December 4, 2020

"The old Southern Democrats maintained the allegiance of poor whites by making sure those poor whites felt they could look down on blacks."

"The modern Democratic Party maintains the allegiance of ­upper-middle-class whites by making sure they can look down on lower-class whites. By ­humanizing those lower-class whites, Netflix’s 'Hillbilly Elegy' calls the whole enterprise into question. Humanizing the working class was once what Democrats were about. But no longer.... In America, class war is disguised as cultural war, and cultural war is often waged under the guise of fighting racism. Thus, the Deplorables had to be cast as racists...."

190 comments:

rhhardin said...

I say they're just appealing to women.

Achilles said...

The only people you can make fun of are white males.

Just wait until white males begin acting like a group or tribe.

mikee said...

I, for one, think the Democrats bought into idea that the banjo duel in Deliverance represented the reality of the South, and never looked back. Because that odd guy could really play the banjo, couldn't he?

mockturtle said...

Good insight. Not something the NYT would have.

rhhardin said...

"Just call it a Friday of color," reader suggestion on Armstrong and Getty for Black Friday, to avoid racism.

mockturtle said...

Just wait until white males begin acting like a group or tribe.

I was going to suggest Proud Boys but some of their leadership is black.

Sebastian said...

"the Deplorables had to be cast as racists"

Yes. A key move in the culture war, which is also a class war.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

You kinda have to dehumanize the people you're planning on screwing over, otherwise you'll feel bad about yourself.

narciso said...

And latino, as cynthia hudson put it.

LilyBart said...

So basically the democrats' whole schtick is about 'looking down' on other groups, and dividing people and pitting them against each other. Yeah, that seems about right.

Michael K said...

Absolutely true. Anyone who has read Caro's LBJ biography knows the story.

Big Mike said...

Explains the neverending culture wars.

Birkel said...

Almost everybody who reads the NYT and WaPo for news coverage looks down on the Other.
They don't mind importing labor (Mike Lee) and exporting jobs (Chamber of Commerce) because those people are lower than.

We understand how you feel about us.
We loathe you back because there are so few options.

Meanwhile, Althouse declares her tribe the winners and thinks the losers should give up already.

traditionalguy said...

Spot on analysis.

Browndog said...

Humanizing the working class was once what Democrats were about. But no longer..

I reject this assertion outright.

Democrats were never about the working class just as liberals were never about free speech. It was a tool used to garner support among the fair minded to gain power. Once in power, they changed their mind?

Like the democrats and republics from the old south changed their minds and switched parties?

You have to question every narrative, every 'conventional wisdom' you've been taught your entire life and still treat as a fact etched in stone.

Achilles said...

Birkel said...

Almost everybody who reads the NYT and WaPo for news coverage looks down on the Other.
They don't mind importing labor (Mike Lee) and exporting jobs (Chamber of Commerce) because those people are lower than.

We understand how you feel about us.
We loathe you back because there are so few options.

Meanwhile, Althouse declares her tribe the winners and thinks the losers should give up already.


After we win we need to remember how we felt.

If it is to be a lasting victory we must not make the same mistake Ann is making.

cf said...

in my group of 5 wine-and-whine-w-chocolate friends here in Oregon, we break down 2 trumpsters to 3 unquestioning haters of trump. we NEVER talk about it.

One recent (covid safe outdoor) get-together was a threesome, just 2 of the haters and me, and in a lull of conversation, one brought up some latest CNN report of a "monstrous act" of Trump, and they had to catch themselves in their sneers as I figured, "ok, time to go".

in those few seconds, with their honest derision and laughter towards Trumpsters, before they turned in horror at their rudeness, I experienced my true role in 2020 as the designated "nigger".

you can pretty much say and do anything to us. 2020. what a year.

wild chicken said...

I finally watched it btw. Cried almost through the whole thing so I guess I relate.

Funny Althouse expected a bluegrass soundtrack. Now THAT's outta touch!

Death metal is more like it.

stevew said...

The use of that word, "deplorable", to describe a large group of Americans was the most telling and politically destructive thing Hillary ever did. And I want to thank her for that; she exposed the truth of how many of these so-called elites think of us.

Ann Althouse said...

@wild chicken

You’re misremembering my point.

I'm Full of Soup said...

I watched it yesterday while walking on my treadmill. Very entertaining - which is all I want from a movie. Though I remember wanting to decapitate a few Romans and burn some of them alive after watching the movie Gladiator. Heh -I am kidding [mostly]!

mockturtle said...

Cf, whatever our individual social status, income or education level, we Trump supporters [read America supporters] are the underclass. I predict that the younger generation will rise up in our defense at some point. Social justice for Deplorables Now!

traditionalguy said...

Just noticed that Glen Reynolds wrote it. He is one of us and he still gets NYC papers to run his stuff.

Joe Smith said...

Oh, the Protestants hate the Catholics
And the Catholics hate the Protestants
And the Hindus hate the Moslems
And everybody hates the Jews

--Tom Lehrer

https://youtu.be/dUwbZ9AlSPI

Unknown said...

The old Southern Democrats didn't care for the poor whites any more than they did for the poor blacks, but ensuring the former were ever so slightly better off than the latter allowed them to maintain power. I suppose you could say that the poor whites were privileged, but it wasn't much.

Howard said...

Sounds like opie's movie is worth a watch. Thanks for the recommendations

Achilles said...

traditionalguy said...

Just noticed that Glen Reynolds wrote it. He is one of us and he still gets NYC papers to run his stuff.

Because his links on the website add scalar multiples to their traffic.

rcocean said...

How many "Hillbillies" and "working class whites" voted for Trump? Don't care about Losers who help those who hate them.

rcocean said...

BTW, the republican establishment clowns are on the march. The same goofs who supported Hillary in 2016, subverted Trump for 4 years, and are giving him ZERO support in the election fraud fight, are now whining that WE MUST HOLD THE SENATE.

LOL! They just deleted two provisions they said they put in NDAA. One, gets rid of Confederate Names, and the other continues Section 230 for Big Tech. Also, the congress voted unanimously to reward Twitter and facebook by allowing hundreds of thousands of cheap Indian Programmers to get H-1B visas.

McConnell and his gang are no different then Schumer.

wendybar said...

Read the book. The movie leaves a lot out about who's policies hurt them. The movie is Democrat Hollywoodized.

tcrosse said...

If Trump runs in 2024, he should run in the Democrat primaries.

Chuck said...

For the record; Hillary Clinton's full verbatim "deplorables" comment. She did not attack anyone based on class, or wealth, or job status, or location. Here is what she actually said:

"You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. (Laughter/applause) Right? (Laughter/applause) The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic – you name it. And unfortunately, there are people like that. And he has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people – now have 11 million. He tweets and retweets their offensive hateful mean-spirited rhetoric. Now, some of those folks – they are irredeemable, but thankfully, they are not America.

"But the other basket – the other basket – and I know because I look at this crowd I see friends from all over America here: I see friends from Florida and Georgia and South Carolina and Texas and – as well as, you know, New York and California – but that "other" basket of people are people who feel the government has let them down, the economy has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures; and they're just desperate for change. It doesn't really even matter where it comes from. They don't buy everything he says, but – he seems to hold out some hope that their lives will be different. They won't wake up and see their jobs disappear, lose a kid to heroin, feel like they're in a dead-end. Those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well."

