If you thought we were past the tiresome “How can Democrats appeal to Trump-loving Trump voters in Trump Country?” conversation, I’m going to disappoint you. And I’d like to use some recent comments from South Bend, Ind., Mayor and presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg to illustrate how problematic the discussion among Democrats is when it comes to thinking about different areas of the country and what kind of people live where.
Buttigieg was in the coastal enclave of San Francisco when he gave a radio interview that included this:
There are some folks I encounter here who seem to have trouble believing that things like Trump voters actually exist. And so I feel sometimes like I’m an emissary from the middle of the country, just pointing out that things look a little bit different in rural communities, industrial communities like mine, and that we really need to find ways to knit this picture back together into one America.
There’s a bit more to the discussion, but it goes on in that vein. Buttigieg’s intentions are good, since he wants to promote mutual understanding and common purpose. But he frames the problem as one that stems from condescending liberals who don’t sufficiently appreciate the lives and perspectives of people in the Midwest. In other words, the divide that exists is the fault of liberals alone. If they could just do more to understand the people who wind up voting for someone like Donald Trump, that would be the path to achieving unity.
Waldman goes on to point out that this tut-tutting of "coastal elites" -- to our faces, no less --- is really kind of stupid since we all live in places where plenty of Trump voters exist:
As Adam Serwer of the Atlantic points out, “There are more Trump voters in New York than Wyoming, Alaska, and the Dakotas combined.” Trump got about a million and a half votes in Buttigieg’s home state of Indiana, slightly less than the 1.6 million he got in the coastal state of New Jersey, and much less than the 2.8 million he got in New York, let alone the 4.5 million he got in California. Those are “real” Americans, too, even if they happen to live within driving distance of the ocean.
Not to mention the fact that we don't live a cave and have read and watched approximately 7,239 profiles and in-depth interviews with Trump voters over the past five years. If anything, you'd think that they are a huge majority and the rest of us don't exist.
Waldman also hits on something that continues to chap my hide. He admits that there are undoubtedly many liberals who are contemptuous of the Trump voters. Of course there are. But this isn't a one way street by a long shot. In fact, it's the other side that makes a fetish of their contempt --- and profit from it:
[Y]ou can also find lots of conservatives who are contemptuous toward liberals and the places where they live. Yet if a Democrat ever insulted the “heartland,” there’d be hell to pay, while Republicans insult heavily Democratic places all the time. Ted Cruz could sneer at “New York values” as a way of attacking Donald Trump in 2016, but what would happen to Kamala D. Harris if she told Buttigieg that Democratic primary voters didn’t want any part of his “Indiana values"?
One more vivid example from recent history: In 2004, the conservative Club For Growth ran an ad against Howard Dean, in which a couple told him to “take his tax-hiking, government-expanding, latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times-reading, body-piercing, Hollywood-loving, left-wing freak show back to Vermont where it belongs.” Everyone laughed. Now imagine the outcry if a liberal group told, say, Mike Huckabee to “take his trailer park-living, tobacco-chewing, NASCAR-watching, squirrel-eating freak show back to Arkansas where it belongs.” The condemnation would be furious and immediate, much of it coming from the elite media, who would yet again instruct Democrats that if they want to succeed they really need to stop being so condescending and reach out to those heartland voters.
Apparently, it's a one-way street.
I would just remind Democratic candidates that this is playing into Donald Trump's hands:
Billions of dollars are sent to the State of California for Forest fires that, with proper Forest Management, would never happen. Unless they get their act together, which is unlikely, I have ordered FEMA to send no more money. It is a disgraceful situation in lives & money!