It’s Not About Red And Blue States–It’s About The Country Vs. The City
I posted this to Facebook, but I’m putting it here, too, because this is by far the best thing I’ve read in attempting to explain how the Donald infiltrated American politics. Kudos to friend of the Lodge Zach Barnett for bringing it to my attention.
How Half Of America Lost Its F**king Mind. Via Cracked.
Yes. Freaking Cracked. It took the guy from Cracked Magazine to examine this in an honest way. God help us all.
Here’s why it’s good:
Donald Trump will almost certainly lose the election. That is a good thing. However, there will be a large number of Americans–millions, who will vote for him. Millions of people will cast their endorsement for him to be the president of the United States. That is somewhat terrifying, but entirely puzzling. Many of these are good, seemingly rational people. Why would they do this? This country cant be 35% whack jobs, can it?
You can say yes. You can say they’re all racists, bigots, sexists, etc. etc. etc., but you’re wrong, boring, and taking the easy way out. The problem with so many of us is we don’t try to understand the other side. We just label them and yell louder.
I want to understand them. So does David Wong, who wrote the article. And, coming from rural America, it makes total sense when he says the rise of Trump has a lot more to do with country vs. city than white vs. black, or Mexican, or Arab.
An excerpt:
I was born and raised in Trump country. My family are Trump people. If I hadn’t moved away and gotten this ridiculous job, I’d be voting for him. I know I would.
As a kid, visiting Chicago was like, well, Katniss visiting the capital. Or like Zoey visiting the city of the future in this ridiculous book. “Their ways are strange.”
And the whole goddamned world revolves around them.
Every TV show is about LA or New York, maybe with some Chicago or Baltimore thrown in. When they did make a show about us, we were jokes — either wide-eyed, naive fluffballs (Parks And Recreation, and before that, Newhart) or filthy murderous mutants (True Detective, and before that, Deliverance). You could feel the arrogance from hundreds of miles away.
“Nothing that happens outside the city matters!” they say at their cocktail parties, blissfully unaware of where their food is grown. Hey, remember when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans? Kind of weird that a big hurricane hundreds of miles across managed to snipe one specific city and avoid everything else. To watch the news (or the multiple movies and TV shows about it), you’d barely hear about how the storm utterly steamrolled rural Mississippi, killing 238 people and doing an astounding $125 billion in damage.
But who cares about those people, right? What’s newsworthy about a bunch of toothless hillbillies crying over a flattened trailer? New Orleans is culturally important. It matters.
To those ignored, suffering people, Donald Trump is a brick chucked through the window of the elites. “Are you assholes listening now?“
It gets a lot better. Go read it. You’re not getting much done on a Friday, anyway.