And the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCHJVE9trSM

Mrs. Clinton was very explicitly defining who was "deplorable" and it was based solely on hateful ideologies. A minority even within Trump supporters. And Mrs. Clinton was also specifically talking hopefully and supportively about people who have seen their jobs disappear, lost a kid to heroin, and who feel like they're in a dead end.

For a blog that obsesses over the "the Charlottesville Hoax," there ought to be a lot more attention paid to the details and full context of highly-charged political quotations.

Howard said...

"Scalar multiple"? That sounds all fancy and intelligent but it's completely wrong. Reynolds effect is an exponential vector. The magnitude is nonlinear and he also influences the direction of the needle as well. That's why he makes the big bucks.

narciso said...

his father was a teacher at yale, back in the era of the student riots and the panther trial,

Achilles said...

Howard said...

"Scalar multiple"? That sounds all fancy and intelligent but it's completely wrong. Reynolds effect is an exponential vector. The magnitude is nonlinear and he also influences the direction of the needle as well. That's why he makes the big bucks.

Redundant. Not Wrong.

Done to help some people learn a new word.

mccullough said...

So Hillary called 10% of the US population deplorable.

Just like she referred to black criminals as Super Predators.

Grossly Generalistic.

Michelle Dulak Thomson said...

traditionalguy,

Just noticed that Glen Reynolds wrote it. He is one of us and he still gets NYC papers to run his stuff.

Glenn writes, now, for the NY Post, which isn't what most people think of when they hear "NYC papers." If he's written for the NYT, or even the WSJ, I missed it. (Until quite recently, he also wrote for USA Today, until something he said about election fraud -- I think -- caused them to censor his piece; then he quit.)

Kate said...

Lol it's one basket. Hillary decided to hate-name some of us in the basket is all.

PM said...

"...you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. ...The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic – you name it."

Amazing there could be a defense of her statement. That 'half' = 37 million Americans. For the record.

n.n said...

I was going to suggest Proud Boys but some of their leadership is black.

Yes, black leadership, black members... the same problem as the militias, past and present.

n.n said...

You kinda have to dehumanize the people you're planning on screwing over, otherwise you'll feel bad about yourself.

Social distancing. Wicked solution. Case in point: babies... I mean, Fetal-Americans. The tell-tale hearts beat ever louder.

Michelle Dulak Thomson said...

mccullough, actually Hillary called about a quarter of the US population "deplorable" -- half of Trump voters in an election where they ran essentially neck and neck. (The other half of Trump voters were, apparently, "more to be pitied than censured," while neither applied to her voters, natch, because no one who'd vote for Hillary could possibly be racist, sexist, xenophobic, whatever; all pure as the driven snow, they were.)

I realize that I'm omitting the population under 18 here, but surely we can assume that the "spawn" (amazing how common that word has become lately) of the "deplorables" follow their parents, in this as in all things. So I think 25% is about right.

tim maguire said...

traditionalguy said...Just noticed that Glen Reynolds wrote it. He is one of us and he still gets NYC papers to run his stuff.

New York Post. It's not taken seriously by the respectable New York papers.

mccullough said...

Reynolds’ theory is intriguing.

When he talks about class warfare, he doesn’t state how many classes there are in the US.

To me, the people in the top class are those who live off a vast sum of inherited wealth. The Old Money. They don’t give a shit about any of this stuff.

Then you have Class 2- the noveau riche, the guys who made a shit ton of money starting their own companies — The Buffets, Gates, Bezos, etc. They are not a uniform group, but they are somewhat politically outspoken about the Woke Issues. They even say the rich should be taxed more, although they are in favor of the charitable exemption that allows them to deduct their annual donations from their annual income and they would go apeshit if Congress pulled the exemption that allows them to donate vast sums of their wealth at date without having to pay any estate tax.

Then you have Class 3 — the working Uber rich — the people who run big companies but didn’t start those companies. The guys like Jamie Dimon. They are Woke. But they aren’t worried about their status.

Then you have Class 4 - the working rich — the big firm consultants, big firm lawyers, accountants, etc. who make very good money selling services to the Big Corps. They are Woke and are worried about their status. They are basically Pool Boys. They don’t have old money, didn’t start a major company, and don’t run a major company. They want to feel part of the top 3 Classes, but they aren’t.

Reynolds Class Warfare is really being waged by Class 4 against those they perceive as inferior to them.


Michelle Dulak Thomson said...

tim maguire, I know the Post isn't -- taken seriously, that is -- but I think it ought to be. Yes, it's an icky tabloid, but it's older than the rest of them, founded by Alexander Hamilton IIRC, and it has had the temerity to run some serious journalism when its betters were shying madly away from the subject.

Sorry, of course you know all that.

tcrosse said...

New York Post. It's not taken seriously by the respectable New York papers.

Respectable papers like the Daily News and Journal-American?

mockturtle said...

Per wendybar: Read the book. The movie leaves a lot out about who's policies hurt them. The movie is Democrat Hollywoodized.

Ron Howard is a Dem supporter, so...

Jupiter said...

You know, I was about to respond to Chuckles, pointing out that "sexist", for example, is not an ideology, but rather a word indicating that the person using it is in the grip of an ideology. But then I remembered that big dick he's got in his mouth. Spit it out, Chuckles.

mccullough said...

Michelle,

Good point. So it’s closer to 25% of the population.

Hillary has a Class 4 mentality. She is superbly status anxious.

mockturtle said...

To me, the people in the top class are those who live off a vast sum of inherited wealth. The Old Money. They don’t give a shit about any of this stuff.

Much of the Old Money has escaped into New Money hands. But that's good for the economy.

mockturtle said...

Chuck calls the Hildebeeste 'Mrs. Clinton'. :-D

mccullough said...

Class 5 comprises the Chuck types. The upper-middle class income and wealth. The guys who weren’t big law material but think they were. The guys who service the Fortune 1000 type companies (basically publicly-traded companies with small market cap). The Mid-Size Accounting Firms, Mid-Size Consulting Firms, and Mid-Sized Law Firms.

They think they are in Class 4, but the Class 4 guys think of the Class 5 guys as rubes. Wannabes.

Michelle Dulak Thomson said...

mccullough,

Interesting breakdown. Your Class 1 are what my mom used to call "coupon-clippers," I never understood why. (They are the last people in the world to need to clip coupons; I suppose the idea is that they've nothing better to do?) Class 2 are, as you say, amenable to being taxed more, as long as everyone else in the class is also taxed more. This, ahem, "ethical scruple" is the only thing that prevents them from just writing much bigger checks to the government. At least. so they say. Bleh.

Classes 3 and 4 are, as you say, mostly Woke, but 3 can stay safely Woke and 4 can't always count on it. And there are a lot more 4 than 3. I think you're right -- that when Reynolds talks "class warfare," he's talking primarily about the last, who have actually got something that needs serious defense, and who haven't got the celebrity that goes along with membership in the other three wealthy classes to coast upon.

Where does this leave the other wealthy, btw -- people like high-class physicians, entertainers, diversity-and-inclusion office-runners at universities, &c? These people all also have "jobs" that aren't CEO or CFO, and some of them are very rich indeed.

NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...

mockturtle said...

Per wendybar: Read the book. The movie leaves a lot out about who's policies hurt them. The movie is Democrat Hollywoodized.

Ron Howard is a Dem supporter, so...


Interestingly, he's taking a lot of crap for depoliticizing the subject.

Red Pill in Progress? Ron Howard Calls Out Political Film Critics

tcrosse said...

