A Modern Political Wonder

     While it’s true that we prefer to associate with people who are much like us, the great majority of Americans are acquainted with at least some persons who differ with them in substantial ways, including in their political preferences. Despite those differences, we know, even if only subconsciously, that those “others” are not monsters. The old “I don’t understand how he got elected; nobody I know voted for him” trope is more of a laugh line than anything else.

     Yet the Left has made the sowing of suspicion and aversion, trending toward open malice, a principal tactic among its recent political strokes. Nina Bookout has a fresh example for us:

     Forget the deplorables. What we have here is the REAL threat to our Democracy. Which is, drumroll please, the rage of the white rural voters.
     No, I’m not kidding. That’s according to two very VERY liberal writers (one of whom used to write for the Washington Post. Tom Schaller and Paul Waldman wrote a book titled: “White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy.” Isn’t that such a darling title? Well, Paul wrote an op-ed for MSNBC in which he informs us that the real danger to this country is because of the rage embedded into the psyche of the WHITE rural voters.

     At the same time, polls show that rural whites not only are more likely to express racism, xenophobia and conspiracism than Americans who live elsewhere, their commitment to the American model of democracy is increasingly tenuous. Of course, that doesn’t apply to all rural whites, and plenty of Americans in suburbs and cities share those views. But rural whites are particularly important because of the unusual political power they wield.
     No one understands that better than Trump. The election denialism at the center of his candidacy — both the lie that the 2020 election was stolen and the claim that if he loses again it will only be because of fraud — finds a particularly receptive audience among rural voters. A 2021 Public Religion Research Institute poll, for instance, found that 22% of those who lived in cities said the 2020 election was stolen, compared to 30% of suburbanites — and 47% of rural respondents.

     Don’t bother to ask whether the writers of this tripe believe it. That’s entirely irrelevant. The question that matters is whether they believe it will help their cause – and given the tide of publicity for their book and similar statements by other Leftist talking heads, the smart money’s on “yes.”

     If you’re hearing an echo of Barack Hussein Obama’s famous “bitter clingers” speech, you’re not alone. Obama was elected despite that unsubtle gesture of contempt toward rural Americans. He had several assets the Democrats won’t have working for them come November, including a weak opponent who could barely stir himself to campaign. This year, the Democrats face the most energized and popular figure in America, who has the record of the past four years to run against.

     But has sowing suspicion of one’s not-exactly-neighbors ever worked electorally? Unclear. It might energize the party faithful. The effect on unaligned voters is as likely to be negative as positive. It certainly won’t persuade those maligned voters on the other side to “cross over.”

     Moreover, the Democrats’ top strategists and tacticians must know all that. They’re not stupid, regardless of their ethics. They must believe that they have nothing better to offer than the honing and amplification of existing discords.

     Over at ZeroHedge, Tyler Durden adds this:

     Schaller and White Rural Rage co-author Paul Waldman make the same point, that “cities produce far more of the nation’s wealth,” and rural citizens are increasingly “subsidized by the taxes paid by higher-income metropolitans.” What gives? Why won’t they shut the fuck up?

     “For so long,” complained Waldman on Morning Joe, “Democrats have been told… that in order to get rural voters… you have to go there… you have to show them that you understand… You have to put on a Carhartt jacket and go down to somebody’s farm, right? Maybe milk a cow?”
     “Yes!” exclaimed* Mika.

     But it turns out, a sad Waldman pronounced, that you “don’t have to do any of that,” because Donald Trump didn’t. He just “gave [rural voters] a way to essentially give a big middle finger to Democrats, to people who live in cities and to the rest of the country.”

     So perhaps Schaller and Waldman really do believe the crap they’re spouting. They appear to be angry enough, themselves.

     The hell of it is that such pronouncements are likely to be self-realizing. They could actually evoke the rage and hatred that Schaller and Waldman think they see. And in no imaginable universe would that be good for the Democrats, for America and Americans generally, or for the world.