The Lost People . . .
Over heard in the Comments Section:
EMichael: “I do love the term ‘Goober Safari’”.
“I am as tired as anyone else is at the seemingly endless Goober safaris into those benighted precincts of Americans who helped hand us El Caudillo del Mar-a-Lago as our president*. I am even more tired of being told that the prescription for getting rid of this guy is to romance the daylights out of the unreconstructed ignorami who voted for him in the first place.
So imagine my complete lack of surprise when The New York Times sent yet another expedition out into the hinter-boondocks to see what the plaid-cap and camo set is thinking these days.
‘But, listening to strategists and voters in a critical state for Democrats, the midterms feel like a long time ago. Instead, there are widespread worries that the momentum in Pennsylvania, and in other key Rust Belt states, could screech to a halt if the issues in the 2020 presidential primaries and the party’s eventual nominee stray too far left for the region’s many centrist voters. “The more we have presidential candidates or newly elected congresspeople talking about the Green New Deal, talking about ‘Medicare for all,’ talking about socialism, the more that plays into the Trump campaign’s hands,” said Ed Rendell, a former Pennsylvania governor and national Democratic chairman.’
Jesus H. Christ in a wax museum, have we not heard enough from Ed Fcking Rendell? No presidential candidate—except Donald Trump—is “talking about socialism.” The Green New Deal and Medicare For All are new policy proposals growing from policy positions and philosophies held by Democrats for at least 40 years.
Both are “a Yuengling order for a Pennsylvanian right now,” said Ryan Costello, a former Republican congressman from suburban Philadelphia. That is, someone as familiar as the beer brewed in Pottsville. Mr. Costello said that by nominating a progressive in 2020 — he named Mr. Sanders and Elizabeth Warren — the general election would become a referendum on far-left policies rather than the president.
“The whiplash on the left right now, it’s almost like they didn’t learn the lesson of why they were successful in 2018,” Mr. Costello said.
One of the reasons “they” were successful, of course, was that people like Costello ran like rabbits away from their congressional seats because they saw what was coming at them. So, sure, let’s make certain that Democrats listen to the likes of him. And, of course, there is that stubborn Economic Anxiety in some of these areas that just won’t go away.
We had eight years of nothing,” said Diane Pappert, 75, a retired school guard, referring to President Barack Obama, “and this guy’s trying to clean up everybody’s mess.” Her daughter Angie Hughes, 55, a nurse, had cast the first vote of her life for Mr. Trump. She said she would never vote for a Democrat because she believed that the party favored generous welfare benefits. “When you see people who have three, four, five children to different fathers, they have no plans of ever going to work,” she said.
and then there is . . .
Lou Iezzi, 68, who still works at an auto garage he opened at 19, had voted Democratic for decades before casting a ballot for Mr. Trump. He liked the way he sounded as if he were on the next barstool, and Mr. Iezzi chuckled approvingly recalling Mr. Trump’s dismissive remarks about the newscaster Megyn Kelly in 2015 that were widely interpreted as referring to menstruation. Mr. Iezzi could vote for a Democrat in 2020 if the nominee “sounds like he’s talking honestly,” he said. His choice of the male pronoun was deliberate: “I just can’t see a woman running this country.”
Whadda guy! Buy him a Yuengling. But, for the love of god, don’t tailor a single policy position toward gaining his support. He’s hopelessly lost.”
These People Are Lost. Democrats Shouldn’t Bother Chasing Them., Charles P. Pierce, Esquire Magazine
EM:
It amazes me too the bountiful ignorance. The Pennsylvania. Michigan, and Wisconsin vote was all based upon the lies and constant attacks on HRC. Toss in the Bernie tribe and Trump eked out a small victory thanks to the 1929 Reapportionment Act and he still lost the popular vote. These states voted Democrat in national elections since 1988 and 1990. In 2016, they went for the Communist party, Libertarians, etc. in historical numbers or people did not turn out.
The old pink Cadillac story raises its head again, women solicit men for extra children to collect welfare, Obama went golfing all the time, and men can laugh at menstruation cycles. Yuengling is too good for them, a Buckhorn brewed on the inside of a horse suits them.
I think the fact should also be made that theses states have consistently had has their state governments dominated by Reps for quite awhile. It’s not like they were CA and NY.
The urban/rural divide is a huge factor. And gerrymandering and voter suppression has accelerated since the last census.