Your Class 1 are what my mom used to call "coupon-clippers," I never understood why. (They are the last people in the world to need to clip coupons;

The coupons they clip are attached to bonds, and represent interest payments.

roesch/voltaire said...

Read the book, lived in Appalachia for a bit, would recommend Night Comes the Cumberlands... for a richer view of the area.

narciso said...

kulaks gusanos, we've seen this movie before,

mccullough said...

Michelle,

High-end physicians (those clearing more than $1 million are in Class 4), as are C-Suite guys who run smaller publicly-traded companies (even if they started those companies) are Class 4.

Regular physicians, dentists/orthodontists, upper middle management at Big Corp are Class 5.

Skeptical Voter said...

Ah Chuckles you are cutting Hillary some slack. She didn't say half the country was deplorable. She only said that about 11 million people. So she wasn't so bad after all.

I must then be a saint because I only thought that one person---Hillary--was deplorable. And even if I expanded the class to most of the Democrats in Congress, and the moronic Democrat state governors and hypocritical mayors with their Covid lockdowns, I doubt that I'd reach 1,000 people who are "deplorable". So Chuckles throw some kudos my way.

Known Unknown said...

"Just noticed that Glen Reynolds wrote it. He is one of us and he still gets NYC papers to run his stuff."

It's the Post. They'll run anything.

Joe Smith said...

"To me, the people in the top class are those who live off a vast sum of inherited wealth. The Old Money. They don’t give a shit about any of this stuff."

I have been to LA/Beverly Hills a few times in my life. The wealth there is really something.

Then I visited Palm Beach. Oooooold money.

My brother-in-law used to sell Porsches there. He had clients that would come in every single year and buy the top-of-the-line, fully loaded and pay cash.

I realize this is a bad monetary decision, but it didn't matter in the least to them.

It didn't matter if it was a boom market or a depression.

They had the ultimate in FU money...

Made Beverly Hills look middle-class.

jaydub said...

cf: "in my group of 5 wine-and-whine-w-chocolate friends here in Oregon, we break down 2 trumpsters to 3 unquestioning haters of trump. we NEVER talk about it."

Our evening driveway cocktail group of five couples during the lock down composed of six conservatives and four Trump hating Dems, one of whom was a lawyer who could be reduced to sputtering delirium by the mere mention of Trump's name (I know what you're thinking, but this lawyer was a she, and Chuck is banned from NC.) Anyway, we really tried to avoid the subject of politics, but this particular person seemed to reduce everything to politics regardless the subject. After one vein popping reaction to something only peripherally related to Orangemanbad, I asked her to tell me which Dem candidate was more attuned to my political priorities (market economy, strong defense, personal freedom, property rights and economic opportunity) than the Trumpster and I would vote for him/her. She recited the normal garbage about racism, mean tweets, misogyny, lies, and corruption regarding Trump, but could never bring herself to address my challenge to her. In fact, she was unable to identify a single Dem who was strong on even one of my priorities. Eventually, I thanked her for validating my support for Trump and we never discussed Trump again.

narciso said...

https://amgreatness.com/2020/12/03/david-petraeus-perfect-avatar-for-americas-corrupt-ruling-class/

rhhardin said...

Rush is touting the voter fraud video that Scott Adamss just debunked.

wild chicken said...

are the last people in the world to need to clip coupon


LOL

Jupiter said...

"Interesting breakdown. Your Class 1 are what my mom used to call "coupon-clippers," I never understood why. (They are the last people in the world to need to clip coupons;"

It used to be the case that bonds came with a sheet of coupons. When it was time for the bond to pay, say, a year's interest, you clipped the coupon for that year and turned it in, and got the interest. Actually, the organization holding the bonds for you generally clipped the coupons as well, and deposited the money to your account. I'm not sure whether physical bond coupons still exist.

Fernandinande said...

Facebook to start policing anti-Black hate speech more aggressively than anti-White comments, documents show

"In the first phase of the project, which was announced internally to a small group in October, engineers said they had changed the company’s systems to deprioritize policing contemptuous comments about “Whites,” “men” and “Americans.”"

tim maguire said...

rhhardin said...
Rush is touting the voter fraud video that Scott Adamss just debunked.


Adams' debunking is no more impressive than anybody else's. He presents a plausible scenario, and then declares the debate over.

mockturtle said...

narciso, good article about Petraeus but then I think all of the military top brass is corrupt.

khematite said...

Rooted in C. Vann Woodward's "The Strange Career of Jim Crow" (1955).

Bob Dylan - Only a Pawn in Their Game
March on Washington, August 28, 1963

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KY2lQV3ADfc

RichAndSceptical said...

Democrats are made up of 3 groups:
1) A small ruling group
2) A large victim group
3) A very large group that believes people are victims through no fault of their own

mockturtle said...

Your Class 1 are what my mom used to call "coupon-clippers," I never understood why. (They are the last people in the world to need to clip coupons; I suppose the idea is that they've nothing better to do?)

I totally understand your mother's description because it's about frugality. My mother was much the same and, in many ways, so am I. Not that I'm in that class but frugality definitely runs in my family as a matter of principle [Scottish ancestry on both sides]. The economy would collapse if it depended on our spending. OTOH, my kids and grandkids have made up for it in their seemingly desperate attempt to help preserve a booming economy. [Where did we go wrong?]

mikee said...

Chuck, you are absolutely correct that we should not hate Hillary Clinton for her comments on "deplorables," based upon your comparing it to leftists lying about Trump's Charlottesville comments for several years without letup.

Starting now and going forward, I shall only hate Hillary Clinton for everything else wrong about her, from her history as a lawyer to her marriage of convenience to her odious totalitarian political ideology to her history of grifter corruption to her violation of laws, ethics, morals, and common sense, to her shrieking moonbat harpy speech delivery.

But no more hatred for calling half of Trump supporters "deplorable." Because that is, as you point out, not exactly fair play. I'll revile her just the slimy law history, faux marriage, vile totalitarianism, open corruption, criminal personality and her person, herself. We good now?

n.n said...

The old Southern Democrats, liberals of past and present, reimagined prejudice under a forward-looking dogmatic belief: diversity (i.e. color judgment), not limited to racism. They're just full of wicked solutions.

Narr said...

"Coupon clipping" in the original British sense meant people who were wealthy and needed only
to clip off and cash in the investment dividend coupons, IIRC.

The meaning here is almost the opposite--the penny-pinching oldster on a limited income.

Narr
"Out of Pocket" meant out of money, not out of place as it is used now

Bilwick said...

You know what really is deplorable? Statism and statists. I lived in Appalachia for a while and the hillbillies pretty much left me alone. "Liberals" and other State-fellators, on the other hand, will never leave us alone. They'll keep being "Karens"--and worse--unti we dinally submit.

Drago said...

Raise your hand if you had "LLR-lefty Chuck comes out in defense of Hillary Clinton...again!" on your LLR-lefty Chuck #StrongDemocraticalDefender Bingo Card......

......Oh. Literally everyone did.

Given LLR-lefty Chuck's perfect, unblemished, 100% record on defending all democraticals and democratical policies at all times, one cannot be surprised.

Michael K said...

Blogger mockturtle said...

narciso, good article about Petraeus but then I think all of the military top brass is corrupt.


Petraeus has been such a disappointment. The temptation for all retiring high military is the salary one but most in the past stuck with things they know about. A good friend of mine retired from the Marine Corps when he was passed over for BG. He worked for McDonnell Douglas for a few years then started his own company. Ten years later, he sold it for $23 million. He would have been happy to stay a Marine.

