Okay, the post-mortem on this thing is nauseating. If I hear one more time that the Democrats have to revisit their priorities to reach the people that voted for Trump I’m going to throw up. Well, I mean more than I already have been for the past 72 hours anyway.
Sure, do the Democrats suck? Yes. Do they make tons of mistakes, like Biden not stepping down a year ago? Yes. But I am really sick and tired of hearing that there are some grievances out there that aren’t being listened to. I mean, of course there are, but not the ones we keep hearing about. We keep hearing that somehow the Democrats aren’t addressing the issues that affect the middle class. Well, that may have been true at some point, and also more true than it should be today, but we also just saw how well disinformation works. Because as far as I can tell 74 million people just voted to end the New Deal and to put the final nail in the coffin for the middle class. And I’d like to know why anyone who voted for Trump thinks that the Republicans will address any of this stuff and why they can’t see what was done in the past four years.
A quick recap, for sanity’s sake.
In 2016 America got a long overdue wake-up call. The middle class is struggling, we’re tired of losing our jobs and watching our towns crumble and everyone needs some help. And we were told that Trump’s voters were supposedly ready to try anything besides the status quo to get someone to address these economic problems. Was that right? Or was there something else? Because in the past 4 years the Democrats put some pretty impressive bills together to address that cry for help. And who fought against those bills the hardest? The Republicans and the guy that half of American voters just elected. And who constantly derides these bills? These same voters. So apparently these people know these bills exist, yet for some reason, against all empirical evidence, they think that the Republicans will do more for them?
Okay, immigration, we all want something done. All right, said the Democrats, here’s a bill to address that, it’s the strongest immigration bill since Reagan. And why didn’t it pass? Because the guy that half of American voters just elected told the Republicans to kill it.
Okay, crime. Uhm, they just elected a convicted criminal over a prosecutor. I just can’t take that one seriously. Sorry, I think they just like some criminals over others. Besides, crime is down under Biden.
Inflation. Yes, a global problem that America handled better than anyone.
Housing. It’s a consequence of the 2008 crash that has been building for years. Trump did nothing in office to deal with it and he has no viable plan now. Biden tried to add a bunch of constructive measures into Build Back Better but that was killed by the Republicans. And now Harris just put one of the biggest ideas yet on the table. Is that not listening and acting on what’s being heard? Am I not understanding how listening works?
Foreign policy. Sure, welcome to the party pal. I for one want to drastically reduce the military budget. I want to cut off the supply line to Israel. None of us are being heard when it comes to the industrial-military complex. Nothing Trump is going to do is going to change that. And I’m not even sure these voters really care. They seem fine with Israel, and a trillion-dollar military budget that doesn’t take care of veterans well enough, but for some reason they have a problem with Ukraine. I don’t even know what that is.
So excuse me for not buying into the whole idea that Trump supporters are not being heard and that there’s some grievance of theirs out there that isn’t being addressed. It seems to me every time we try to address these grievances we get a bunch of excuses from the people who subscribe to the party of personal responsibility. Do I sound angry? Well, I am, but I’m not nearly as angry as some of them seem to be. And sure, are some of these voters just misinformed? Yes, but many are willingly misinformed.
And those voters never wanted solutions, they wanted a wrecking ball. That’s what else misinformation brings us — grievance and a desire to just blow the whole thing up.