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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsConservatives have begun to eat their own.
Holy shit:
If you spend time in hardscrabble, white upstate New York, or eastern Kentucky, or my own native West Texas, and you take an honest look at the welfare dependency, the drug and alcohol addiction, the family anarchy which is to say, the whelping of human children with all the respect and wisdom of a stray dog you will come to an awful realization. It wasnt Beijing. It wasnt even Washington, as bad as Washington can be. It wasnt immigrants from Mexico, excessive and problematic as our current immigration levels are. It wasnt any of that.
Nothing happened to them. There wasnt some awful disaster. There wasnt a war or a famine or a plague or a foreign occupation. Even the economic changes of the past few decades do very little to explain the dysfunction and negligence and the incomprehensible malice of poor white America. So the gypsum business in Garbutt aint what it used to be. There is more to life in the 21st century than wallboard and cheap sentimentality about how the Man closed the factories down.
The truth about these dysfunctional, downscale communities is that they deserve to die. Economically, they are negative assets. Morally, they are indefensible. Forget all your cheap theatrical Bruce Springsteen crap. Forget your sanctimony about struggling Rust Belt factory towns and your conspiracy theories about the wily Orientals stealing our jobs. Forget your goddamned gypsum, and, if he has a problem with that, forget Ed Burke, too. The white American underclass is in thrall to a vicious, selfish culture whose main products are misery and used heroin needles. Donald Trumps speeches make them feel good. So does OxyContin. What they need isnt analgesics, literal or political. They need real opportunity, which means that they need real change, which means that they need U-Haul.
Article here. The piece was written by the National Review's Kevin Williamson. The above quote is more-or-less the conclusion of the article, where he basically blames white working class families for their own plight (in short: they are drug addicted moral degenerates), and that if they want to save themselves the change they need is to leave their dying communities behind. He concludes by comparing the feelings of empowerment that Trump gives them to the same type of high they get from OxyCotin.
It is one of the most vicious things I've ever seen put into print. It's the linguistic equivalent of setting your house on fire to kill your spouse and children in a murder-suicide attempt.
...and just in case you thought the National Review might back down from this... um, no! They are doubling down and going further. Here is a response to the above article by David French.
...
For generations, conservatives have rightly railed against deterministic progressive notions that put human choices at the mercy of race, class, history, or economics. Those factors can create additional challenges, but they do not relieve any human being of the moral obligation to do their best.
Yet millions of Americans arent doing their best. Indeed, theyre barely trying. As Ive related before, my church in Kentucky made a determined attempt to reach kids and families that were falling between the cracks, and it was consistently astounding how little effort most parents and their teen children made to improve their lives. If they couldnt find a job in a few days or perhaps even as little as a few hours theyd stop looking. If they got angry at teachers or coaches, theyd drop out of school. If they fought with their wife, they had sex with a neighbor. And always always there was a sense of entitlement.
And thats where disability or other government programs kicked in. They were there, beckoning, giving men and women alternatives to gainful employment. You dont have to do any work (your disability lawyer does all the heavy lifting), you make money, and you get drugs. At our local regional hospital, its become a bitter joke the extent to which the community is hooked on "Xanatab" the Xanax and Lortab prescriptions that lead to drug dependence.
...
The article, unlike the first one, is not behind a paywall.
French takes on a much kinder tone, but he does not disagree with anything written by Williamson. In fact, in many ways (though the tone may disguise it), he goes even further. He is basically asserting that poor working class white communities should be regarded the same way that they regard economically struggling black communities living in the inner-city. Imagine how this goes over in that racist reptilian brain that many of them use for their primary function.
This is the bedrock base of the Republican Party.
If you have conservative family or friends, spread this article around! Let them see what the elites in their party REALLY think of them!
Response to Meldread (Original post)
ebayfool This message was self-deleted by its author.
Meldread
(4,213 posts)This is a game changer. They have mostly focused their anger and hatred toward Trump, but now they are focusing it on the voters themselves--their own base.
This is a full scale divorce.
As many conservatives need to see this as possible, and it is shocking that more people aren't recommending and kicking this thread for others.
phantom power
(25,966 posts)The day that the Republicans finally threw their useful idiots -- white working-class conservatives -- under the bus.
I wonder how many of them will notice?