Petraeus knows nothing about high finance. This is just like being a "Colonel of Marines" under George III. A sinecure, but one that can be taken away if you deviate from the script.

AZ Bob said...

RichAndSceptical said ...
Democrats are made up of 3 groups:
1) A small ruling group
2) A large victim group
3) A very large group that believes people are victims through no fault of their own


This last point is crucial. J.D. Vance said what he wanted to say in Hillbilly Elegy is that the choices people make control their destiny. This is an old-fashion belief and unpopular today. But the most unhappy people I know refuse to take responsibility for their own decisions.

NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...

Narr said...

"Coupon clipping" in the original British sense meant people who were wealthy and needed only
to clip off and cash in the investment dividend coupons, IIRC.

The meaning here is almost the opposite--the penny-pinching oldster on a limited income.


Not necessarily. I've known some quite wealthy people in my time who were down right parsimonious.

Browndog said...

Adams' debunking is no more impressive than anybody else's. He presents a plausible scenario, and then declares the debate over.

I read this and went and checked it out.

Adams neglects key facts making his "plausible' explanation implausible. He makes good observations when it comes to human behavior, but that's it in my book.

Lost a lot of respect for him when he opened one of his coffee episodes with a huge bong hit. Fuck that.

wild chicken said...

"the most unhappy people I know refuse to take responsibility for their own decisions."

That's the trouble, when the people you actually know have mucked up so badly, don't take responsibility, but we're supposed to believe those other people over there did everything right but -

It's experience vs. theory.

Chuck said...

mikee said...
Chuck, you are absolutely correct that we should not hate Hillary Clinton for her comments on "deplorables," based upon your comparing it to leftists lying about Trump's Charlottesville comments for several years without letup.

Starting now and going forward, I shall only hate Hillary Clinton for everything else wrong about her, from her history as a lawyer to her marriage of convenience to her odious totalitarian political ideology to her history of grifter corruption to her violation of laws, ethics, morals, and common sense, to her shrieking moonbat harpy speech delivery.

But no more hatred for calling half of Trump supporters "deplorable." Because that is, as you point out, not exactly fair play. I'll revile her just the slimy law history, faux marriage, vile totalitarianism, open corruption, criminal personality and her person, herself. We good now?


Yeah, I think so. You're talking to someone who:
-Voted for George HW Bush (not Bill Clinton);
-Voted for Bob Dole (not Bill Clinton), and;
-Voted for Donald Trump (reluctantly, since he's such a shit head) and not Hillary Clinton.

I'm no Clinton fan. But I do now hate her less than I hate Donald Trump. Again, this was the Hate Election. The triumph of Trump-hatred, coming from a portion of lifelong Republicans and Independents who never liked Trump but who reluctantly gave him votes in 2016, enabling his ultra-narrow longshot electoral college win. And who turned against him by the time we got to 2020.

I get such a kick out of the Trumpists who proudly wear their "deplorable" identities as a badge of honor. They are self-identifying as "racist, sexist, homophobic, Islamophobic, Xenophobic," by Mrs. Clinton's own definition, as the originator of the term.

Greg The Class Traitor said...

rhhardin said...
Rush is touting the voter fraud video that Scott Adamss just debunked.

You know, Hardin, things work much better when you include a link to things like your claimed "debunking".

Making it easy for everyone to get on the same page is usually a necessary first step if you actually WANT people to be on the same page

narciso said...

his manque, gets his comeuppance in my novella, what if she was doing drop boxes for other parties,

Mike of Snoqualmie said...

LBJ transformed the explicit racism of the Democrats into an implicit racism with his "Great Society" programs. The black civil rights establishment bought into his bait and condemned the poor blacks into perpetual poverty. Today's so-called civil rights organizations would be preaching marriage and lobbying for poverty relief reform, as Glenn points out. The poverty programs need to encourage marriage, not discourage it.

gilbar said...

Chuck, No ONE, not even You; believes that you EVER voted republican

gilbar's FIRST rule of lying: A Lie has to be Plausible

Chuck said...

gilbar said...
Chuck, No ONE, not even You; believes that you EVER voted republican

gilbar's FIRST rule of lying: A Lie has to be Plausible


Would you be willing to bet $500,000 that I was a Michigan Republican Party volunteer before 2016? Is there some other wagering amount I can get you to agree to?

Howard said...

Touche, Achilles

mockturtle said...

North observes: Not necessarily. I've known some quite wealthy people in my time who were down right parsimonious.

Here's an example. While not an ancestor, she was a distant relative of mine:
Hetty Green
While she was an extreme case, more moderate frugality ran in my family up until my kids' generation.

Sammy Finkelman said...

Well, that;s the theory. It really wan;t that way, probably. Yes they looked down, but that did;t get politicians votes because for many years that was not an issue.

Tina Trent said...

There is no war but the class war.

Unless the race war by the elite academicians wins, of course.

Michael said...

KnownUnknown.” It's the Post. They'll run anything.” Super. Shoot them an opEd. LOL.

Rick.T. said...

"Would you be willing to bet $500,000 that I was a Michigan Republican Party volunteer before 2016?"

------------------------------
So? Aldrich Ames worked for the CIA. That didn't mean he worked for our side.

Rick said...

mccullough said...

Then you have Class 4 - the working rich — the big firm consultants, big firm lawyers, accountants, etc. who make very good money selling services to the Big Corps.


Reynolds Class Warfare is really being waged by Class 4 against those they perceive as inferior to them.


I don't think this is right. This group wants to be left alone, and for the most part their wokeness is defensive.

But the class below this lacks the skills to compete on this field. In large part they avoided STEM and business because it was too demanding. Instead they majored in a political field and find that businesses have no use for them. Their reaction is to integrate politics into businesses similarly to how academia, NGOs, and the industries controlled by the left (Hollywood, media) have done. We've seen this tried for a couple of decades now with equity review (for example as mandated by Dodd-Frank) and other compliance / public relations initiatives.

Wokeness is the effort to get political reliability placed at the top of the hiring credential list. This gives the unproductive but politically active group a leg up not just in these specific equity jobs but for substantially all of the desirable jobs.

This is what happens when you create a large pool of credentialed but effectively useless people as we have done over the last several decades. They aren't going to give up and accept the same jobs they could have gotten without their degree. Remember because of their politics they think they are more deserving than anyone including Bill Gates' because their ideology delegitimizes businesses as a class. So they're going to use the tool they know - government mandates, political intimidation - to change the playing field so they can win even though they cannot contribute.

Rick.T. said...

They had the ultimate in FU money...
----------------
John Goodman had a theory on how to get it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdfeXqHFmPI

Churchy LaFemme: said...

Not necessarily. I've known some quite wealthy people in my time who were down right parsimonious.

How do you think a man like me got to be a man like me?

Tina Trent said...

@Birkel: spot on.

@rcocean: In 2016, a large percentage of blue- and white-collar centrist/dem white males voted for Trump. In 2020, this is the cohort -- not white women -- where he lost the most ground, to the largest effect in swing states.

Had he and his son-in-law spent less time waxing the dicks of certain minority populations and the Mike Lee/Libertard/Koch/Kamala/Chamber of Commerce open borders thugs, we'd have four more years of Trump.

He didn't. We lost. The only machines involved are the ones that recorded preening dumbass identity politics libertarian votes in Congress.

RigelDog said...

