Trump and the American Divide

City Journal ^ | Winter 2017 | Victor Davis Hanson

[DeweyCA]

At 7 AM in California

[DeweyCA]

This is a LONG, but very stimulating by Dr. VDH. He makes a political distinction between primarily rural people and urban progressives. Personally, I would make the distinction primarily between rural people who tend to be conservative and have traditional biblical values because they see what works and have to live with the results vs. smug urbane progressives who often are wealthy enough to remain largely unaffected by their stupid policies and thus don't have to reconsider the wisdom (or lack thereof) of their ideas. Dr. Thomas Sowell says that this is often true of academic intellectuals: they never have to consider if their ideas actually work because they are not punished for their bad progressive ideas. They don't suffer any consequences for their stupidity, so they never learn.

[DeweyCA]

This idea of liberal elites not having to suffer the consequences of their bad ideas, and thus not learning from them, is what makes us view them as being “out-of-touch” with reality. The elites really do live in an artificial world.

[HiTech RedNeck]

We got a redneck revolution on!

How do I share something like this without coming across as self glorifying or self promoting? But I did see it years ago... yes, I did. It sounded to me like the only sensible exit from the corner we were painting ourselves into, to just rudely trudge across the wet paint, not caring what it looked like or what kind of temporary mess it made.

Who knew that God actually had this on His books?

I’m proud of America, or rather, proud of what God did with America.

https://soundcloud.com/daniel-levy-6/redneck-revolution-demo

[Falconspeed]

“New York Times columnists have yet to find themselves flattened by Chinese writers willing to write for a fraction of their per-word rate.”

True. The spoiled brats with protected jobs are clueless about the reality of 85% of Americans: replaced by cheap labor, stunned by high gas prices and sick of drugs in the high schools.

Trump and Palin both tapped into the real American experience of hurt.

[60Gunner]

Then we need to find a way to make it hurt for them.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Don’t give the Chinese ideas! (Heh, heh, heh, I’d like to see that, at least with Americanized Chinese... yellow rednecks, so to speak.)

[HiTech RedNeck]

Just leaving the corner they have painted us into, seems to be sufficient.

[HiTech RedNeck]

And to trace back even further than the drugs... the reality of the deadly ennui that made room for them.

[W.]

Long but fun. Thanks!

[GOP Poet]

Great post!

[Vince Ferrer]

This idea of liberal elites not having to suffer the consequences of their bad ideas, and thus not learning from them, is what makes us view them as being “out-of-touch” with reality. The elites really do live in an artificial world.

The best example of this is divorce and single parenthood. The rich can afford to get divorced, even Trump can get divorced and stay rich. It is devastating, however, to the lower middle class and poor.

[weston]

Excellent read. Thank you.

[Jeff Chandler]

One reason that Trump may have outperformed both McCain and Romney with minority voters was that they appreciated how much the way he spoke rankled condescending white urban liberals.

I read an excerpt from an interview with Buddy Ebsen in which he recalled how popular the show was with African Americans. He said he was always approached by AAs in public -- airports and such. I'm sure the appeal was for similar reasons. The Clampetts were looked down upon by the rich white folk, yet always came out on top.

[onyx]

The final election map told quite the story. Coastal, left-wing elites and extreme or radical left-wing elites. (Unreal - my Mississippi district went for Hillary ... ugh).

Isolated from ordinary, every day, paycheck to paycheck Americans, these liberals don't relate to Trump voters primarily because they don't have to and don't care to or want to.

We're beneath them, but not enough for their pity, only their rage and scorn. LOL.

We're misguided, and, deplorable and irredeemable. We believe in God, the Ten Commandments and we're the stupid idiots who still attend Church, and either home school or endorse Charter schools.

We're those dinosaur "Conservatives" AKA as racists, xenophobes, Islamophobes, misogynists, lesbian and homosexual haters, obstructionists, warmongers, progressive haters and just plain haters.

Of course, we're also uneducated. High school education, if we're lucky...LOL. Otherwise, we're drop-outs, hillbillies, if you will.

Our greatest, unforgivable sin: We had the colossal nerve to turn out in droves by the millions to VOTE!

WE ELECTED Donald J Trump, POTUS - #45.

Praise God! Thank You, Lord.

We have OUR President!
The Patriots President.
The Peoples President!
DONALD J. TRUMP

[Tench_Coxe]

"After all, the elite in Washington and Menlo Park appreciate the fresh grapes and arugula that they purchase at Whole Foods. Someone mined the granite used in their expensive kitchen counters and cut the timber for their hardwood floors. The fuel in their hybrid cars continues to come from refined oil. The city remains as dependent on this elemental stuff—typically produced outside the suburbs and cities—as it always was. The two Palo Altoans at Starbucks might have forgotten that their overpriced homes included two-by-fours, circuit breakers, and four-inch sewer pipes, but somebody somewhere made those things and brought them into their world. "

I would like to see a poll on the "elites" think the food on their grocery shelves comes into being. It certainly doesn't magically grow itself on the shelf....

[Kellis91789]

Yep. I hadn’t seen it put this way before. This in particular caught my eye:

“Tenured Harvard professors hymning praise to global progressive culture don’t suddenly discover their positions drawn and quartered into four part-time lecturer positions.”

What would happen to their elite attitudes if universities started replacing professors with H1B visa workers being paid $20K/yr from Eqypt and India ? What if all the new PHD graduates were to find ZERO teaching positions available because they were all being filled with cheap foreign workers ? And what if those tenured professors were to lose tenure and be fired for “hate speech” if they objected to jobs being filled with foreigners ?

[Nailbiter]

It certainly doesn’t magically grow itself on the shelf....

Ask the average millennial where the food on grocery shelf comes from - might get some interesting answers.

Reminds me of someone from my past that always got lost driving- this because N was always at top of the map:)

[HiTech RedNeck]

Is it me, or does Donald look a little like George Washington, except for the hairdo?

[HiTech RedNeck]

And... dear lefties... the fact that Donald didn’t win Calvinball (whose current mutable rules are claiming that it ought to be the sum of the popular votes in all the states) — is irrelevant here. One plays to the rules of the game as they stand at the time the game commenced. Donald could have run against a “popular vote” set of rules and still won; however the result would be even more polarized in city vs. country than it is now. California tends to be left out in the cold, but that is because of its prevalent urban population, a situation exacerbated by the Federal welfare milking game it plays using illegal immigrants. Cut that kind of abuse off, and soon California will be within hollering distance of coming in from the cold.

[lewislynn]

As I recall early on VDH was more in the same anti-Trump camp as the "two young men in tight “high-water” pants" than he was with the farmer in Fresno.

He'd like to make the reader now believe his neighbor was the farmer in Fresno, the truth is the (like minded?) guys in skinny jeans in Palo Alto are really his neighbors.