Comments

2
It was evangelical white voters who gave it to Trump. But just keep trashing "the working class" Dan. We know how much you hate the concept.
3
@2: It was gullible fubes who gave it to *, not evangelicals per se. I know multiple * voters: jews & catholics. they believe bullshit. they vote based on spite, Israel & abortion. those people need to hear some hard truths, not mollycoddling.

Rodgers has some ovaries to show up at a MLK observance. good for the hecklers.
5
In the article Dan linked about people voting for Trump even though they need the ACA and Trump vowed to repeal it, there's some interesting bit of self-sacrifice there.

Debbie Mills, the spotlighted Trump voter who needs the ACA, said she voted for Trump because the people in her town are losing their jobs and need work, and that despite needing the ACA herself, the town is all in this together.

Her words, from the article:
We're in a small, rural area where there's not a lot of businesses right now going on, and so we can't really have anything else shut down, because it affects everybody.

We were in an area where there's lots of coal. And so we don't work in the coal mines, but … one job affects this job and affects this job. If they're not working, they're not grocery shopping, they're not going and buying furniture, they're not buying clothes, they're not doing anything.


I'd read this article before but didn't catch that part. It's very interesting. As a democrat, and more or less a socialist, I agree that what happens in that town affects everyone, and so her actions of thinking of the town first and her own personal health (her husband's actually) second, resonate with me.

The actual outcome of this may be fundamentally flawed (Trump and the republicans are liars, cheats, and a frauds, and will not be bringing any work to that, or any, small town unless it happens to have billionaires as residents) but her sentiment is morally and ethically sound, imo.
6
Yesterday it was the White Working Class who put Trump over the top. Today its Evangelicals. What will it be tomorrow? Connecticut Stock Brokers? Main Street Rotarians? Retired wood shop teachers? Whichever GOP-voting constituency is most convenient for the rhetorical task at hand, I guess.

7
rubes, not fubes!
8
fubes works for me
9
Fuck you, Dan Savage, for once again making the fundamental error of pretending Hillary lost because Donald Trump was appealing to more people.

Hillary Clinton lost because people saw her as a continuation of an inept, triangulating, plutocractic Democratic tradition that did nothing for them. They didn't vote for her. They didn't vote for Donald Trump. The didn't vote. The biggest block of voters by far (literally twice as large as any other voting block) were the people who JUST DIDN'T VOTE. That contingent was giant in every demographic.
10
@5: that sentiment may be "sound", but not understanding the structural changes in the global economy is not. regions that are dependent on resource extraction will boom and bust. what does she think will fuel the region's economy if coal isn't coming back? mushroom harvesting?

it's over for west virginia - mr. peabody's coal train has hauled it away. unless they embrace Keynesian stimulus and get big gubmint to pay to repair the land.
11
Haha, I was kinda liking "fubes" too.
12
Everybody should read @9.
13
My brother and I used to hurl the insult "foob" at each other in grade school. It was a highly sophiscated mix of "fool" and "boob," and it deserves to be a classic go-to, even with the unusual (British?) f-u-b-e spelling.
14
"Lots of the same white working class voters in Spokane who got health insurance under the ACA demonstrated their gratitude to Obama and the Dems by voting for Donald Trump and McMorris Rodgers, both of whom promised to destroy the ACA."

Actually Hillary won Spokane-the-city (as Obama did, and Cantwell & Murray have done repeatedly). However, Spokane is a relatively small & concentrated part of Spokane County, and doesn't dominate the demographics the way Seattle does with King County. McMoRo keeps winning re-election, not because of Spokane-the-city, which is light blue, but because of Spokane-the-county, which is dark red. (Not to mention the other counties in her district, which are also dark red.)
15
Hmm, if these folks were attending an MLK rally and booing Rogers both, methinks they did not actually vote for Putin's Puppet. Not too many of his supporters are big MLK fans...or at least not big enough to attend rallies in his honor.
16
@5 - it's not that she was thinking of the town's health as being more important than her husband's. Reading on (after the part where she says that once Obamacare became law she didn't think they could take it away again):

I don't know. I guess I thought that, you know, he would not do this. That they would not do this, would not take the insurance away. Knowing that it's affecting so many people’s lives. I mean, what are you to do then if you cannot … purchase, cannot pay for the insurance?