Our son, 27, has finally found a woman of high quality and he is in "lerv" with this Alabama native. They could use her life story to re-shoot Hillbilly Elegy with a contemporary female protagonist. Both parents drug addicts. Dad in prison before dying young. Mom recently passed from an overdose. Girlfriend and two sisters raised by Mamaw. But Mamaw did a good job--two of the three sisters went on to college; one now in law school. The third sister hasn't yet broken free of the destructive environment but there's hope.

We met this young woman over Thanksgiving--she is level-headed, clear-eyed, polite, and working very hard to advance in the world of finance. Loves her Mamaw and sisters fiercely. She's read Hillbilly Elegy and can't wait to see the movie. We think she's a keeper!

bagoh20 said...

"Mrs. Clinton was very explicitly defining who was "deplorable" and it was based solely on hateful ideologies"

You mean like when Trump said "good people on both sides?" Yea, we don't care. It's our turn to pretend we don't hear stuff. How many times did Biden and Harris repeat that lie? We got a long way to go to get even.

mockturtle said...

Nice story, RigelDog. She sounds like a winner in spite of her tragic background. Hope it works out.

Narr said...

Bonds, of course, from which one clipped the "coupons." As tcrosse and others pointed out before I skipped ahead to post.

FTR, I couldn't care less of HRC's opinion of me and my opinions.

Narr
Deplore away, beeyotch!

Michael K said...

This is what happens when you create a large pool of credentialed but effectively useless people as we have done over the last several decades. They aren't going to give up and accept the same jobs they could have gotten without their degree.

Oh, I agree but I include the working portion in Class 4. Do you know what these "Diversity" officers make ?

bagoh20 said...

While I do have emotional animus toward the Left from the years of lies and cheating and their opinion of people like me, that's not the real problem. The real issue is that their ideas are simply stupid, and proven so for over a century now of death and poverty. People like Bernie and AOC pushing economic polices that are childishly naïve. Things so stupid that they can't explain how they would work without going into complete fantasy involving no real human beings. People are being put into positions where they have zero experience in the subject, or at best an academic understanding that from my experience means knowing things that are just not true in the real world. There is going to be a lot of damage done. It happens every time these people are given any power.

bagoh20 said...

Chuck, we don't care what you think, or who you go to to get the crap you need. I doubt a single person here will follow your link. We have already heard all the lies over and over.

Browndog said...

Tina Trent said...

There is no war but the class war.


There has never been any other kind of war. Never will be.

n.n said...

Also, the Democrat-affiliated KKK, the original diversity racket, neighborhood incursions, and occupations, designed to intimidate businesses and force people to kneel in order to avoid cancellation.

n.n said...

The "race war" is a subset of the class war. That said, diversity of individuals, minority of one.

Jupiter said...

"Would you be willing to bet $500,000 that I was a Michigan Republican Party volunteer before 2016? Is there some other wagering amount I can get you to agree to?"

How about we bet that big dick in your mouth?

Rick said...

Do you know what these "Diversity" officers make ?

The top people can make big money, sure. But this class is huge - millions of people - most of them have no chance of ever getting that job. How many organizations even have them? A few thousand? At this point they want to create middle class jobs so their graduates don't end up working as baristas.

We essentially created entirely new majors when the only real job it qualifies them for is college professor. But major universities each graduate hundreds of Womens & AA studies every year and there are only a handful of openings for professors across the country. Ever since this dynamic was first created academia has been trying to find jobs for the students - otherwise their enrollment will crater and they'll have to stop funding these "professor" activists.

Both Diversity and Title IX offices are primarily jobs programs for otherwise unemployable leftists and it still doesn't produce nearly enough jobs. Hence the left's desire to re-create this model within the business world. Their vision is akin to the Soviet model of a political officer in every institution or the Saudi Arabia model where every business must have a royal family member on its board. It's a method to force business to fund your political supporters. Once established it's trivial to load up compliance make-work so they have to expand staff. For large universities Title IX staff routinely exceed 50 for a function which didn't exist a decade ago and provides no value. That's how easy it is to expand.

And from the left's perspective this beneficial itself because it drives up business costs and thus prices. Since the blame falls on business rather than the regulations there's a political payoff in generating more anti-business animus.

Earnest Prole said...

the Deplorables had to be cast as racists

Racists are by definition evil, and we all know you can’t negotiate with that. When working-class whites were part of the Democratic coalition, they had interests, which by definition you can negotiate — despite the fact that working-class whites in those days were exponentially more racist than today. It’s all about upper-middle-class whites giving themselves permission to abandon their fellow citizens and import a replacement working class.

Drago said...

bagoh20: "Chuck, we don't care what you think, or who you go to to get the crap you need. I doubt a single person here will follow your link. We have already heard all the lies over and over."

LLR-lefty Chuck thinks the things all democraticals think.

LLR-lefty Chuck goes to same sources that all democraticals go to for their crap.

Remember, LLR-lefty Chuck proudly and loudly declared the ONLY reasons he was at Althouse blog were to:

- Smear and lie about Trump to harm him

- Drive a wedge between Althouse and her readers

LLR-lefty Chuck was extraordinarily proud of his explicit declarations...right up to the moment he, just like his hero Biden, realized that he (Chuck) had said the quiet part out loud!

Oh, what LLR-lefty Chuck wouldnt give to be able to erase his gin and tonic soaked explicit and precise admissions!

I can only imagine LLR-lefty Chuck's exposure as a complete fraud on Althouse mirrors the myriad of times he has been exposed in other venues and life experiences.

Which might explain Chuck's violent and racist rhetoric in response to those "exposure" moments.

I shall leave it to Chuck's many, many therapists as to what stimuli triggers which of his reactions.

Rory said...

"Ever since this dynamic was first created academia has been trying to find jobs for the students - otherwise their enrollment will crater and they'll have to stop funding these "professor" activists."

There's theory out there that academia's abhorrence of Asian students is that Asians go into STEM, and if they fill every room in the dorms then there won't be any dorm rooms for kids who would tend to gravitate toward diversity classes. Thus, no students for the diversity classes and ultimately no diversity professors.

Drago said...

LLR-lefty Chuck: ""Would you be willing to bet $500,000 that I was a Michigan Republican Party volunteer before 2016? Is there some other wagering amount I can get you to agree to?"

What a dream come true for the democraticals.

Similar to having the democratical Varsity running as the obama/biden ticket against the democratical Junior Varsity running as the Romney/Ryan ticket.

Jim at said...

They despise me? Fine. In fact, good.
I despise them, too.

Rick said...

Thus, no students for the diversity classes and ultimately no diversity professors.

Hence the constant demands for universities to make more "diversity" classes mandatory for all majors. Not that this is new, I started college in 1988 and the "Multicultural Requirement" was already in place.

Drago said...

Banned Commenter LLR-lefty Chuck: "Remember, these are the moderated Althouse comments pages."

Banned commenter Chuck rueing the lack of moderation on blog from which he was banned.

Discuss.

NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...

Michael K said...

Do you know what these "Diversity" officers make ?

Quite a bit, I'm sure. Hope they save their money, though. It's going to be a whole new ballgame when someone steps up and asks all the Diversity and Inclusion hires they've been making to actually do a little work. I'm sure Diversity Officer will become a dead end career path not long after.

Browndog said...

Diversity means "less white people". Period. Substitute "less white people" every time you see the word "diversity" and it all becomes so clear.

Don't worry suburban liberal white women--they mean you too, but you'll be the last to know.

Laslo Spatula said...

It ain't enough to have a cement swimming pond no more.

I am Laslo.

gilbar said...

