Posted on 04/02/2018 7:35:02 PM PDT by lowbuck
As some media outlets venture out of the liberal bubble to get a flavor of Trump Country, what about the Acela Corridor? What about Clinton Country? Whats changed in this deep-blue slice of America since the 2016 election? Well, Adam Wren, an editor with Indianapolis Monthly, wrote a lengthy piece for Politico about his 72 hours in Clinton land and found pretty much that nothing has changed. These voters still love Clinton, they hate Trump, and nothing he can do could change their minds.
Oh, and they turned out to be the insufferable snobs we all thought they were, many whining about how their six-figure income lives are terrible since Trump won. While rural America suffers, these folks dont seem to care, with a few waiting for an I told you so moment to rub in the faces of their less wealthy and less educated red state brethren. In short, the real deplorables are Democratic votersand Wren found that the liberal bubble is not only strong, but also denser than ever. And from that virtually impenetrable bubble comes a gross out of touch aura that has infested Democratic politics. Yes, to a person who lives here, $1,000 is not a lot. To the struggling working class family, the families that the Left says theyre champions of, $1,000 bonus is a lotand it goes a long way. These families are now denigrated and mocked for thinking that this bonus and the tax cuts that followed are beneficial to them.
The Democratic mindset to all of the good news from the Trump tax bill is: How dare you think this is good, you dumb redneck; were the Democrats. We know better. Or its the more abrasive youre too poor to start saving mantra. The closer Wren got to D.C., the more he found that people were not willing to speak with him about this subject of Trump, Clinton, and the 2016 election. In all, this piece proved that Obama was wrong (no shock in that); there are blue states and red states. There are two Americas. There is a rural-urban divide. And theres probably no way to bridge that gap (via Politico):
Once on the decadent East Coast, I would luxuriate in its undiluted upscale liberal consensus at bookstores, wine bars, cafes and other Blue State institutions peopled by NPR tote-bagging sophisticates. Perhaps Id drop in on something activist-y, a meeting of Resistance types. It was a trip that would take me across three states, from a food co-op in Brooklyn to an unabashedly liberal bookstore in Bethesda, all in counties Clinton won by at least 60 percent or more of the vote.
But as much as I thought I knew what to expect, I was wrong. The deeper I plunged into the Blue Abyss, the more I realized how broad the political chasm between Clinton Country and Trump Country really is.
[ ]
In nearly three dozen interviews, all but two people told me they did not regret not voting for Trump. This pair, whom it took me nearly two dozen people to find, were Trump supporters, the only ones I encountered on the trip. Everyone else was a loud and proud Trump hater.
Hes a moron, said Meghan Early, a real estate broker still sweaty from a Beyoncé-drenched SoulCycle class on International Womens Day in NoHo, the tony Manhattan neighborhood.
[ ]
Hes absolutely stupid, said Barbara OGrady, a retired 76-year-old browsing the aisles of Politics & Prose, the woke Chevy Chase bookstore owned by Bradley Graham, a former journalist at the Amazon Washington Post, and Lissa Muscatine, a former Post reporter and speechwriter for Crooked Hillarys State Department. When I asked her what she thought of Trumps presidency, she doubled over in pain, as if she had ulcerative colitis. How could you do this to me? she said. I was having a good day.
But I also found there was something more to the Trump hatreda kind of closed-off complacency that also translated into how they treated me. The more I persisted, and closer I got to the beating heart of D.C., the more reluctant people were to talk to me on the record. The whole trip would leave a sour taste in my mouth over how difficult it is to perforate the Blue Bubble. It wasnt just the clichéd dispatches from Trump Country that Clinton Country voters had come to loatheit was Trump Country itself.
[ ]
It wasnt always so: For a fleeting moment after the election, citizens of Americas bluest areas seemed genuinely curious to learn something about the vast swaths of Red America that propelled Trump to a surprise Electoral College win
Now, though, the bubble seems to have closed back over Clinton Country. What voters here have learned about their fellow citizens in states such as my own Indiana has left them discouraged and dispirited that they share a nation with such benighted, gullible voters.
[ ]
I discovered 64-year-old Jack Shalom, a retired math teacher who lives in Brooklyn. He voted for Stein. For me, its about critiquing capitalism, Shalom told me. The Democratic Party was no longer a workers party, he said.
What did he not like about Trump? He shrugged. So many things, he said. He cited Trumps support of the Janus SCOTUS decision, which Ill admit I had to look up. He was referring to Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Council 31, a case that, if it went the wrong way, was going to destroy public unions, he said. It wasnt a case you heard folks bandy about back in Trump Country.
