was going to invade and he'd have to take to the hills with guns to defend himself. Lunch was fun. Another guy was from a ranching family going back like four generations or something and they couldn't make ends meet that way anymore and he'd turned to tile setting to make a living.
The trick is just to treat the person with respect and empathy, like the article says. I used to ask Mike, the plumber with a limp thumb about his girlfriend and how his house was doing, if it was in good shape, what music he was listening to etc etc. Luke, the tile setter, was really into WWII cause it was the last good one and we used to talk about Rommel the Desert Fox and the north african campaign. I eventually helped him put up new drywall in his house and replace his well motor.
You have to establish rapport on common ground and then spread that commonality slowly into other areas, not just expect people to be able to leap right to where you're at with nothing inbetween, especially if they have no desire or training in it.
I remember talking with Paul the reedie about all this and when I got to the fact that most of these guys were misogynist assholes who openly hated gays and the liberal media, he was baffled as to why I'd bother putting up with these people. Because they were people, I said. These were men I worked right alongside and who took pride in their work. And if I wanted them to be better people it was my duty to make an effort towards that without blaming them for simply being who they were. I showed them respect. I listened to their problems and offered solutions. And I didn't intellectually bully them or put them down except in ribbing jest (sometimes it's okay to call an idiot an idiot if you're on good enough terms).
It's like the opposite of "It's not my job to educate you."
I never understood that. Maybe that's because my education mostly happened at such a far remove from the ivory tower of the higher education system. I never finished my own degree and was intensely frustrated with the whole process. Maybe I'll go back someday and finish it.
There's an unspoken expectation among those who've never swung a hammer, hooked up an electrical panel or laid a tile that they're better than those who do. Blue collar people are looked down upon and are rarely offered a hand up, even rhetorically, by those who believe them to be their inferiors. I used to ask my cousin Paul "Who's the "worst" person you'd invite to your dinner table?" as sort of an intellectual exercise. "How different a person from your own sociocultural experience would you be able to actively connect with and whom you'd offer your hospitality to?"
He didn't have an answer. Not that the answer was really the point or anything.
That basic dignity and hospitality and ability to connect on more than just an ideological level has largely been lost in the culture, so loud is it.
I believe it's also called dining with the opposition.
Anyway, I didn't mean to make this so frigging long when I started it, but I feel like I've myself viscerally and personally experienced both sides of this thing. I could go on and on but ultimately it's about finding common ground and common values and slowly expanding from there. Simple as that.
Snowman Prophet of Doom
Member
Conversely, one could prioritize factors other than politics in dealing with people interpersonally. Perhaps it's growing up with a Republican father and (increasingly over time) Libertarian, in a very conservative town in rural Illinois, but I find it very easy to see that the fact that someone is a good parent, a good worker, a productive member of their community, has a strong appreciation for the arts, is insightful or worldly on this or that, etc. is more salient in judging their character than who they vote for or what they believe politically, because most of the things people say, do, and think are basically meaningless and slip frictionless into the past, even if, in the aggregate, those actions are part of or contribute to some larger sociopolitical problem. Most people's opinions are just a weird amalgamation of things they pick up over time, reinforced by a million granules of confirmation bias from one of the nearly infinite plenum of sources touching every end of the political spectrum, not something they have adopted specifically to fuck this or that group over. They are, first and foremost, a human, and I'll deal with them on the apolitical human levels as much as I can, within reason.
Edit: ThusZarathustra, that's a great post, and basically a perfect summation of how I feel, albeit my experience is more in retail, which is a different subset of the working class but probably not SO different, really. Props.
Edit: ThusZarathustra, that's a great post, and basically a perfect summation of how I feel, albeit my experience is more in retail, which is a different subset of the working class but probably not SO different, really. Props.
It's the same reason so many dislike or are put off by atheists. I'm both an atheist and am socially liberal, but I cannot stand the militant, condescending smugness that emanates from a lot of people who believe the same things I do. And the culture of restricting language and shaming those who hold different views, I find to be intellectually regressive, and it belies the presumed empathy of those who so often think they have that high ground.
I agree, but it is good to remember that this behavior did not spring into existence whole: it was learned.
Thanks for this post. The effort and story is appreciated.
Yeah good post man, anecdotes are on point. I think maybe a little to add in some circumstances it can be difficult or impossible to engage with these types of people, but often times you can and it helps if you know a bit about what kind of ideology they carry around with them. So if they're homophobic but religious, knowing their religion well can get you a foot in the door sometimes.