Our Poor Chuck said...
Would you be willing to bet $500,000 that I was a Michigan Republican Party volunteer before 2016? Is there some other wagering amount I can get you to agree to?

this reminds me, of that thread where kept going on and (and on and on) about how you
"wanted to play Golf with President Trump for 'a Million Dollars a hole'"

See, the THING IS CHUCK; if YOU don't have the money, YOU Can't Bet
What you MEANT to say was: "I wish gilbar would give me $500,000; so i could pay some bills"
BUT, since YOU don't have $500,000 to spend; it's KINDA IRRELEVANT that what you are proposing has NOTHING TO DO with what i stated.
There are LOTS of people that in the Michigan 'Republican' party that never voted for a republican
I won't expect YOU to understand the difference; because YOU don't understand the Difference between 'party' membership and voting history

I'll Tell you what; I'll give you a bottle of cheap gin, if you can Prove that you ever voted Republican

gilbar said...



don't forget the times he fantasied about sexual assaulting (tittie punching) women

Laslo Spatula said...

The series starts with Jed Clampett, an impoverished and widowed hillbilly living alongside an oil-rich swamp with his daughter and mother-in-law, discovering oil while shooting at a rabbit... ...The family moves into a mansion in wealthy Beverly Hills, California, next door to Jed's banker, Milburn Drysdale, and his wife, Margaret, who has zero tolerance for hillbillies...

The Clampetts bring a moral, unsophisticated, and minimalistic lifestyle to the swanky, sometimes self-obsessed and superficial community. Double entendres and cultural misconceptions are the core of the sitcom's humor. Plots often involve the outlandish efforts Drysdale makes to keep the Clampetts' money in his bank, and his wife's efforts to rid the neighborhood of "those hillbillies". The family's periodic attempts to return to the mountains are often prompted by Granny's perceiving a slight from one of the "city folk"....

(from Wiki)

I am Laslo.

tcrosse said...

In the North Jersey town where I grew up it was the Italians who were despised by the ruling WASPs. People of color were their preferred minority. U

gilbar said...

Our Poor Chuck thinks that If HE proposes a bet, others are OBLIGATED to pay him
this isn't surprising, as Chuck, ALSO thinks reality is whatever his gin soaked mind invents

gilbar said...

I'm Sorry Professor, i've broken my vow to ignore the trolls
Please forgive me. I will TRY to make it up to you, by going to the Portal an buying Eilen Jewel's latest Album Gipsy

Browndog said...

tcrosse said...

In the North Jersey town where I grew up it was the Italians who were despised by the ruling WASPs. People of color were their preferred minority. U


I don't want to hear it. They wrote a best-selling joke book about us Poles. Problem is, we have a sense of humor.

Earnest Prole said...

If you think Chuck is a troll don't feed him; otherwise engage his ideas. Nothing is more boring and futile than ad hominem attacks against a troll. It's like watching a frog leg twitch to an electrical probe, except in this case the frog leg believes it's kicking the electrical probe's ass.

narciso said...

there is a similar class and culture dynamic in the uk, the city vs the midlands, in france, in israel, the rough dividing line between netanyahu, and gantz, the last is trying to renege on his deal to wait till may to be prime minister,

Browndog said...

Beetlejuice.

Invoke his name, and the long dead pest comes back from the dead, won't shut up, and won't leave.

It's been a while, so I don't remember how they got rid of the bastard.

narciso said...

there are even breakdowns within a certain community


https://babalublog.com/2020/12/04/why-cuban-amerricans-votted-the-way-they-did-in-2020/#comment-173193

Lurker21 said...

Half of Trump voters is a quarter of the country's voters. Isn't that an awful lot of deplorables? And does anyone seriously think HRC cares much about the other half?

America's poor and working class don't seem to have been a major focus for the Clinton Foundation. Hillary may assume that the White working class is at least "deplorable-adjacent" and not worthy of effort on her part.

P.S. They haven't been delivering my Journal-American for a while. Should I cancel my subscription?

Phil 314 said...

I haven't seen the movie but I thoroughly enjoyed the book. It was as much a discussion of a problem as it was an autobiography so I assume that, as so often is true, the movie won't be as good as the book.

Its got me thinking of movies that have done a good job of conveying the working class or southern working class. As I considered that I thought of two left movies that still did a good job of not demeaning southern, rural folk: "Matewan" and "Norma Rae". Both movies at their core very liberal but generally sympathetic to southern whites (other than they were always oppressed by the greedy bosses and corporatists)

I do have to admit though that "Norma Rae" was the beginning for what we now see because the essential story required a smar, cool labor organizer from New York to enlighten the cotton mill workers.

Iman said...

Frankly, I’ve deplored the Pantsuited Pantload ever since she waddled into DC.

narciso said...

hey lman how have you been, yes they have been a bane on this country, for nearly 30 years, serving as front men for leftists like reich and mort halperin, see jimmy carter,

n.n said...

Diversity means "less white people".

Diversity is a color judgment, not limited to racism. The Rainbow is a symbol of phobic exclusion, specifically black, brown, and featuring a gay pride in the shredded remains of white. A weird symbol to associate with human life.

Chuck said...

Lurker21 said...
Half of Trump voters is a quarter of the country's voters. Isn't that an awful lot of deplorables? And does anyone seriously think HRC cares much about the other half?


In the very same moment, Mrs. Clinton said pretty clearly that she did. It was literally, "One half is this, the other half isn't."

You all seem to want to be "deplorables" in the Clinton world. It's all part of the Trumpist victimization thing. You're all put down by the establishment.

But you don't have to be "deplorable" at all! If you say to Mrs. Clinton, "Damn it, I am not racist, sexist, homophobic, Islamophobic or Xenophobic," then she'd say to you, "That's nice to hear. I'm glad to hear you say that and what I said clearly did not refer to you. I was talking about whatever faction of Trumpist that one or more of those things apply to."

You all don't want that, because you want to be the victim just like Trump always wants to be a victim.

Michelle Dulak Thomson said...

Thanks, all who explained "coupon-clipping" to me. You have to bear in mind that I was at the time maybe eight years old, and the only coupons I had ever seen were in the local paper. By the time I was old enough to get the reference, the referent was apparently extinct; bond income was no longer handled that way.

I'm not sure, though, how my mom got to know about this either. She was the daughter of WI farmers (real farmers; I remember visiting their house one time, and my sister and I accidentally locking ourselves in the corncrib), and never got near money of any kind until after she got her biochem Ph.D. from UW/Madison.

Michelle Dulak Thomson said...

Chuck,

In other words, HRC phrased her statement so that some of her Trump-supporter audience would define themselves out of the "deplorable" description by saying, "Phew! I'm not racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, so I'm OK!" You are forgetting what she said about the other half, which was that they were poor, struggling, deluded ninnies who weren't voting for her because they were either too flummoxed or too stupid to pick the obviously right choice.

Browndog said...

Michelle Dulak Thomson said...

Thanks, all who explained "coupon-clipping" to me. You have to bear in mind that I was at the time maybe eight years old, and the only coupons I had ever seen were in the local paper. By the time I was old enough to get the reference, the referent was apparently extinct; bond income was no longer handled that way.


Wait until you find out about S&H green stamps.

Browndog said...


P.S. They haven't been delivering my Journal-American for a while. Should I cancel my subscription?


Absolutely not! You'll miss out!

Chuck said...