EM:
State Gerrymandering does not impact National Elections and neither will Congressional Gerrymandering hinder the election of President. The 1929 Reapportionment Act is a problem when it comes to representing a population in each state with some states being more equal (EC) than others. Voter suppression will do it as we have seen Detroit, Cleveland, Columbus, Milwaukee are short changed on the numbers of voting machines, too few voter registration offices or long distances to them, requirements meant to stymie a voter from voting, etc. 2016 was on us. Michigan had the lowest turnout in a while, The Communist and Libertarian candidate votes were the highest ever. Trump won by 11,000
Look who had the biggest turn out. But so what, if the other 70,000 had gone to the polls, HRC could have won.
And yes, the rural blames Detroit for their issues even though it provides 50% of the states GDP. Without Detroit, Michigan would be truck farming – vegetables and providing salt to the nation. Nobody talks about what Detroit does provide. It is starting to change and we are seeing some exciting things happen in Detroit such as Ford redoing the old train station.
Good topic by the way which is why I stole it from you and also attributed it to you also. You got the smarter people here.
And we have this contributing also:
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2019/03/yes-virginia-propaganda-works.html
A study by Emory University political scientist Gregory Martin and Stanford economist Ali Yurukoglu estimates that watching Fox News translates into a significantly greater willingness to vote for Republican candidates.
Specifically, by exploiting semi-random variation in Fox viewership driven by changes in the assignment of channel numbers, they find that if Fox News hadn’t existed, the Republican presidential candidate’s share of the two-party vote would have been 3.59 points lower in 2004 and 6.34 points lower in 2008. Without Fox, in other words, the GOP’s only popular vote win since the 1980s would have been reversed and the 2008 election would have been an extinction-level landslide.
Along with the new report by Jane Mayer.
What has become of our news system is real time evidence of the fallacy of the free market ideology as it relates to the free market solving societies problems.
Fox was born, the others saw a rapid rise in their viewership and they all started chasing it. Of course that leave a very large population under served if we are to believe the left/right news consumption explanations. That, and consolidation following another economic fallacy: economies of scale efficiency.
Daniel:
Commentary at the end was: “But while fake news is obviously not desirable, the evidence for its practical impact has been relatively slight compared to the evidence that mass opinion has been manipulated by traditional television broadcasting. Between this and the right’s social media bubble, we have a big problem. I don’t know the solution but it’s important hat we recognize that this media infrastructure is going to exist long after Trump is gone.”
It obviously fills in the gaps for the buffoon in Washington DC the same as it did for Bush II. Clinton and Obama did not need media to get their points across other than air time to make the argument. Maybe better and smarter Dem candidates?
Yes, at the end it talked about fake news. However it was clear that Fox News was doing more than just presenting fake news. They are driving the vote in the republican direction with a combination of presentation types.
As you note, they make a distinction between fake news and broadcast news. In the article, fake news is internet spread stuff where as TV has the most influence sighting Fox and Sinclair.
“On one level, everybody knows that television news is a big deal, everyone knows that Fox News is the most widely viewed cable network, and everyone knows that there is a complicated interrelationship between Fox and the GOP that is qualitatively different from the relationship between the Democratic Party and any media outlet.
But this relationship is rarely taken seriously enough in the analysis of American — or even global — politics.
It’s commonplace, for example, to treat the contemporaneous and narrow electoral victories of Donald Trump and Brexit in the United States and United Kingdom as revealing some important, deep-seated truth about the nature of global capitalism. An alternative explanation, however, is that Rupert Murdoch is a very powerful person in both US and UK media and he intervened decisively to put the Trump and Brexit phenomena over the top.”
Hi Daniel:
For the life of me, I can not find the article I read today . . . Found it. Richard Ramsey “Fox Geezer Syndrome: “Eight of us (so far) share something in common besides our conservatism: a deep frustration over how our parents have become impossible to take on the subject of politics. Without fail, it turns out that our folks have all been sitting at home watching Fox News Channel all day.
Even though we’re all conservatives, I found myself having to steer our phone conversations away from politics and current events. It wasn’t that I disagreed with their opinions – though I often did – but rather that I found the vehemence with which they expressed those opinions to be so off-putting.