Velcro Fly
Member
boy you weren't kidding
unholyrevenger72
Banned
Your argument would have merit if the parties were arguing over how we should raise taxes to build, maintain infrastructure or implement social programs, but as it stands, we are at one side saying "trickle down doesn't work here's our plan, what do you have?" and the other side replying "trickle down, or we shut the government down"
So when i say "Trickle Down doesn't work in reality and we need to think of something else, fucking anything", am I being Smug?
You can treat that person with empathy but respect is almost impossible, the mere act of correcting, educating or enlightening that person about their factually incorrect beliefs is an act of disrespect to him/her. The only way to respect a self destructive belief is to let those who believe it self destruct until they change their mind about the belief.
BennyBlanco
aka IMurRIVAL69
Great post man. People looking down on blue collar workers is a very American thing. There's this idea that if you don't go to college for at least 4 years, you're a peon.
Tradesmen kind of get the last laugh though. All the guys with money in my neighborhood are union plumbers, longshoremen, etc.
Emerson's Essentia
Banned
I... can't believe the positive reception to this article.
Where is this truly manifesting itself beyond the ignus fatuus of some self-conscious free-thinker's self-loathing?
Where is this truly manifesting itself beyond the ignus fatuus of some self-conscious free-thinker's self-loathing?
PantherLotus
Professional Schmuck
I have so many problems with this article, not the least of which is that it glosses over the F A C T that if we can't operate from the same basic understanding of the world (evolution, global warming, equality), then there are some people who are both not worth talking to and with whom are not worth debating. Waste of time.
The smugness described in the article is 100% fallout from the Bush years, which absolutely deserve it. And the country that elected that awful regime TWICE. TWIIIIIICE.
Smug? This is the self-critique of the left? This is our big oh-no moment? We have so many bigger problems and being less condescending is not one of them. Get with this or get out.
The smugness described in the article is 100% fallout from the Bush years, which absolutely deserve it. And the country that elected that awful regime TWICE. TWIIIIIICE.
Smug? This is the self-critique of the left? This is our big oh-no moment? We have so many bigger problems and being less condescending is not one of them. Get with this or get out.
arya's prayer
Neo Member
I feel like I'm in some kind of bizarro world. Are there really articles talking about the "smugness" of the Democratic party when Donald Trump has just proven once and for all that the base of the Republican party is literally comprised of racist white people who would rather vote for themselves to have nothing than to give anything to a black/Hispanic/gay/Muslim/any minority person?
Emerson's Essentia
Banned
Amazing post, even though I don't think this article deserves it at all.
Why is making an informed decision to not vote inherently wrong? I've watched the majority of the debates, have read up on all of the viable candidates, and while Hillary is obviously preferable to Trump, I'm still not comfortable aligning my voice with her messages built on nothing but political expediency and lies.
I voted in the primary and I voted in the last two elections - I'm not choosing to sit this one out because I'm lazy.
I was trying to give Hillary supporters the benefit of the doubt. I don't think it's Hillary that brings out these behaviors in certain people, just their anger toward the system in general - meaning, no matter who the candidate was on the dem side this year, there would be just as much vitriol toward the opposition. I only brought it up because it was relevant to the specific post I was replying to, and I'm not at all arguing that the majority of liberals are behaving this way, but the vocal minority is particularly loud this go around.
Technomancer's post seemed to point exactly in that direction, making the assumption that I'm not voting for Hillary out of "personal satisfaction" because I value my own ego over the plights of those who face very real discrimination. It certainly reads like a character judgement to me.
The article is a bit bad but I think the point is that if the main thrust of your belief when you deal with people is your own moral superiority then you effectively have no hope of convincing people to switch sides, because they will see that and then the door is closed.
Jmanunknown
Member
I can understand having different priorities but the problem is sometimes people are crazy enough to literally vote against their own interests despite knowing it might kill them. Example
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/kentucky-confronts-the-consequences-its-decision
lovely post
timetokill
Banned
We don't really mean they're all stupid but hey, lay off. We're not smug! This is just how we vent our frustration. Otherwise it would be too depressing having to share a country with these people!
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
No one is asking you to. A vote is not an endorsement. It isn't. Its a grain of rice on one side or the other of the scale. Lets say that a Hillary Clinton presidency makes life better for 100 more people than a Trump presidency. Just a hundred more people. Isn't that worth your time? Or conversely, why is your pride worth more than that?