Blogger Michelle Dulak Thomson said...
Chuck,

In other words, HRC phrased her statement so that some of her Trump-supporter audience would define themselves out of the "deplorable" description by saying, "Phew! I'm not racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, so I'm OK!" You are forgetting what she said about the other half, which was that they were poor, struggling, deluded ninnies who weren't voting for her because they were either too flummoxed or too stupid to pick the obviously right choice.


You say that like it’s a bad thing.

FullMoon said...

"Would you be willing to bet $500,000 that I was a Michigan Republican Party volunteer before 2016? Is there some other wagering amount I can get you to agree to?"

Sure, I'll go five bucks.
You win.
What's your street address, I'll send cash.

Known Unknown said...

"libertarian votes in Congress."

Yeah, it was the libertarians. JFC.

Nevermind the orchestrated economic shutdowns, hysterically rabid Anti-Trump press, social media oppression, and well, some voting 'anomalies.'

RichardJohnson said...

When I was in my Third Party stage, after previously having been a Democrat, I saw a bumpersticker: "Vote Republican. It's easier than thinking." Contempt for others is baked into the Democrat party.

Then there is the old story about Adlai Stevenson. A supporter told him, "Every thinking person is voting for you." Adlai's reply: "That's not enough, Madam. I need a majority."

Michelle Dulak Thomson said...

Chuck,

Which? That a major-party candidate for President was content to divvy up her opposition into one-half "-ist and -phobic," and one-half "dirt-poor and/or dumb as rocks"? Or that some of them might have believed these descriptions? Or that they were intended to redound to her benefit? Me, I'd say that making a hundred fifty million or so people think they ought to bow down to your own obviously superior goodness is maybe not very nice, even (or especially) if it sometimes succeeds.

To me, it seems a singularly vile way of forging a minority, and I am happy it didn't work. But then, I am in one of HRC's "baskets."

Known Unknown said...

"For the record; Hillary Clinton's full verbatim "deplorables" comment. She did not attack anyone based on class, or wealth, or job status, or location. Here is what she actually said:"

Maybe she should have taken that stupid minivan to Wisconsin.

Michael K said...

Engaging with Chuck is a dead end street. He has nothing to add.

And from the left's perspective this beneficial itself because it drives up business costs and thus prices. Since the blame falls on business rather than the regulations there's a political payoff in generating more anti-business animus.

I wonder what percentage of HR employees are SJW grads ? Before I quit teaching I met the new dean of diversity. I wonder what her salary is ?

It was a good time to quit.

Known Unknown said...

Also, White-Knighting for Hillary Clinton has to be quite the gig, Chuck. What's it pay?

Known Unknown said...

The worst thing I have ever heard a politician say about an American was Obama on the campaign trail in 2012. It was post-Joe the Plumber. His words were, paraphrased "Have you ever heard of a plumber making $150,000? I haven't."

It revealed so much to me. So please don't try to sell me on the parsing of Clinton's words.

narciso said...

new york sun, the only publication they allowed conrad black to own, after breeden carved it up to the aspers and the barclays,

Krumhorn said...

Lord Obummer stated the premise clearly at a fundraiser while referring to working-class voters in old industrial towns destroyed by job losses: "They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

He couldn't have been more contemptuous of lower class white is he had actually sneered when he said it.

Wait! He WAS sneering, and he was granting permission to upper class whites to sneer also.

I guess with my Beverly Hills 90210 law firm, I'm an upper class white who is proudly a deplorable bitter clinger.

- Krumhorn

narciso said...


for the love of god, go to your hive

http://patterico.com/2020/12/04/the-mob-is-often-wrong/#comment-2471365

mockturtle said...

Right, Krumhorn! While I may not be 'blue collar', I identify as blue collar. :-)

Mike of Snoqualmie said...

The only good diversity officer is an unemployed diversity officer. All a diversity officer does is tell people they are racists. Any diversity officer trying to conduct such a "diversity class" should be run out of the classroom with opening the door optional.

mccullough said...

Hillary’s Deplorable remarks reinforced her long-held views against non college-educated whites, especially from the South.

President Clinton in his elections insisted on trying to help and appeal to these folks. Hillary disagreed: “Screw them. Let’s move on,” she replied.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Modern time - circa now.

It's the white left who are the real racists.

"The frequency at which progressives resort to racial slurs when a minority "steps out of line" is really quite something"

Original Mike said...

Google does not autocomplete "Hillary Clinton Basket of". (DuckDuckGo does)

Freaking incredible.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Boycott racist Miley Cirus.

Not hard to do - she sucks anyway.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Chuck - didn't you vote for Trump in 2016?

That makes you a deplorable.

BUMBLE BEE said...

This you gotta see... Rhodes Scholars 2021 -
https://www.revolver.news/2020/12/rhodes-scholarship-becomes-farce/

Unknown said...

I'm rarely in agreement with Ernest Prole, but I have now found common ground with him. There are some commenters here that I just scroll on by. There are others that I like to read, but they can get triggered, and fill up a page. The Chuck/Drago drama got tiresome years ago. I attend to Dr K's words, but man, Inga knows how to push his buttons.

wild chicken said...

Wow, patterico...been awhile.

The problem has been,you can't say anything remotely critical *or* favorable about Trump without people going off, and you get pigeonholed forever.

It's a shame really because it's been a very interesting time if you like history.

Trump is a great, tragic figure.

Michelle Dulak Thomson said...

Chuck,

I have watched the video and read the transcript. (Of that instance, I mean; she's used "basket of deplorables" at least twice.) She calls the "deplorables" (a quarter of the US population, remember) also "irredeemable," which is to say bound inevitably for perdition. HRC is, or at any rate purports to be, a good Methodist; she knows what that word means. It's a pretty sucky thing to say about one's neighbors. (Yes, yes, I know it's also what a good Calvinist thinks about essentially all his neighbors. That isn't a point that generally comes up in these discussions, any more than the point that a good Muslim believes all apostates are damned.)

What she says about the other half is basically that they know not what they do. They're poor, and spat upon, and despised, and they don't know who to blame, so they cling (bitterly?) to Trump. If they had better education (she says), or better brains (as I don't doubt she thinks), they wouldn't vote that way, so it is Democrats' task to soothe them and calm them and tell them "Every little thing gonna be alright."

It's always thus with people the Democratic leadership doesn't quite get. Thomas Frank's What's The Matter With Kansas? is the classic exemplar. Apparently poor people in Kansas "vote against their interests," which are basically lots of Federal money, because of trivial "social issues" (trivial to Frank, that is; maybe not trivial to someone with sincere religious beliefs, or someone who regards abortion just before birth as identical to infanticide just after birth, &c.). It doesn't occur to Frank that he might just as well have written "What's The Matter With California?," about how rich Californians deliberately vote against their financial interests, raising their own (and everyone else's in CA) taxes, in support of "trivial social issues." They're actually identical arguments, but only one appeals to Frank.

gpm said...

>>And everybody hates the Jews

National brotherhood week
National brotherhood week

I love Tom Lehrer. Haven't listened to him for years. Should dig some out on the Interwebs.

Here's one appropriate for the season:

Angels we have heard on high
Tell us to go out and BUY

--gpm

boatbuilder said...

Is "Hillbilly Elegy" anything like "Justified"?

Because I really liked "Justified".

Browndog said...

Krumhorn said...

Lord Obummer stated the premise clearly at a fundraiser while referring to working-class voters in old industrial towns destroyed by job losses: "They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."