Shalom introduced me to Jennifer Cook, 49, a Clinton voter. Cook, who said her family earns more than $200,000 a yearincluding dividend income from a family businesscited a malaise that has gripped her and her friends since Trump entered office. Is there anything Trump could do to win her over? Nothing, she said. Absolutely nothing.
The best quote that Wren got, which was taken during a SoulCycle session in Manhattan, was asking Early if she ever went to the areas that Hillary Clinton described as backwards. She responded, No but Ive flown over it.
Yeah, sorryyoure making $200k a year and theres a malaise taking over your life because Trump won. Get a grip, folks. Conservatives didnt whine about 2012. Well, maybe for a few hoursat least I did, and then we worked to dominate the state legislatures and retake Congress, which we did in 2014. Not going to lie, there is a very real possibility now that Democrat could do that, but hating Trump, pushing for more taxes, peddling Russia collusion nonsense, and hoping history just plays you a good electoral hand are not the best ways to generate a wave. With the GOP, the massive stimulus package, the unpopularity of Obamacare, and the notion that spending was out of control (it still is) are universal concepts that can be embraced beyond the rigid confines of Americas cities and Democratic bastions. Were 218 days away from the midterms. There seems to be some data to suggest that Democrats are making inroads with rural voters, but its not enough to suggest anything definitive yet.
On a separate note, this bellyaching from folks with two loaves of bread under their arms, snobby, and condescending is exactly the reason why Trump won. And it seems theyve doubled down on pretty much every attitude that pushed Trump into the White House. To them, its not that theyre out of touch; its just that everyone else is wrong. In the words of Donald J. Trump: Sad!
For you reading pleasure, a visit into the camp and mindset of the "We're with her" crowd.
Funny and sad!
Some of us have two loaves, too.
$200,000 a year in Manhatten is broke ass poor!
Read the article while humming the tune and lyrics to Freeze a Yankee. You may have to look up who Dolf Bristol was (if it helps he was the inspiration for the Governor in Best Little Whorehouse in Texas).
That would be a very wealthy person in my part of the country.
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3644082/posts
The “let them eat cake” snobs need to wake up to how the rest of us really feel about them.
Pretty decent article considering where it was published.
If Matt Vespa wanted to visit the REAL Clinton Country he should have gone to Baltimore and Detroit... into the pit of black hellholes... That’s where Democrats vote in numbers larger than the numbers of people living in those ‘communities’...
All the stuff about democrat ‘elites’ is fun but it’s NOT where the big vote total come from... maybe Matt Vespa missed the Texas border with Mexico - dirt poor brown people pulling the lever for Hillary. Or the ‘homeless’ of Orange Country in CA... lots of Hillary voters there... not ever listening to NPR...
I can attest to this. My own family is afflicted with this affluenza.
To them, we are the ants under the magnifying glass. Something to be observed and pitied.
The Politico article is loooonnnnnngggg, but only asked Libs about, or mentions, exactly ONE policy dislike:
What did he not like about Trump? He shrugged. So many things, he said. He cited Trumps support of the Janus SCOTUS decision, which Ill admit I had to look up.
No wonder the TDS hatred is all substance-free and stylistic.
This is The Insufferables Creed—what they truly believe (hat tip Michael Kelly).
The Insufferables believe in President Bill Clinton. And have always believed in him. They believed it when Clinton said he had never been drafted in the Vietnam War and believed him later when Clinton said he had merely forgotten to mention that he had been drafted in the Vietnam War.
The Insufferables believed him when Clinton he said he hadnt had sex with Gennifer Flowers and believed him later, when Clinton reportedly said he did bed her down.
They believe the president did not rent out the Lincoln Bedroom to celebrities, did not sell access to himself and the vice president to hundreds of well-heeled special pleaders and did not supervise the largest, most systematic money-laundering operation in campaign finance history, collecting more than $ 3 million in illegal and improper donations.
The Insufferables believe that Charlie Trie and James Riady were motivated by nothing but patriotism for their adopted country.
They believed President Clinton when he conceded that his administration mistakenly obtained the FBI files of more than 300 people, including many top Republicans and believes it was the result of a completely honest bureaucratic snafu involving security clearances.
The Insufferables believed Clintons chief of staff, Leon Panetta, when he told reporters that obviously a mistake was made and apologized to the people whose FBI files wound up at the White House. They believed Clinton when he said I completely support what my COS Panetta said about the affair.
They believed Vice President Gore when he said that he had made dunning calls to political contributors on a few occasions from his White House office, and believed him when he said that, actually, a few meant 46.