Then I flew out for a visit, and observed that their television was on all day long, even if no one was watching it. What channel was playing? Fox. Spending a few days in the company of the channel…it all became clear to me. If Fox was the window through which I saw the wider world, for hours every day, I’d be perpetually pissed off too.” https://washingtonmonthly.com/2019/03/05/what-makes-fox-news-so-dangerous/
Then there is this at the Atlantic: “Most Americans do not live in a totalizing bubble. They regularly encounter people of different races, ideologies, and religions. For the most part, they view these interactions as positive, or at least neutral.
Yet according to a new study by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) and The Atlantic, a significant minority of Americans do not live this way. They seldom or never meet people of another race. They dislike interacting with people who don’t share their political beliefs. And when they imagine the life they want for their children, they prize sameness, not difference. Education and geography seemed to make a big difference in how people think about these issues, and in some cases, so did age.
One of the many questions the Trump era has raised is whether Americans actually want a pluralistic society, where people are free to be themselves and still live side by side with others who aren’t like them. U.S. political discourse is filled with nasty rhetoric that rejects the value of diversity outright. Yet, theoretically, pluralism is good for democracy: In a political era when the vast majority of Americans believe the country is divided over issues of race, politics, and religion, relationships across lines of difference could foster empathy and civility. These survey results suggest that Americans are deeply ambivalent about the role of diversity in their families, friendships, and civic communities. Some people, it seems, prefer to stay in their bubble.” https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/02/americans-remain-deeply-ambivalent-about-diversity/583123/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=atlantic-daily-newsletter&utm_content=20190304&silverid-ref=MzEwMTU3NTkxMjMxS0
As far as taking Fox News seriously? It is always suspect; but as you observed and as did one son, many people do take it as gospel.
Gotta repeat something I’ve argued before: the term “Democratic Socialist” does enormous harm which is entirely unnecessary. There is nothing, technically, socialist about the Democratic policies. They do not seek to take over the means of production. Sherrod Brown and Amy Klobuchar (when she’s not yelling at staff) have demonstrated that it is possible to penetrate the ignorance that prevails in the rural and uneducated blue collar areas in their states. They are able to argue for particular policies without labeling them in the “Democratic Socialist” box. Do you like your social security; your medicare; your medicaid; your highways; your schools, etc.? We stand for that, they argue and the Republicans don’t; they want to take them away from you!
It reminds me of the maybe apocryphal quote from Kentucky (I think): “Keep your lousy government hands off my medicare!” Fighting over labels is wasting time and boring and misleading the electorate. Give them factual policy information and arguments. They may listen. Tell them, hey, socialism is what you need you ignorant buffoons, and don’t let the electoral college hit you on the way out. The midterms weren’t won on paens to Democratic Socialism; they were won on medical care for those who don’t have it or can’t afford it. Republicans yelled, “socialism” and the voters ignored them. Reinforce the Republicans and look out for the result.
Jack:
I do not use the term as it is a distraction to what needs to be done. Healthcare in some affordable way or another, less costly college education, high schools that have shops like Lane Tech used to so some can get the beginnings of a trade, freedom from the fear of being attacked by others or shuffled off to jail without the hope of mounting an adequate defense, reasonable housing, public transportation, etc. None of that is socialism, it is reasonable expectations from society.
Amen, and it should be sold as the right thing to do, not “Democratic socialism”.
Jack:
How about a “moral obligation” that we as citizens provide for the needs of society? As Movin Meat blog, shadowfax an ER doctor made that argument.
While I agree to a certain extent that Democratic Socialist might have some negative effect in terms of perspective, I don’t see it as being at all important other than allowing Fox News to scream it at the top of their lungs and the “lost people” cheering. But let’s remember those people are lost. The terms do not matter at all to progressive voters.
JackD mentioned the “Keep your lousy government hands off my medicare!” imbecility. (I am pretty sure it came from Pennsyltucky). Ignore them, and remember that the name Social Security doesn’t bother anyone.
E. Michael; Think you’re forgetting what happened in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Ohio last time. The people who swung it were not “lost”. They voted for Obama twice. The fact that the term doesn’t bother progressives is, unfortunately, irrelevant. That means you have California, New York, and Illinois sewed up. They were sewed up last time too. Polling confirms that an awful lot of people (I don’t recall if it is a numerical majority) don’t like the term, socialism. Why poke the hornet’s nest?
Peirce and Emike really think blue collar workers (especially white ones) are dumb pack animals who deserve nothing more than subsistence.
(Many have Combat Infantry badges, Marine sharpshooter medals and Purple Hearts unlike most of us, FWIW.)
Well Rusty
Nice to see you too! Usually when a prodigal returns, they say hello and how are you?