I have never come across an argument for why someone would refrain from voting for the lesser of two evils other than for the satisfaction of "not being part of the problem". If you have a different argument about the utility of not voting that isn't about your ego I'm all ears
BladeoftheImmortal
Member
So how do you tell them they are voting against their own interests, then?
The American so-called liberals are so milquetoast and meek that won't offer solutions to the worlds contemporary problems with neoliberal ideology and global late-capitalism that is destroying the planet and ruining lives.
I wouldn't worry so much about their smugness or their elitism (which isn't exclusive to this ideology of American liberals), as I would be with how deeply and inescapably entrenched the US is in right-winged ideology and values that further the worlds problems.
But maybe that's for another thread. The articles argument is so agreeable that yes, of course people shouldn't be classist and overlooking intersectionality is not a good look. And moral superiority is not a good rhetorical or diplomatic tactic. Everyone should agree with that! But there are worse failures of the American liberals than their lack of intersectional considerations, such as what I just mentioned.
I wouldn't worry so much about their smugness or their elitism (which isn't exclusive to this ideology of American liberals), as I would be with how deeply and inescapably entrenched the US is in right-winged ideology and values that further the worlds problems.
But maybe that's for another thread. The articles argument is so agreeable that yes, of course people shouldn't be classist and overlooking intersectionality is not a good look. And moral superiority is not a good rhetorical or diplomatic tactic. Everyone should agree with that! But there are worse failures of the American liberals than their lack of intersectional considerations, such as what I just mentioned.
Snowman Prophet of Doom
Member
If this essay stops even one think piece about the "problematic" nature of this or that from being published, it's done its job.
JesseEwiak
Member
I have zero problems with blue collar work. I want a repeal of Taft Hartley and a massive infrastructure investment in the country.
But, I do have problems with anybody who thinks we should kicks all the Mexicans out, think we should not let any refugees in because of their religion, think gay people shouldn't have civil rights, and that women should be shamed for their reproductive choices.
As far as dining with my enemies, go. I'm fine. I'm a white dude. But, I'm not going to tell women and people of color that they have to continue to be empathetic to people while for the umpteenth time they have to explain their basic humanity to those who think they're lesser human beings because of their melanin tone, religious belief, or what genitals they have.
Massive Duck. C.M.
Banned
If you look at who likes the article and their usual posts, it becomes clear.
Same could be said for those against it.
For an article whose entire premise is to criticize the "smugness" of the left, it reeks of smugness itself. Smugness and elitism are decidedly not an exclusively left-wing problem, a fact best demonstrated by how quick many of the old GOP guard have been to throw their own base under the bus as "ignorant white trash" after the rise of Trump.
The article does make some fair points. The left eats itself alive with in-fighting on a regular basis (see: Bernie vs. Hillary), and there's a certain amount of performative liberalism going on that often happens that gets undermined by the reality of people's actions. But any fair points it makes gets buried under the public jerk-off session that comprises most of the article, which basically amounts to an old man yelling at a cloud. It rants about "Daily Show viewers" and shit in the same way Baby Boomers yell about millennials on their cell phones, all whining and no substance.
Right from the start it completely misses that what actually changed here was not the lower class's tendency toward liberalism, but that the parties themselves underwent massive changes. The Democratic Party used to be the conservative party! Hell, Lincoln was a Republican and the slave-owning south was deeply Democratic. It wasn't really until FDR that the DNC pivoted more toward liberalism and the GOP swung conservative, and that's why people started switching parties in droves over the next few decades. This entire narrative that lower-class whites abandoned liberalism and the Rich Liberal Elite (lmfao) felt somehow cuckolded by the whole thing and turned against them is pure fantasy. Lower-class white folks in the US have been conservative practically since the Puritans came ashore.
And the article's use of Kim Davis as some kind of martyr, a poor innocent woman whose reputation was torn apart by the Smug Liberals, is downright comical. Sure, some people took it too far - mocking her appearance or personal life is over-the-line, but when the Republican frontrunner is mocking disabled reporters and making dick size metaphors during debates you don't get to act like this is only a Smug Liberal problem.
And then come the ludicrous claims, like that Kim Davis's homophobia - justified by her Christian beliefs - is a valid and fair ideology, that bigotry by way of religion is totally cool and Smug Liberals Who Are Probably Atheists Who Don't Know The Bible Anyway don't get to judge her for it. Fuck off.