Missing context-

Obama held a campaign event in Pennsylvania, calling them "the salt of the Earth". That evening he flew to San Francisco for a private fundraiser where that quote was secretly recorded.

Achilles said...

Known Unknown said...

The worst thing I have ever heard a politician say about an American was Obama on the campaign trail in 2012. It was post-Joe the Plumber. His words were, paraphrased "Have you ever heard of a plumber making $150,000? I haven't."

It revealed so much to me. So please don't try to sell me on the parsing of Clinton's words.


I have though...

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

when I see the word

"Hillbilly"

I see Hillary and Billy...

] if only Ross Perot didn't screw it up we'd be saying "Hillbilly who?"

gpm said...

>>The coupons they clip are attached to bonds, and represent interest payments.

Yes. Watch Gentleman Prefer Blondes, a greatly enjoyable movie with Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell in their prime. A classic performance by Marilyn as Lorelei Lee and a great one by Jane as her best friend. Per the monthly highlights sequence, it's going to be on TCM this month.

The detective trying to find evidence to traduce Marilyn in the eyes of her rich, naive fiancé, pretending to be a playboy on a trans-Atlantic shipboard voyage, refers to his life of coupon-clipping and owning racehorses, which intrigues the Marilyn character and makes the Jane character (his ultimate soulmate) initially despise him. Two iconic musical numbers: Jane's "Is There Anyone Here for Love" with the half-naked supposed members of the male Olympics team, ending with her getting dunked into a swimming pool (purportedly an accident that made it into the final cut), and Marilyn's "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" in an iconic pink dress (Bonham's is probably auctioning it, if they haven't already) with a supporting male cast that included a young George Chakiris (who does one of those TCM shorts about the number that's been showing recently, probably becaus of the December showing of the movie). A number of other enjoyable musical numbers. Plus Marily's epic takedown of the fiancé's father at the end of the movie. Many more goodies that I won't try to get into.

--gpm

P.S. FWIW, without getting further into the details, I'm probably somewhere between Class 4 and Class 5 in the terms being discussed here in economic terms, but not otherwise.

Birkel said...

If only Reagan had selected somebody other than Bush in 1980.
That was the worst decision he made in public life.

Drago said...

Birkel: "If only Reagan had selected somebody other than Bush in 1980.
That was the worst decision he made in public life."

Reagan admitted as much in the years after his Presidency. He lamented he hadnt chosen his first choice: Kemp.

Laxalt was in the mix as well but the east coasties like Nelson Rockefeller et al started screaming about ticket balancing and threatening to not support Reagan.

Michael K said...

Birkel, I agree completely.

gpm said...

>>I'm not sure whether physical bond coupons still exist.

I think not, due to the (1986?) changes in the U.S. tax code imposing adverse tax consequences on “registration required obligations” that are not in “registered form.” Setting everything else side, the general thrust of those rules is that the person paying the interest needs to know who they are paying interest to in order for the interest payments to be treated properly for tax purposes, which isn't the case if you just pay the money to whoever presents the coupon.

To amplify the footnote in my prior post, I come from a blue collar background on the South Side of Chicago and most of my immediate family (100 plus members consisting of the descendants of my parents and their partners), still mostly in the outskirts of Chicago, remains in that category.

--gpm

Drago said...

Hercules, not that one though: The Chuck/Drago drama got tiresome years ago. I attend to Dr K's words, but man, Inga knows how to push his buttons."

We all have our crosses to bear.

I wish you God Speed.

RigelDog said...

Mockturtle said: "Nice story, RigelDog. She sounds like a winner in spite of her tragic background. Hope it works out."

Thanks, MockT! I hope it works out too--at first I was a little unsettled by the details of her background but then I realized how ironic that is. My hillbilly background isn't as tragic as hers but there are common elements. If my mother and I could overcome the downsides, why not her?

Unknown said...

Drago, I understand you want to make sure that readers know that Chuck is a gollum, but anyone reading this blog kinda knows that. I'm the dumbest guy here, and even I know it.

You wished me God Speed.

Thank you brother.

Iman said...

Good to read your opinions and links, narciso! You are an indefatigable promoter of truth... and I salute you!

DEEBEE said...

Going down the comments, at random, saw Mike first comment and it resonated. Then saw Chuck’s subsequent dissembling and had to search for Chuck, on the page.

Going through all that one could say lots of things, the mildest being G.Y Chuck.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_E.%27s_In_Love

With Hillary.

gadfly said...

Once upon a time, there was “a strange land and peculiar people.”
It was a mythical place known as “Trumpalachia.”

Canary Dirge

American Elegy is coming
Just you wait—
A bestseller will kill you off too
I’m a hillbilly, they plum kill’t me
Bulldozed my bones into valley fill
with the other dead canaries
When exxon oil busts up your aquifers
a red state lawyer
will write a bestseller
about your loose bootstraps too
and shove them down your throat
You’ll be paying nestlé for your muddy tap
before your bookclub figures out
that our selenium sludge runs
downstream
and we are your headwaters

mccullough said...

Reagan’s worst decision was Amnesty.

It has tarnished his whole presidency.

Iman said...

Watched Hillbilly Elegy... good movie, well acted.

Freeman Hunt said...

Watched it. Glenn is right. Movie is objectively better than many, many movies of the last few years that have gotten overwhelmingly positive reviews.

DEEBEE said...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_E.%27s_In_Love
with HRC, perhaps compensating for its lack from Bubba

Phil 314 said...

Watched the movie last night. I had read the book so I already knew the story. The movie was ok and consistent with Ron Howard who is an inconsistent director. The final “and where are they now” montage seemed a bit too “happy ending” (but still good as I assume its true). What really surprised me was realizing how young JD Vance is. He’s only about 5 years out of law school.

Rusty said...

MDT @ 10:46
Way back when. When you invested in a Tax free municipal bond you would actually take possession of the bond there were coupons attached to the bond. As the bond matured you would clip the coupons and redeem them for your interest.

Is corrupt Chuck trying to bet people again? Sorry Charlie. You overplayed your hand. Thugs like you don't know how to play people. You're used to brow beating them with your ordinances. Start with a c-note and go up from there. I'm not saying you don't have 500,000$. Political corruption pays very well. You're just too used to being a liar and a bully.

Phil 314 said...

PS and after this long discussion of the disdain of deplorables, Gadfly comes in and tries to glibly reinforce the “boy, they sure are dumb” meme (and with the expected lie of fracking is killing us!)

wildswan said...

"Would you be willing to bet $500,000 that I was a Michigan Republican Party volunteer before 2016? Is there some other wagering amount I can get you to agree to?"

Yes, I would be willing to bet $500,000 that the Michigan Republican party had leaders who valued you for what you are.

Jack Klompus said...

PS and after this long discussion of the disdain of deplorables, Gadfly comes in and tries to glibly reinforce the “boy, they sure are dumb” meme (and with the expected lie of fracking is killing us!)

What's amusing about Gadfly is he really does think he's intelligent and that he's zinging his lessers with his biting wit. And yet time and time again he ends up where he belongs as the object of mockery.

todd galle said...

We are I guess, modern coupon clippers (not of the bond type though, we're in mutual's and such with an advisor). If my wife and I can't save at least 30% on our grocery bill via store and manufacturer's coupons, it's a defeat. When I was younger and a paperboy for the Philly Bulletin, overage papers were mined for extra coupons. I was also the designated G&S stamp licker and coupon book holder. Only thing I can ever remember getting from the Green Stamps was an electric can opener, probably 1973 or so, and maybe an electric knife.