You know, what are we to do?

So I don't know. Maybe he's thinking about, you know, the little people that are not making the big money, like what they make in New York and Washington and all the places that, you know, this is not, you know, something — this is people’s lives that's being affected.


That part is so sad. She sounds like she's just starting to realize that maybe he really did mean exactly what he said and, if so, her family is going to be fucked.
17
@4, It's my understanding that she invited herself. Awkward...
18
@16,

It's probably both. That she was both concerned about her neighbors without jobs AND she didn't think the republicans would actually take away their insurance. It IS very sad. It's unfortunate that she, and others like her, are going to learn things the hard way... that is, if they survive to learn at all.

More likely, she and those like her won't learn. The republicans will take away her insurance and then they will simply blame the democrats for everyone's misery. That's what they always do. And their voters accept it as reality.

It's like what @10 said. This woman's heart may have sympathetic strings, but she doesn't understand how government, or economies, or global politics work. There are myriad reasons WHY these people don't understand things that are vital to their own survival, but the point remains that they do not understand them and they vote against themselves over and over and over.

They AREN'T likely to embrace Keynesian economics. They AREN'T likely to embrace big government, even if their refusal to do so kills them. They've been lied to, conned, and tricked into believing the opposite of the truth. They've been convinced that the democrats are killing them and the republicans are their only hope, when, in fact, the exact opposite is true.
19
@9 is the correctest
20
I'm sick and tired of "liberals" lustily cheering for the declining health and premature death of people who can't afford health care. What the fucking fuck is wrong with you? Everybody should have access to affordable health care because we live in the richest nation in the history of the world. Doesn't matter if they're stupid or motivated by spite or they voted for the wrong person or believe that the world is flat or whatever.

Health care for everybody, period.
22
@ 16 - "That part is so sad. She sounds like she's just starting to realize that maybe he really did mean exactly what he said and, if so, her family is going to be fucked."

I may sound totally heartless (although that's an accusation I would save for all those who actually want to take away poor people's health insurance), but I wouldn't say that's sad. I'd say it's poetic justice. Or karma.
23
You gotta look on the bright side, the GOP is helping with the overpopulation problem.
24
NPR this morning quoted a commentator who likened the "insurance for everybody" pledge to promise "going to Mars, without fuel, for the price of a Popsicle stick." And that was one of the conservos.
25
@20:

I doubt most liberals would disagree with your position vis-a-vis universal coverage. It's just that it's extremely frustrating to watch as millions of our fellow citizens consistently cast their collective votes for conservatives based on a few narrowly-defined issues, and then bemoan their fate when those they've voted into power consistently fuck them over on all the OTHER issues. It really does look, from the outside at least, as though they either don't take that into consideration, or that they continue to fantasize that somehow the politicians they elect won't do what they always say they're going to do; seriously, how is, "I sure hope they're lying to us, but I'm going to vote for them anyway" a sound basis for deciding for whom to vote? But regardless, it's wearing to keep having to dredge up sympathy for people who get conned over and over again, but who never seem willing or able to learn from the experience.
26
Who needs insurance or affordable health care (two very different things) when you have online prayer circles? We're talking about adults who truly believe that if enough people say the same magic spell enough times, cancer goes into remission. Of course they are going to buy a load of BS from someone who claims to believe in the same magic.
27
@8. But she didn't lose by close to three million votes. Yes Clinton was a very flawed choice, she still won the most votes.
It's this outrageous EC bull what needs dealing with. That would be a start.
If I was one of those whose votes Didn't Count, I'd be stopping paying taxes.
No taxation without representation.
28
Just like those who voted for Brexit and thought that, well, Great Britain would never reeeally leave the EU, those who voted for DT and the GOP Congresspersons didn't reeeally believe that the ACA (and soon, Medicare and SS) would be repealed? GTFU voters!
29
Here's a thought experiment for any Clinton voter who is still grappling with how nonbigoted people could vote for Trump despite the fact that his policies might hurt some demographics in this country. How did you vote for Clinton despite all her foreign policy disasters that destroyed the lives of millions of people in other countries? Are those people even on your radar? Do you think about them? Did you take the time to understand the situations and her decisions and motivations and future plans in Haiti, Honduras, Libya, Syria, Yemen, etc? Or did you just support the person that you thought would do the best job for the country and the people you know and care about despite the fact that other people might suffer as a result? Did you perhaps just assume that the world is a complicated place and you would just trust her to do her ethical best without bothering to see what the vulnerable people in those regions say? Now apply this mindset to a Trump voter in a rural county. You aren't so different. The truth is that there were no good guys in this general election. Now is the time to build a viable resistance to the oligarch-serving politicians on both sides.