Meldread
(4,213 posts)This is categorically different than anything we've really seen in the past. They've gone after Trump extremely hard, but now--perhaps realizing defeat--they've turned on his voters. Those voters are their base.
This is coming directly from the National Review, and it is something that everyone--at least in the conservative establishment--is reading. They are likely nodding their head in agreement.
They've accused their base of being failures: "...nobody did this to them. They failed themselves."
They said that they raise their children like stray dogs: "...which is to say, the whelping of human children with all the respect and wisdom of a stray dog..."
They said their communities deserve to die: "The truth about these dysfunctional, downscale communities is that they deserve to die."
They attacked their moral character and culture: "The white American underclass is in thrall to a vicious, selfish culture whose main products are misery and used heroin needles. Donald Trumps speeches make them feel good. So does OxyContin."
Those are not words you take back. If you said that in the context of a relationship, it would be over. There is no, "I'm sorry, I was angry and I didn't mean it." This is a full on divorce. There is no going back after this...
How many will notice? Plenty, if we forward these articles to all the conservatives we know, and make sure it goes viral, lol. I am glad it is finally out in the open. It proves everything that I've thought about the Conservative Elite for a long time. It was always clear to me how much they hated their base. Donald Trump hates them too, of course, which is also amusing. It's pathetically sad when you think about it.
One thing that the article gets right, though: these communities do deserve to die. We should be engaging in plans to encourage urbanization, hollowing out those poor rural communities. It makes it easier for them to get services, and we know geography plays a large role in destiny. With a strong social safety net, especially around housing, these people will be better off in cities than in rural communities. It will also be good for us politically, as urbanizing them will also liberalize them (or at least their children).
tblue37
(65,408 posts)product of some "liberal troll," or they will just say that is exactly why they are voting for Trump--i.e., against the establishment.
ANd the idiot Republican Establishment will line up behind Trump, just as Christie has done if they can't prevent him from winning the nomination. Heck, Rubio, Kasich, and Cruz are all still sticking to their pledge to support him if he wins the nomination.
tanyev
(42,571 posts)Solly Mack
(90,773 posts)surrealAmerican
(11,362 posts)Kicking this for later - it look like something I need to see.
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)mercuryblues
(14,532 posts)This is the republican base they are talking about. The ones the count on for votes, no questions asked. They sound like a jilted ex-lover.
Shandris
(3,447 posts)(For those unfamiliar, my entire family is R and has been for many years so I often offer insights (as they were) from them).
None of this was a surprise. The only surprise is that they printed it. But this is why Trump. It's not 'racism' or all the other 'isms' and 'ists' that the MSM has been trotting out dutifully (seriously, you might consider a new hobby if you fell for that, as I see a certain original poster did), it's a pushback against the Establishment and their 'offered candidates'.
The vote this year is not left and right. That's why no one cares how much people attack Trump (or Bernie, on our side). This years vote is that the masses have decided the Establishment must die, and the Establishment is doing every dirty trick in its power (on both sides) to prevent it. What, did you think they'd go down without a fight?
If you're still pretending this is Democrats and Republicans, wake the hell up or get out of the road. Mr. Dylan has a few choice words about you and about the Times, because they are a'changin'. There is a restructuring going on, and if you're still in this for the Bushes, Clintons, Rubios, Soroses, and Kochs, you're yesterday's news and tomorrow's pathetic relic.
Meldread
(4,213 posts)These are not KKK type racists. They are white resentment racists. They feel that those 'other people' (blacks, hispanics, and others) are being helped by the government while they are getting screwed by the government. I don't know where you are reporting from, but I am reporting from the rural south. There is a lot of racial resentment down here.
They see Trump as the guy who is going to 'set things right' and 'make America great again'. In their minds America is great because THEY are great, and in their minds they are being held down by outside forces. Those outside forces range from pretty much any immigrant, to most black folks, to powerful elites (both financial and intellectual elites).
I do agree with you though, that we are witnessing the crumbling of institutions across the board. I don't necessarily see that as a good thing though, because institutions are what enables democratic (small 'd') governance. When you have weakened institutions it opens the door to authoritarian leaders--see Donald Trump. I think he has a good chance of winning in November, as I think he is going to pull in more independents than most people think as well as some traditional Democratic voters (mostly rust belt union types--all white working class).
