I'm seeing a bunch of articles about "Hillbillies" & other rural whites...

[The Polack MSgt]

More than I care to and way more than I ever thought I would.

I feel compelled to comment, since the tone of most of these essays seems clueless and dismissive of what I feel are obvious motivations for their behavior. Writing a treatise on rural white folk with the attitude of a 1930's National Geographic magazine discussing a newfound Amazon tribe does us no damn good.

So what led so many white folks to rally around a racist and incompetent sexual predator?

First off, I am not here to bash them, hell I am them.

Second, just remember that no amount of "understanding" absolves them - They fucking poured arsenic in the water because they assumed only "other people" would have to drink it. Like John Scalzi said - empathy not sympathy. So let me chew your ear for a minute...

I was raised in coal country and I live in corn country now.

As a teen/young adult I watched amazed as Reagan got away with putting a black face on government services and demonizing labor unions.

He did it to tap into the hatred and distrust bubbling under the surface of my neighbors and cousins. And it worked.

I was dumbfounded when almost overnight mill workers and miners abandoned the party that did more to raise their standard of living than any republican ever even tried to do.

Because of Cadillac driving welfare queens. Atheists. Mexicans.

And the absolute ace in the hole since forever - Democrats will take your guns. Yes that is a big deal. A very big deal.

You can take all your arguments and shove them because if the government doesn't trust us - the God fearing patriots in (fill in the blank West Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri, Pennsylvania or wherever) then we can't trust them. Your logic and statistics do not make a dent and never will.

We grew up with guns. We all own some, and all 35 years of pushing for gun control has accomplished is now instead of a deer rifle a 22 a shotgun and maybe a 38 revolver my cousins have multiple pistols and AR and AK rifles as well.

For my family deer season was really harvest season. Between the uncles (and one Aunt), cousins, my dad and I - we filled several freezers with meat that we ate through out the year. Gun control was an immediate hackle raiser with all of us.

I won't down play the racism though... It's racist as fuck in the Appalachians and 45 tapped into that vein even harder than Reagan

[DonCoquixote]

1. OK, if I may offer this

I am probably on the opposite side of you in Gun Control, but, do I want to see the hunting rifles or even revolvers go. The thing I have been against is the fact when people want ak-47's to be sold like it was any other hunting rifle, I wonder "hello, these things have enough ammo for massacres, something a hunting rifles cannot." It would be nice if the issues could be separated, as they are apples and oranges, but along comes the NRA (and sadly, m,any duers) who say "if I wanna shoot squirrels with my ak47, I should!"

[The Polack MSgt]

2. I'm not saying that this mind set is 100% correct or...

Even 100% rational given that the people who peddle single issue politics are usually doing so to hide policies that harm the very folks they are riling up.

What I am saying is even though the Democratic Party can say that we just want "common sense" gun laws, someone will always publish an article calling for bans and confiscation of the latest "Public Menace" guns. These get passed around as proof positive that we cannot trust the Libtards on guns and any action is just the first step to storm troopers kicking in our doors.

More than gay rights, more than abortion, 1000% more than trans people in bathrooms of their choice - It is GUNS and RACISM pushing my neighbors and cousins into the Trump tent

[benEzra]

9. More than 80% of gun owners are nonhunters.

So promising to outlaw nonhunting-style guns comes across as a promise to take the guns of 80%+ of gun owners.

I'll also point out that modern-looking rifles like AR-15's and civilian AK derivatives are among the least misused of all guns; out of ~12,000 murders annually in the USA, less than 270 involve *any* type of rifle.

[democratisphere]

3. Interesting how drumpf tapped into the darker side of people's souls.

He was able to do that because of his very own darkest soul. How long should there be excuses for this kind of self-destructive behavior? Accepting that it has always been this way will insure that it always stays that way. People can rise above their situation but it requires a ton of effort. The world can be a sh'tty place but if we don't change, we will all be condemned to our current situation or worse. Democrats have done more for the greater good of all people including those in rural areas. republiCONs prove day after day that they don't give a damn about their constituents unless they have multiple millions or multiple billions.

[The Polack MSgt]

4. I was "lucky" that I was young enough when the steel/coal economy died...

To join the Air Force and get out.

Also, my home town was not segregated and had a lot more black families than the vast majority of mill and mine towns around - So I was slightly less racist because I had friends and team mates around to moderate my attitudes. Not saying I was a Saint - I was better than average in late 70s Appalachia, which looking back, made me pretty egregiously racist...

[dae]

5. Great OP TPMS, when the GOP discovered wedge issues they hit

the motherlode.

[pablo_marmol]

6. Great post. Many of us are great at *posing* tolerant.

Last edited Thu Mar 23, 2017, 01:11 AM - Edit history (1)

It never ceases to amaze me that many Democrats are perfectly comfortable with 'exotic' past-times (for lack of a better word) like transvestite cabaret, while they lose their shit over a relatively banal activity such as folks target shooting with "military-style" rifles. Insane! This is the only area that I can think of where we earn the slur.... "Liberals are not just stupid -- they're insane."

It only took one summer on the farm where my father grew up to forever change my world view, and recognize the nasty culture war that so many that agree with me on all other issues dish out. My dad's family needed a small caliber rifle for varmints, and perhaps borrowed a larger rifle when they had to put down cattle that had been seriously injured.

And the absolute ace in the hole since forever - Democrats will take your guns. Yes that is a big deal. A very big deal.

Democrats, generally, will never appreciate how dishonest they've been w/regard to the subject of gun violence because they can't deal with the possibility that our side has been just as dishonest as the GOP has been on other issues -- and the political damage that has resulted. The "assault weapon" angst being possibly the #1 Democrat killer, given that these rifles are seldom used to commit murder, and are "banned" based on appearance rather than function. Good Dog --- how frightfully stupid.

Your post gave me some comfort today -- comfort that I've really needed lately. Thank you for that. It's nice to know that some Dems get it.

[oneshooter]

7. Not according to the Democratic Party

Gun control was NOT a factor in the election results.

[pablo_marmol]

8. Face palm

Right, oneshooter -- is never is.

Dog help us. As I'm sure many here have noticed, shortly after Clinton's defeat Chuckie was still babbling about maintaining the party's core values -- among them, "gun control". There just doesn't appear to be an end in sight for the cessation of the stoopid. If we put up another Corporadem in 2020 while pushing our chronic stoopid, it'll be lights out for the Democratic Party, and hence the nation.

[benEzra]

10. NC elected a pro-gun Dem governor but rejected Clinton by 200K votes.

That margin of loss was less than 1/10th the number of North Carolinians who own "assault weapons" or over-10-round magazines, which Clinton directly threatened during the primary. And her staff and the DNC were so cloistered and ignorant on the issue that apparently no one in the campaign even realized how badly she stepped in it on the issue.

[pablo_marmol]

11. If that isn't a perfect example

of how we sabotage ourselves, I don't know what is! Thanks benEzra........saving this post.

[pablo_marmol]

12. Democrats are in group #3 re. "gun control".

Folks that make things happen......

Those who watch what happens.......

Those who dumbfoundedly ask --
"What happened?!"