At first, I didn't see 'Trump' and agreed with you wholeheartedly. After reading . . . OK, sure. I think H.S. Thompson took the pulse accurately: https://www.thenation.com/article/this-p…

Merry stupid Christmas Ebenezer Mudede!

Imagine if Eastern Washingtononians were granted their dearest wish and the state of Liberty (etcetera) became a thing. Western Washingtonians would still be stuck with Southwest Washington. The people in Centralia, Kelso, Naselle, et al., are so backwards they make people in Eastern Washington look like citizens of Ancient Greece during the reign of Solon. I've meet people in Lewis County who couldn't read without moving their lips. To become truly civilized, Washington state would have to allow that swath of handicapped cerebrums between Lacey and Vancouver to go independent as well.

Good Evening Charles,
Gonna have to part with you on this posting.

For the record, Christmas isn't stupid. And, it has nothing to do with Donald Trump or Barack Obama for that matter. It is a Christian holiday that celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ usually on Dec. 25 (Orthodox Christians celebrate on another date). Since his exact date of birth is unknown that date was chosen as essentially replacing the Roman pagan holiday, Sol Invictus or Invincible Sun that commemorates the Winter Solstice.

What is foolish is the ostentatious display and over consumption of those who do celebrate that holiday or Yuletide, a secular manifestation of Christmas. That consumption can be found in the city (have you visited Candy Cane Lane in Seattle?) or the country (Kelso?). Here in America or elsewhere.

I don't like that consumerism any more than you. But, I do have fond memories of my parents' efforts to render the Christmas holiday celebratory. That included, a Christmas tree, house lights, a creche, mistletoe and poinsettas, egg nog and singing carols among other traditions and displays.

It's a good holiday that actually wishes "Peace on Earth & Goodwill to all mankind".

Nope, it's not stupid at all.

Kelso is to Portland as Wasilla is to Anchorage: a tweaker-infested shit-hole suburb inhabited by mostly low-grade morons that could literally be burned off the map to no detrimental effect.

Well, this post by CM doesn't really have anything to do with xmas. Charles, you're right, the rural folk are by and large stupid people. That or intelligent and knowingly self-destructive. But what does xmas have to do with any of this really? The holiday itself is harmless. Winter solstice. Celebration time with friends and family. That's not stupid.

@7:

Can you point to any rural Trumpists who AREN'T white people?

How do they celebrate Kwanza? With gunfire?

Drop all the dumb Christmas stuff but please keep the lights through late February. It's too damn dark all day!

Christmas a religious holiday AND a federal holiday when christians are given the day off to worship and non-Christians are given a day off to contemplate the separation of church and state.

@9 No, that's how Christians celebrate *at least the ones who back Assad*. You can't massively assassinate children and commit war crimes without gunfire (although using barrel bombs, chemical weapons and torture help too).

Christmas lights are amazing - archetypal symbols in the darkest days of the year that light and fecundity will return to the world. I'm always touched that people will burn some calories to broadcast this deep ancient tradition. This year in particular when I took the time to hang mine it felt cathartic, like 2016 sucked but everything's gonna be alright.

Charles, if you haven't put some time into it already, I encourage you to look into the history of Kelso/Longview, union suppression, and the lumber industry, tracking it to the present day. I'm sure you can guess the trajectory, but it's an archetypal Northwest economic story.

Few years ago a young family member was compelled by circumstance to live for 7 months in Longview. I made quite a lot of effort get him to understand why the number of psychological cripples was so high, and elicit some sympathy for them, but young people can have trouble processing how a particular psychology, like economic conditions, can develop deeply over generations, especially when outside sources of information and opportunity for them are limited and twisted.

@8: Yes, like most of rural New Mexico. Only Santa Fe and Bernaillo and maybe one other county went for Clinton, which won her the state. The rest, like Mora county in the NE part of the state, is mostly poor and Hispanic, and voted for Trump.

This is not unique to New Mexico. Look at the vote by county maps.

Oh come on. You have a right to be whiny and bitter, because, Trump, however you must try to be a good writer. The bah humbug Christmas thing has been done. Sprinkling some liberal bellyaching on top does not magically transform that into some sort of think piece.

I know that you Charles and your ilk don't like to consort with us rural untermenschen, but are you really this determined to not win an election ever again by slandering the entire electorate that live anywhere outside of King County?

Such hateful, divisive rhetoric...

I don't think the good people on Genessee St would like you to call their house stupid.

"You can't massively assassinate children and commit war crimes without gunfire (although using barrel bombs, chemical weapons and torture help too)."

In Chicago?

WOW!  What an original and striking thing to say!  Rural people have opinions that you consider dumb, who knew? We're all blown away by your well-thought-out, perceptive, broad yet focused article.

Aww, is this a picture of your home, raindrop?

CHARLEY, woh now, remember my fuddy buddy, if you forget history, it will forget you....Longview/Kelso has a long Left history of Unions:

"The International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) has had a presence at the Port since the late 1930s, after the famous San Francisco general strike of 1934. Longshore workers, led by Harry Bridges and other radicals, including many Communists, defeated the shipping companies and forced them to accept a union hiring hall. This would dispatch workers, according to union rules, to any employer on the docks that needed them. Such a hiring hall arrangement, operated by ILWU Local 21, is in force at the Port of Longview. The Port has an agreement with the union that all of the shipping businesses using the port will utilize ILWU members to load and unload cargo. The ILWU also has a collective bargaining agreement with all of the owners of export grain terminals at ports along the Pacific Coast, an agreement that spells out the wages, hours, and terms and conditions of employment of the ILWU members who work at grain terminals."

BUT, the logs stopped coming in the amount that they did, and the work dried up and the dream caught on fire and the hazy smoke fills the sky and bloxks the sunlight...