Democrats will only win if we can pull in as many minorities as possible and hold onto the liberal white educated elite. We are going to witness the Republican Party morph into the party of white voters and the Democratic Party morph into the party of minority non-white voters and their allies. We are also going to watch the Republican Party take on a much more open authoritarian stance.
We are heading down a dangerous road. This road is eventually going to end with the collapse of America's constitutional democracy. The truth of the matter is that aside from Chile, only the United States has managed more than a century of relatively stable constitutional continuity under a presidential government. The Chilean democracy collapsed in the 1970s.
What has saved America for so long is that our political parties were not as polarized. They were relatively un-ideological in their makeup. This changed after the last major realignment. The story of America is written in how things have played out around race. The Democratic Party broke apart after we lost the Dixicrats, and blacks left the Republican Party to become Democrats--the new party of Civil Rights. Since that time, the parties have become more and more polarized. Liberal Republicans have fled the Republican Party to become Democrats, Conservative Democrats (mostly Dixicrats) have fled the Democratic Party to become Republicans. Racial minorities, immigrants, LGBTQ people, women--pretty much all the traditional "out groups" have all basically united under the Democratic Party banner. Meanwhile, those seeking to "make America great again" (i.e. disgruntled white people) have fled to the Republican Party.
We are on the path to becoming a majority minority nation. The culture is changing rapidly. The disgruntled white people are looking for a strongman to take power to "fix" things. They have strong authoritarian tendencies, and they will support violence in the future.
The weakening of our institutions is a symptom of an unhealthy state of affairs that is going to end badly.
Jitter65
(3,089 posts)the distribution of revenue by state. NY, PA, CA put more into the Fed coffers than they get out. Problem is, the low-information voters don't know that because no one is telling them. They are being told a bunch of lies and they believe them.
Meldread
(4,213 posts)I have literally met some poor white folks WHO ARE ON WELFARE (food stamps AND disability), who believe that THEY are paying for those "other" people on Welfare (i.e. black folks and hispanic immigrants).
I don't think that information would make one difference to them, because this perception is all tied up into their racial grievance. It is part of how they see themselves in relationship to others and the system.
thucythucy
(8,069 posts)and people who rely on the disability safety net.
What a hateful screed, and on so many levels.
Salviati
(6,008 posts)Ouch!
Meldread
(4,213 posts)Even I felt the fire--the paint is peeling off my walls.
applegrove
(118,696 posts)productive to die. The old, the sick, the poor, Africans, the mentally ill, etc. all to make room for more rich people at the top who want to live to 120 and hardly paying taxes at all. What they glaringly miss is that the quality of life people live, the meaning each individual finds in their family or elsewhere, that does not correlate to being wealthy or seeming to be a success in the physical world. It is how you connect to the world that is important and how you share that as you age with the younger generations. On that scale the rich in the GOP should be gotten rid of first.
Volaris
(10,272 posts)For the Moral Majority. It's been a long time coming but it's nearly time to watch the slaughtering of a whole herd of Sacred Lambs. Something tells me it will have been worth the wait.
OhioBlue
(5,126 posts)steve2470
(37,457 posts)Turborama
(22,109 posts)It's really going to wind Trump up on a few different levels. lol
Turborama
(22,109 posts)That started in January: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/01/23/donald-trump-gets-defensive-in-iowa-slamming-the-national-review-and-glenn-beck/
Your analysis is spot on. I've no idea what they hope to gain by attacking his (and their) base like this.
ProfessorGAC
(65,076 posts)Sounds like Williamson read all of Rand's books twice.
What an idiot.
Meldread
(4,213 posts)He all but said we should let them starve to death or put them down like stray dogs. I mean, fuck, he literally said they are raising their children like stray dogs.
JHB
(37,161 posts)"I would like to stress that poor rural whites are lazy welfare queens too, and they need to shape up."
Meldread
(4,213 posts)Seriously, I can't believe he actually said they raise their children like stray dogs. That was so far below the belt, that it caused me to gasp out loud.
...and this is their base!
NeoGreen
(4,031 posts)...and this marriage of convenience is head toward divorce...
Why did it take so long?
...but it's funny (in a sad way) that the "intellectual" side of the duo is the one making the split...
Jitter65
(3,089 posts)Enrique
(27,461 posts)because both sides are showing fascist tendencies. Trump's fascist tendencies are obvious, but now here is a strong critic of Trump demonizing an entire class of people.