So is this article only meant to be read by white men? Because if they're really asking minorities or women to empathize with republican voters then lm-fucking-aooooooooooooooooo.
"Hey these people want to enslave you and/or cheer when the police shoot you in the back and/or take away your reproductive rights. Be nice to them!"
This was my reading as well. The audience for this article feels... narrow. It goes to great lengths to mention how the supporters of the Democratic Party are pulled from both white, college educated liberals and from the minority poor.
It then goes into this long tirade against the white, college educated supporter's smugness all the while holding up minority issues as seemingly trivial matters that the left uses to condescend the right.
The example of Kim Davis is rather telling. The author mentions how it was just one county clerk out of all the states that refused to comply with the law. I suppose, in a sense, it's remarkable that only one public servant decided her religious beliefs were more important than the law of the land. On the other hand, in all the other countries that legalized same-sex marriage, there were 0 civil servants who refused to do their job based on religious convictions. It's just as sad that there was a greater expectation for the citizenry to unlawfully disobey the law as there was one woman willing to be that pariah.
And it basically skirts the reactionary laws passed after the Supreme Court decision, often doubling down on transgender issues like the recent legislature in North Carolina. It doesn't address the racial motivations of Republican policy or rhetoric. And what about the whole discourse around abortion and the blatant denigration from the right over women? Are we to assume that those are unimportant to the matter? After all, the article's premise is that the main issue the Democratic party needs to address is getting poor whites on board with their social aid programs.
I can't tell if the author is positing that if you're gay, black, female or not-Christian if your concerns aren't an issue because they've already been addressed - liberalism has already given you what you want so you're good - or if you simply shouldn't care that the political discourse from the opposite spectrum is so blatantly damning of you.
Are minority concerns simply not as important? Or are their concerns just a further manifestation of liberal smugness?
It's a polite way to ignore the deeply troubling beliefs held by many Republicans - and particularly white poor people - and simply posits that liberalism should really... do what? I'm not entirely certain.
I can say it's very difficult to treat random conservatives who consider you an abomination, mistake or simply a sinning deviant with empathy and respect when they'd be more than happy to see what ground you've gained through these painful years taken away. The Vox writer sums this up as 7 days of county inconvenience. Or perhaps it's just the contrivance of having to use another bakery.
But really, we should see things from their point? We should try and empathize with them?
I'm having a hard time with this. I guess I'm sorry if conservative feelings are hurt that I paint broadly across their ideological platform as being hateful and bigoted. But I'm having a hard time believing that sugar-coating or even ignoring those aspects is really going to make my future or those of other vulnerable minorities safer.
I'd love if the only divide between the political spectrum were economy policies or whatnot. But so long as human dignity still needs to be fought for in the political sphere, I'm not going to stop defending acceptance - even if that makes me smug or an asshole or an adherent to the "Good Facts."