What happened, Charley, what happened to make all those Lefty, hard working Union Folks turn to dust and dry away and the scattered grit and the leftover houses now filled with the twekers seeking anything, the elderly, the bitter, the ignorant, the cynic....

What happened Charley. Instead of your drive by cultural stereo type, how about putting your black shoulder to the wheel and digging in.

Tell us what happened to the dream, Charley.

How did the flowers die and the bitter evil molds and mosses take sprout.

Tell us, Charley, and then you'll know too,

and THEN, you'll know where you are, because you took a wrong turn near Christmas Cynic Junction, only you don't knows it yet...

@3 must by nice to be so fucking superior to everybody with your vast intelligence, ya fucking douche moron!

Happy Solstice, everyone.

And beyond that,the less said the more better.

@3

This is like the Ld-50 level of smug right here. Jesus Christ you are a like a fucking parody.

@21: Sort of

@15 - spelling fix: Bernalillo

"I've meet people in Lewis County who couldn't read without moving their lips"

Funny, I've met adults in the Rainier Valley who couldn't read at all despite a top notch education at Seattle Public Schools.

Great to see the stereotype of bitter, condescending, rootless elitism among Stranger writers hasn't been weakened by the Trump victory.

What @4 said.

I'm trying to wrap my head around the point of this post. i get that blogging is a forum for informal writing and that underdeveloped thinking is par for the course (really, the whole point of the medium). But usually I can see some kind of thesis that's being worked out.

The theses here seem to be:

1) Christmas, especially in its modern, consumerist form, unanchored from its religious origins, is stupid, but that's OK. (OK, yes, fine)

and

2) Trump voters like Christmas, and are stupid, and Christmas is stupid, and that's not OK.

To which I respond, well, fine, I can understand why you might think so. But what is the point of stating this? Are you trying to convince Trump voters not to be stupid? (This sure won't do it). Are you trying to convince undecided voters that voting for Trump is stupid? (A day late and a dollar short on that one) Are you virtue-signalling to your fellow Clinton supporters? (Um, OK, but you opened by calling urban-holiday celebrating stupid too, which kinda contradicts that). Are we rallying the troops here? (let's just say this post ain't exactly Braveheart)

I guess you could just be venting steam, but this isn't really even good polemic.

Or maybe this is some kind of satire that's flying over my head? "Stupid" is a word that most of us leave behind on the middle school playground. Or is that part of the elaborate satirical nature of the post?

I guess my takeaway is that either I'm stupid because I don't get it, or the post is stupid.

@29: There is no clairvoyant and profound angle to this, although Charles probably thinks so. The only takeaway is that Charles remains very bitter about our culture and society and poisons his own ability to enjoy life and its celebrations.

Huh?

@22 Actually, I think the labor history of Longview/Kelso enriches Charles's observations and ruminations rather than contradicts them. The efforts to resist labor organizing in the timber industry were brutal and went on for a long time, including the government/industry alliance to beat back organizing in the early part of the 20th century, beat back organizing of the huge numbers of low skill / low pay workers that made up the industry, by leftist labor organizations, especially those like the anarchist anti-segregationist IWW, which was very active in the NW and southern timber industry.

Longview itself was built by the Long-Bell company in the mid 20s as an insta-town for 14000 millworkers and 50,000 inhabitants. Even as the port and later more industry in the region became unionized, efforts never stopped to keep labor de-politicized, beyond the contract at hand.

As regional industry and resource extraction has foundered in the past 30 years, so too has income and quality of life for younger generations of the working class. But lacking clear understanding of what has been happening to them, and not possessing relevant political or cultural response to the changes that have swept over the region, large numbers of the working class are self-identity basket cases, much like members of non-thriving farming community members in the midwest, despite that they are less than an hour away from a modern urban center, and so it is not surprising they vote like those in rural Indiana, and do meth like some economically basket case county in Kentucky.

I think Charles's take on the vibe there is pretty accurate, in spite of the partial labor history you describe. Cowlitz county is tied with Adams county for the 2nd highest obesity rate in the State of WA. Despite the efforts of many, it can be very very depressing - change is slow...

@33: What gives you the presumption to say "..but lacking clear understanding of what has been happening to them.."?

You're not in their shoes. You cannot say that you know about what is happening to another person more than that person.

This is precisely the brain dead pseudo elitist thinking that caused Hillary to lose the election.

However, you're more than welcome to ask them what they think and then have a conversation.

Well, its people like you and Trump that brazenly tell them you are going to bring back the steel industry and erect trade barriers, and some of them believe your lies, while others are confused because you are their supposed allies, proponents and defenders. And others believe you when you tell them the changes in the economy that have impacted their communities are because the brown people are getting all the goodies. Now you want to cut their health care and steal their retirement money out of the Social Security trust fund to give to yourself and your rich friends. Doesn't your Reich party have its own frickn' blogs? Why don't you put your energy and money where your mouth is and revive Das Reich newspaper as a local outlet for yourself and your friends?

Frickin' cowardly parasites.

this piece is not informative, clever, of entertaining - not sure what is going on?

52.9% of Cowlitz County voters opted for TRUMP - giving him a total of 24,066 votes.

21.7% of King County voters opted to put in their ballot for TRUMP - for a total of 197,781 votes.

your language and the tone of this article suggests you are not fit to effectively communicate with people of rural backgrounds - maybe this blog post (?) would read better if you used your words to project shame and contempt for your urban counterparts.

@35: I'm saying no such thing. You're slipping into hyperbole. I'm saying to avoid extrapolations such as yours because you don't know their dispositions.

Re 37, "dispositions" - to clarify, I meant what rural Americans are going through and their individual dispositions on life.

I've heard that Hillbilly Elegy is a good read on this.

@33 fine analysis, one can never escape the past....