The Insufferables devoutly believe in no controlling legal authority....but not for Trump.
They believed Bruce Babbitt when he said that the $286,000 contributed to the DNC by Indian tribes opposed to granting a casino license to rival tribes had nothing to do with his denial of the license. Brooks believed the secretary when he said that he had not been instructed in this matter by then-White House deputy chief of staff Harold Ickes.
The Insufferables believed him when he said later that he had told lobbyist and friend Paul Eckstein that Ickes had told him to move on the casino decision, but that he had been lying to Eckstein. They agreed with the secretary that it is an outrage that anyone would question his integrity.
The Insufferables firmly believe in the Clinton Standard of adherence to the nations campaign finance and bribery laws, enunciated by the president on March 7, 1997: I dont believe you can find any evidence of the fact that I had changed government policy solely because of a contribution.
All of the accomplished Insufferable types noted with approval the use of the word evidence and also the use of the word solely. Journos believe, as Clinton does, that it is proper to change government policy to address the concerns of people who have given the president money, as long as nobody can find evidence of this being the “sole” reason.
They believe President Clinton lived up to his promise to preside over the most ethical administration in American history that indicted former agriculture secretary Mike Espy did not accept $35,000 in illegal favors from Tyson Foods and other regulated businesses.
The Insufferables believe that indicted former housing secretary Henry Cisneros did not lie to the FBI and tell others to lie to cover up $250,000 in blackmail payments to his former mistress.
They believe that convicted former associate attorney general Webster Hubbell was not involved in the obstruction of justice when the presidents minions arranged for Hubbell to receive $ 400,000 in sweetheart consulting deals at a time when he was reneging on his promise to cooperate with Kenneth Starrs Whitewater investigation.
The Insufferables believe, as Harvey Weinstein does, that Paula Jones is a cheap tramp who was asking for it, that Kathleen Willey is a cheap tramp who was asking for it, and that Monica Lewinsky is a cheap tramp who was asking for it.
They firmly believe Monica Lewinsky was just fantasizing in her 20 hours of taped conversation in which she reportedly detailed her sexual relationship with the president and begged Linda Tripp to join her in lying about the relationship and that any gifts, correspondence, telephone calls and the 37 post-employment White House visits that may have passed between Lewinsky and the president are evidence only of a platonic relationship.
The Insufferables believe that such innocent intimate friendships are quite common between middle-aged married men and young single women, and also between presidents of the United States and White House interns.
They see nothing suspicious in the report that the presidents intimate pal, Vernon Jordan, arranged a $40,000-per-year job for Lewinsky shortly after she signed but before she filed an affidavit saying she had not had sex with the president.
Nor did they read anything significant into the fact that the ambassador to the United Nations, Bill Richardson,
visited Lewinsky at the Watergate to offer her a job.
The Insufferables believe the instructions Lewinsky gave Linda Tripp informing her on how to properly perjure herself in the Willey matter “simply wrote themselves.”
The Insufferables believe, as does Hillary, that The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, Newsweek, Time, U.S. News & World Report, ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, PBS and NPR are all part of a vast right-wing conspiracy to malign the saintly Clintons.
These people are Lotus Eaters. Come a day, they will go down in droves, unable to fend for themselves.
Believe me, that’s a good salary in Manhattan. Somebody here was trying to pass you a rubber peach!
They do in my neck of the woods.
And it doesnt go too far in much of New Jersey, either. Of course, this is largely because the liberals around here tax the hell out of everything, and through their socialist policies, distort normal free market forces.
On one of my forays into the heart of darkness, the DC metro, I was treated to a lengthy diatribe by a well connected denizen. According to this highly educated, wealthy and opinionated man, the entire state of West Virginia should be emptied of its population and turned into a nature preserve used only for recreating.
When I asked what he proposed for the 1.8 million souls who called West Virginia their home and ancestral property, he waved his hand and said, “Inbred and stupid people. Just put them somewhere.”
So, to all those highly educated people in “lesser” states, all those who live on land their forebears settled, those who labor and produce, provide works of charity, prayer and gratitude for life, I apologize for this pig-ignorant man.
In the immortal words of some internet bard: YOU CAN’T FIX STUPID.
You will never change their mentality which surpasses the supposed obligation of nobility.
Unless, of course, they sleepwalk into a nasty revolution.
“The let them eat cake snobs need to wake up to how the rest of us really feel about them.”
They really don’t care. They just fly over.
Adam Wren wrote the article, not Matt Vespa. Vespa reviewed it.
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