"Their America is vanishing" Seriously NY Times? Are we supposed to have sympathy for their bigotry?

[tulipsandroses]

This anxiety narrative just won’t end.
Why is NY Times still writing pity party pieces for these bigots?

Their America Is Vanishing. Like Trump, They Insist They Were Cheated” – and this dek – “The white majority is fading, the economy is changing and there’s a pervasive sense of loss in districts where Republicans fought the outcome of the 2020 election.”
SNIP—-
The content of the piece is familiar. White people feel anxiety about changes to the American national character. Those changes are rooted in demographics, economics, religion and culture. But the details of the story, which I’m not bothering to recount, are not important compared to its broad contours, which are this: white people don’t like change so they’re voting for the Republicans.

But “change” and “loss” and “the economy” – as well as “working class” and “middle American” and “non-college voter” – are words in the Times’ value-free vernacular, that others replicate, that obscures who is doing what to whom. For that, we must turn to the pull quotes, as we journalists call them. Here they are in order of appearance:

One: “In Fort Bend County, Texas, things are changing.”
Two: “Mosques and Hindu temples draw thousands, farmland is giving way to suburbs and some Republicans feel their county is becoming more like majority-minority Houston.”

https://www.alternet.org/2022/10/liberal-democracys-enemy-is-white/

[Walleye]

1. They are nostalgic for racism and misogyny.

[RockRaven]

5. And theological tyranny. nt

[Walleye]

8. Yep, that's the misogyny

[Funtatlaguy]

12. I grew up with them. They want an Evangelical Theocracy

[SheltieLover]

16. This!👆

and working a part-time job as a high school kid & being able to afford a brand new car.

Who outsourced the jobs? Why qpukes in their insatiable greed.

[Walleye]

17. Yes and who killed the unions?

[SheltieLover]

20. Qpukes, of course!

Should be designated a terrorist org!

They have always been opposed to democracy.

[Walleye]

22. They should all be asked on the campaign trail if they believe democracy is the best form of governm

[SheltieLover]

29. Yup!

And about unions & the importance of jobs for Americans!

[brush]

39. Spot on. And unions are what made their grandparents...

middle class...yes, grandparents as their parents are the ones who were stupid enough to fall for anti-union repup rhetoric and voted down unions all over the nation. Now they don't understand why they're worse off than their grandparents.

[Tikki]

26. And hypocrisy without any pushback.

Tikki

[C_U_L8R]

2. Aren't they the party of 'it's your own damn fault' ?

[Eko]

3. Thoughts and prayers to them.

Cause I have to,,

[Solly Mack]

4. K&R

[Thomas Hurt]

6. WTF, the christofascists survived the last societal and political change.

The counter culture, the civil right era, all knocked the conservatives back on their heels and they behaved somewhat more civilly.

Not anymore though. We have been headed down the road to this very point since Reagan.

Unfortunately, I don't think they will go back under their rocks.

All humans dislike change, the conservatives made their fear of change and the other into a repressive ideology.

[applegrove]

7. When they had union jobs or farms with subsidies they dreamed of retiring

to a fishing lake. And it was within their grasp. They were self actualized. Then came forty years of anti-union GOP policy and those dreams died. People suffering from financial anxiety think less with reason more with emotion. Trump gave many a home. Events to dream about. Cosplay and roles to take on that are seemingly real (Jan 6). They get to dress up. In the short term it reduces anxiety. He gave them a false dream. Biden is fighting back by trying to give people financial hope. Then inflation comes along and short term thinking takes over again.

[Geechie]

11. On point.

That’s about the most succinct description of the situation I’ve read so far.

[applegrove]

19. Lots of people are saying it one way or another.

[Geechie]

37. True, but not as succinctly. nt

[tulipsandroses]

28. Awhile back, I posted an article about money left unspent for retraining

This was money approved by the Obama administration for areas where coal jobs dried up. With all that economic anxiety, One would think they would have jumped at the chance to retrain. Nah, they bought trump’s lie about bringing coal mines back.

[Jade Fox]

43. The last few paragraphs of this article address the fundamental laziness of these people.....

Retraining would require work and a willingness to deal with the anxiety of a major change in one's life. They are too lazy to do that.

[uponit7771]

45. Whoa,

[Initech]

9. Hate, bigotry and death threats - none of this shit has any place in society in 2022.

[Vogon_Glory]

10. Let's look at Fort Bend County

I don’t live there, but I’ve stayed there. Yes it is on the edge or inside of metro Houston’s sprawl. Folks of all colors who can’t afford their houses closer to downtown Houston or the Loop are going to buy there. A lot of 1st and 2nd generation immigrants, prosperous, educated, are also buying homes and setting up businesses.

Latinos (And in Texas, that means of Mexican ancestry) are also moving there thanks to prosperity and some fair-housing laws.

So these guys are facing the obvious and blinking: the days when Fort Bend County was a collection of small, white-dominated towns surrounded by farmland are over, gone, and done with. And they aren’t coming back, no matter what the Orange One, Q Anon, Faux Noise, and other purveyors might try to sell the on.