It was 1968 and I was off to Boot Camp in San Diego having rode the bus from McAfees in Chicago to O’Hare airport. God, I was way too young to be doing such at 19. I took their tests and I think the eyes fell out of the Staff Sergeant’s head. Hard sell to enlist for more years. Took their IQ test and rated 140-something. Not all of us were bumkins or pack animals although met quite a few and I carried my own and theirs too when they could no longer run. It Is interesting when you get promoted faster than the others.
I hate the glory-days and reminiscing. One particular instance was when a bunch of them got together to talk about what they did 50 years ago in defense of a fellow X-Military who got caught appropriating a $400 donation to the County Veteran’s Committee and after he told the donner to make it out to him. Broadcasted on TV. There is nothing to justify theft. All of your stories of past glory, drinking warm beer or Cokes are non sequitur to what you did today. His actions were pretty stupid. Does EM and Pierce have a point? In my lengthy diatribe, I think they do.
In other commentary, I did mention you in a positive fashion concerning hospital consolidation.
I respectfully disagree with Pierce and EMichael (see above). I’ve known enough of those folks to learn that they are all over the spectrum with respect to intelligence and attitudes. The guys in the service with me in the ’60’s mostly didn’t want to be there. There was this little matter of the draft. I don’t say we need to woo all of them but we do need enough of them.
heh:
“I do love the term ‘Goober Safari’”.
goober is a term I use often with a Leffe in hand after a day being a trout bum…..
I did not vote for the serial security risk
JackD,
The idea that people that voted for Obama voted for trump is nonsensical. I do not believed it happened in anything other than small amounts. The explanation is simple, different people voted in those elections.
When you can find something other that polls asking people who they voted for in those elections, let me know.
Rusty,
I do not think that all blue collar workers are “dumb pack animals”. I think Rep voters are “dumb pack animals” who have voted against their own interests for 5 decades.
State and Federal Reps have decimated unions and the working class for almost my entire life. Yet somehow members of the working class keeps voting for them.
In terms of elections it is all about who turns out, it is not about people switching their votes from one side to the other. That rarely ever happens.
In the last two elections for governor in WI, Walker received vote totals of 1,295,080 in 2018 and 1,259,706 in 2014.
He did not lose in 2018 because people switched votes.
@E. Michael, if they were different groups of people, we need to get “ours” back to the polls. It was relatively few people in the rural and small city areas in each state that swung it for Trump.
Jack:
If you scroll down to where I show the differences in the vote for HRC and Trump, you will see the numbers of counties which went Trump (75) and the numbers which went HRC (8) in 2016. HRC lost by 11,000 in 2016. Now compare the numbers of counties in 2012. In 2012, 20 counties went for Obama in Michigan. Your assumption is correct on rural and urban counties. The difference is slight.
If you look at the mini-Excel chart:
1. There was a difference in turn out between 2012 and 2016.
2. Who people voted for was a factor other than Repub or Dem. There was a historical high in people voting for non Republican and non Democrat or the Communist and Libertarian candidates.
3. This played out in PA and WI too.
It seems likely that voter suppression also played a part.
Jack:
It is possible to include such also. It is more apparent for where the vote went and to see the differences in the shift in counties. There are fewer urban counties than rural counties in Michigan. This will make it harder to district properly state and federal and achieve competitive districts if this is the objective.
I recall an interview with the mayor of a small city in western Pennsylvania on NPR to the effect that his voters did, in fact, switch because of their hope that Trump could produce jobs and his prediction that they would switch back if the jobs didn’t come. Hard to believe that only happened in one town.
Historically and since 1988 for WI and PA and 1990 for MI, all three states voted Dem in national elections. The difference lies in how HRC was portrayed in the News and not countered by “all” Democrats. Democrats are known for eating their own and they did with HRC. There was no reason to vote for “Other” candidates other than they bought the propaganda by Fox, were pre-disposed to not vote for HRC, and Dems failed to pay attention to each of these states.
I still do look at numbers. They do point in a direction.
JackD,
Yes, turnout is the key. In terms of the mayor in W PA, I am sure other mayors said the same thing, and none of them had a clue if it was true.
We’ll have to agree to disagree on that point. They usually understand their local numbers.
Different ID?
mistake. Using an alien device. Now back to normal.
Unfortunately, Sherrod Brown, one of those who could have helped with the people we’re talking about, has dropped out.