As for this situation specifically, I doubt there is much crossover between the Trump voters in Spokane and the attendees at this rally.

As for the ACA, I think a lot of people are confused and a lot of them are brainwashed. I'm as frustrated as the rest of you, but I draw the line at blaming rural or poor people themselves, or red states in general. Propaganda is extremely effective, and the politicians and businesspeople who profit are extremely powerful. What troubles me about some liberals' attitude here is that we are living in a country that is quite literally being run by an NYC and Silicon Valley billionaire oligarchy backed by a propaganda machine out of LA and yet somehow we are blaming this on poor people in red regions who don't understand economics and watch too much TV- and then sneering at them when they stand to lose their healthcare. We should be organizing that grievance.
30
@29 there's a fancy Latin term for what you're doing, and I don't know what it is.

So let's call it BS.

You make a false comparison: Hilary was pretty good as Secretary of State, the world is a fucked up place. I *did* hold Hilary to task for the foreign policy issues you speak about, and concluded that she would be far better than Trump.

There isn't a single thing I can think of Trump being "better" on except if you're a heartless billionaire, he'll cut your taxes and get rid of the inheritance estate tax. Democrats serve the oligarchs but much less than Republicans. D: Estate tax R: no estate tax. D: increase in marginal tax rate on rich, more health care. R: decrease in tax rates on rich, less health care.

You can be a progressive and still conclude Ds aren't perfect but are pretty good (and light years ahead of Rs).
31
@30 The GOP is worse. It's why I voted for Hilary. She was a disaster as SoS. If you held her for task for everything I mentioned, what are you praising her for? She mingled well with diplomats?

But I'm not talking about liberals like you, who looked at two problematic candidates and voted for one. I'm talking about liberals that keep repeating that all Trump supporters are bigots for supporting someone whose policies might hurt others without acknowledging that Hilary's did the same- just across borders. People are actually making smug comments about Americans losing their health insurance. Some Trump supporters might be ignorant or brainwashed (plenty in fact) but it's dismissive to sneer at them and not listen to the cause of their discontent that allowed them to be ripe for brainwashing in the first place. In fact, it's a flaw of the Democrats that they've ignored these people so long that they've been radicalized. Hilary didn't even bother to campaign in most states. Continuing to sneer and shit on people and refusing to reflect on what made Hilary (and that branch of the DNC) is strategically stupid. But worse, it's haughty to pretend that you don't support a candidate that harms people- she just harms people you don't think about and is good on the issues you do care about. Flip that around, and that's how lots of Trump supporters feel.
32
@31. No President or Leader of a country avoids hurting someone somewhere.
Most trump voters didn't even know this was on the cards because they never bothered to read the policies Paul Ryan so carefully laid out.
They heard; Mexicans are rapists build a wall etc.
I agree with you that dialogue with these voters is imperative, and may now be possible with the health plan repeal. And that won't be possible if they are held as just the bad guys.
Help them change their bigoted attitudes thru dialogue. They will start scrambling soon as they wake up to how, thru his manipulations of their hatreds, trump has just used them for their votes.
33
Yes, I think Trump is a racist for his comments about Mexicans. Clinton and Obama, on the other hand, actually overthrew a government in Honduras, escalating violence and the refugee crisis there and in El Salvador all the way up to the Mexican border where those same people were often detained and held either in prisons around the US (including families - children) or else deported back to their violent countries. I think Obama tried to do some good things for Latin American immigrants with the Dream Act and some of the refugee legislation, and I think Trump's call to build a wall is racist and stupid. None of this changes the fact that liberals are hypocritical when the condemn Trump supporters for liking his "build a wall" rhetoric but are silent on Obama/Hilary's policies in Latin America- including the deportation and prison detention of millions of immigrants.