[LenaBaby61]

13. Remember when the NY Times ....

Interviewed mostly right-winged, white males or right-winged women the whole year after tRump stole the 2016 election? They eventually did interview some Dems though, but made that interview mostly about the GP tRump voters

The only reason I know about this was because friends who can still stomach the times STAY grumbling to me about it, and I said stop reading that crap paper, because you stay mad at them for writing shit pieces of anti-Dem articles and I have to hear about it from you

[CanonRay]

14. WTF, did the NY Times get sold to Rupert Murdoch?

So much bullshit today

[MustLoveBeagles]

24. No kidding

[hatrack]

15. Year Seven of the Cletus Safari, and still the same old shit from the paper of record

I almost wish I still subscribed so that I could cancel again.

Almost.

[Thunderbeast]

18. They mourn the loss of their own youth.

They look back at their lives and yearn for their own childhoods...A time when life was simpler though their parent's lives faced immense challenges. As they look around and see change, they confuse their new reality and lost youth as the fault of the "other". Images in the media often depict affluent lifestyles that they will never attain.

They feel cheated because what they "lost" was never real.

[Jade Fox]

41. "They feel cheated because what they lost was never real."

Exactly.

I remember reading one of these people going on about losing the Leave It To Beaver world of his youth. Like that was ever real!

[live love laugh]

21. It's like they're trying to hold back the tide.

They’ll steal, maim and kill to try to be “supreme.”

[MustLoveBeagles]

23. OMFG

The Magats are tearing this country apart but all I see and read is that the Democrats need to be nicer. EXCUSE ME? So tired of the fingerwagging lectures always directed towards us never them.

[PlanetBev]

25. Look, I could whine too

I grew up in the San Fernando Valley section of Los Angeles in the 1950’s. We used to get our eggs from a farmer down the street and my first field trip in kindergarten was to another dairy farm across the street. All that is gone now. Urban blight and strip malls overran us and the traffic totally sucks.

That said, I live my life by the understanding that the only constant in the universe is change.
I’m tired of these people who are still looking for an imaginary all white Mayberry or Our Town where blacks were invisible and women knew their place. Ain’t gonna happen. Nothing stays the same.

Get over it and move on.

[VMA131Marine]

27. It's unfortunate that the NYT wasn't this concerned

when Native Americans were being systematically relocated and exterminated by US governments in the quest for more profit. Those people really did lose their countries.

[Geechie]

38. THIS 100%. nt

[uponit7771]

44. RIGHT !!

[Corgigal]

30. Humans worst flaw,

is we know we’re gonna die. Too many don’t even imagine how lucky they were to be born at all and experience a life. Some of it good, and some not. None of them are thankful for their time on this planet, and now they are scared and pissed off.

I’m unsure if any of life form knows their fate from a young age, cause they don’t share . I think other living forms just accept better.

Still wish I had my knee capabilities of when I was younger. Still thankful for the day, and if it’s a good day then someone makes me laugh.

[kacekwl]

31. The fear that they will lose their status is basically the

Hitler / Nazi playbook for fascism. But these poor saps think it will work out for them this time.

[Botany]

32. "Their America is vanishing." Fine by me.

[Demsrule86]

34. Their America did not include Confederate flag...most of them are full of shit...just mad because

they can't lord it over others and beat the crap out of them. I have no sympathy for them whatsoever.

[Demsrule86]

33. Who cares? Times change...get with it or get out of the way.

[niyad]

35. Not quickly enough.

[betsuni]

36. Good article, doesn't blame Democrats for "ignoring" working class and Middle America.

That stupidity makes me want to scream every time I see it, also the stupid thing about Trump voters doing so for economic reasons.

"Liberal democracy's white-faced enemy is lazy." Yeah, what happened to the can-do American spirit? My nutty right-wing mother in her later years made herself miserable, and everyone around her miserable, for no reason at all. Listening to right-wing/evangelical radio and TV makes people angry and miserable and urges them to be racist.

[Hekate]

40. Every time someone says "economic anxiety," I think of my Trumpista neighbors...

After several years of gigantic Trump signs and then insurrection flags on their flagpole, they put up a string of lights on the hill in back that says “Let’s Go Brandon.” Down at his end of the street that damn thing shines into the houses of all around him. Fortunately a curve in the road protects us.

Economic anxiety? Give me a break. The guy is an orthopedic surgeon.

[Jade Fox]

42. This article finally addresses the fundamental laziness of these people....

When faced with serious challenges, they turn into grievance junkies rather than do the work to change. That's why so many turn down retraining. (see post #28)

[genxlib]

46. This one thing jumped out at me

farmland is giving way to suburbs…

Please.

Conservatives are far more responsible for this than any other class of people. From white flight to lax environmental laws to greedy developers to the rise of mcmansions. It is all a result of conservative culture.

[Scrivener7]

47. Do you promise, NYT?

[brooklynite]

48. Nothing in the story elicits sympathy....

...it merely explains the thinking of a not insignificant share of the electorate.