Or this shit:
No, not only Republicans cover up gaps in their knowledge by responding to what they assume is a good-faith question by guessing from their general principles. The problem is that, for apparently 30% of them, their general principles involve bombing a country they've never heard of just because it has a vaguely Arab-y sounding name. But oh, those poor old Republicans, getting pranked by their trusted phone surveys!
I'm not going to go through all the garbage here line by line, but its ultimate premise boils down to: the left lacks empathy for the kind of people who vote Republican, and by demonizing them and ridiculing them they only drive them further away. And you know what? Sure. I'm a Smug Liberal Atheist that also happens to hail from a Christian family in southern Texas, where even the water and sky burn GOP red, and I know better than most that you need to treat those with whom you disagree with respect if you ever want to convince them to join your side.
But the article doesn't just state that the left's attitude is the problem. Instead it makes completely nebulous, non-specific implications that the left's policy is at fault, that the GOP - with its hatred of welfare programs and affordable healthcare, with its lust for flat taxes that disproportionately hurt the lower classes, its Voter ID suppression tactics, its never-ending war with worker's rights, its (how ironic) incredibly smug core belief that those who are poor deserve to be poor and just aren't working hard enough - is actually the party that best represents the interests of poor and middle-class whites. And nowhere does it support this.
The article does make some fair points. The left eats itself alive with in-fighting on a regular basis (see: Bernie vs. Hillary), and there's a certain amount of performative liberalism going on that often happens that gets undermined by the reality of people's actions. But any fair points it makes gets buried under the public jerk-off session that comprises most of the article, which basically amounts to an old man yelling at a cloud. It rants about "Daily Show viewers" and shit in the same way Baby Boomers yell about millennials on their cell phones, all whining and no substance.
Right from the start it completely misses that what actually changed here was not the lower class's tendency toward liberalism, but that the parties themselves underwent massive changes. The Democratic Party used to be the conservative party! Hell, Lincoln was a Republican and the slave-owning south was deeply Democratic. It wasn't really until FDR that the DNC pivoted more toward liberalism and the GOP swung conservative, and that's why people started switching parties in droves over the next few decades. This entire narrative that lower-class whites abandoned liberalism and the Rich Liberal Elite (lmfao) felt somehow cuckolded by the whole thing and turned against them is pure fantasy. Lower-class white folks in the US have been conservative practically since the Puritans came ashore.
And the article's use of Kim Davis as some kind of martyr, a poor innocent woman whose reputation was torn apart by the Smug Liberals, is downright comical. Sure, some people took it too far - mocking her appearance or personal life is over-the-line, but when the Republican frontrunner is mocking disabled reporters and making dick size metaphors during debates you don't get to act like this is only a Smug Liberal problem.
And then come the ludicrous claims, like that Kim Davis's homophobia - justified by her Christian beliefs - is a valid and fair ideology, that bigotry by way of religion is totally cool and Smug Liberals Who Are Probably Atheists Who Don't Know The Bible Anyway don't get to judge her for it. Fuck off.
Or this shit:
No, not only Republicans cover up gaps in their knowledge by responding to what they assume is a good-faith question by guessing from their general principles. The problem is that, for apparently 30% of them, their general principles involve bombing a country they've never heard of just because it has a vaguely Arab-y sounding name. But oh, those poor old Republicans, getting pranked by their trusted phone surveys!
I'm not going to go through all the garbage here line by line, but its ultimate premise boils down to: the left lacks empathy for the kind of people who vote Republican, and by demonizing them and ridiculing them they only drive them further away. And you know what? Sure. I'm a Smug Liberal Atheist that also happens to hail from a Christian family in southern Texas, where even the water and sky burn GOP red, and I know better than most that you need to treat those with whom you disagree with respect if you ever want to convince them to join your side.
But the article doesn't just state that the left's attitude is the problem. Instead it makes completely nebulous, non-specific implications that the left's policy is at fault, that the GOP - with its hatred of welfare programs and affordable healthcare, with its lust for flat taxes that disproportionately hurt the lower classes, its Voter ID suppression tactics, its never-ending war with worker's rights, its (how ironic) incredibly smug core belief that those who are poor deserve to be poor and just aren't working hard enough - is actually the party that best represents the interests of poor and middle-class whites. And nowhere does it support this.
When you're a leftist, the entire world looks like it's right-wing. If nothing else, at least I've learned what the use of "neoliberal" is signalling when someone uses it.
Massive Duck. C.M.
Banned
This doesn't even make sense
- Status