What I want is for liberals to realize that neither party is serving the people, and when they attack other people ("ha ha you lost your health care") or when they simplify people's grievances and motivations ("just a bunch of red state bigots") they are contributing to the problem.
34
For example, is anyone saying we need to intervene in NYC or LA or Silicon Valley to help these people overcome their bigotry? They are the ones transitioning to the White House. Trump didn't get where he is without LA propaganda and SV and NY billionaires. It seems reductive and nonstrategic to focus on voters with real grievances- some of whom are bigots, some aren't- who have been manipulated by these people rather than focusing on the people manipulating them. ESPECIALLY when liberals offer them nothing more than Hilary who basically just ignores them.
35
@34: "For example, is anyone saying we need to intervene in NYC or LA or Silicon Valley to help these people overcome their bigotry"

Silicon Valley? Absolutely. Techbros aren't too concerned about racism and sexism.
36
"It was evangelical white voters who gave it to Trump. But just keep trashing "the working class"

You seem to be making the assertion that those are two completely separate groups, which leads me to believe you don't know anyone from either of them.
37
So you know what? Elections have consequences.
38
@9, 12, 19: Thank you for buying into the Republican/Russian line that Hillary is evil. It was repeated to you loudly enough and often enough, and you internalized it. And so did a lot of people who were convinced not to vote.
And that's how we ended up with the orange fascist.
39
@EmmaLiz,

Some of your comments seem to suggest that you think this republican/democrat divide only happened in the last election. The fact is, the "rural" people, the republican voters who vote against their own self interest, has been going on for decades. Long before Hillary Clinton was even on anyone's radar.

The problem of republican voters shooting themselves in the foot has nothing whatsoever to do with Hillary Clinton or the current DNC. It's a cancer that's been eating away at our country for years and years.
40
I found this article to be brilliant in giving a face and identity to "Trump voters." Please read it, not for its intent, but for the author. It's not that she's dumb, but how she is dumb, and how she sees herself.
http://www.vox.com/first-person/2017/1/1…
41
33&34; Emma Liz. It is America you're talking about. Toppling governments and propping up others. And yes, Clinton has dirty hands.
I read somewhere that Obama dropped a lot of bombs last year. I'd say much much less than Bush did or trump might. Hillary? Who really knows how she would have played it. However she did it would be a whole lot better than this horror of greed and baseness.
And yes, all these forgotten people, were fed up and trump knew just how to play them. And Hillary was too unresponsive to do the same. Her message was more for the poor and she meant it. Bernie and Elizabeth would have made that stay true. Health, education, cornerstones of a healthy society, she would have nourished those.
42
Trump is all our karmas. We've known for fifty odd years, how serious global warming was, yet we hung on to the old forms. Blind. And stupid.
With trump, extremely blind and stupid, it has roused us out of our stupor.
American women and men, once again, leading the battle.
43
The head of NAACP in Spokane didn't approve? As a person of different facets of the rainbow I hope the crowd loudly made statements about the racist/sexist pig cathy is backing. Cathy is a birthing teabagger. The people in the area usually don't get to see her. She's from San Diego now.
44
I WAS THERE and was part of the heckling, chanting, and booing. She obviously didn't expect this response, and it was what she needed to hear... I doubt she will listen. It was clear that the vast majority at the *MLK* rally and march in freezing weather that day were definitely NOT people who voted for Trump, so get your facts straight before you insult us! By the way, they said it was a much heavier turnout for this event than expected, and we had an even bigger crowd less than a week later for the Women's March (8k-10k). Spokane is clearly more progressive than you think... When Bernie came thousands of people flocked to see him...the line snaked for miles and everyone waited for many hours. I was there for that, too, and served as a delegate for him later. Bill Clinton came to Spokane about a week after Bernie and only a small crowd bothered with him. I wasn't there for that...but I heard the turnout was laughable.
If your congressman/woman is present at a public event, SHOW UP and give them an earful!

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