Which should thrill the fuck out of these people.
The odious Chris Sununu -- the misbegotten grandson of the odious John Sununu* -- would like everyone in New Hampshire to be armed to the teeth, and no one to know who is packing what.
From HuffPo:
You No Longer Need A License To Carry A Concealed Weapon In New HampshireThe state’s licensing requirement had been in place for nearly a century.New Hampshire residents no longer need any kind of license to carry a concealed handgun after the state repealed a nearly century-old law that allowed police to deny concealed carry licenses to people they believed could pose a risk to others.New Hampshire already permitted open carry, but local law enforcement long had discretion to deny individuals a license to carry a concealed weapon. The system, in place for 94 years, let police prevent people who they knew had a violent history from getting license.On Wednesday, Gov. Chris Sununu (R) signed a law that simply allows residents to carry a concealed weapon without a license. Similar legislation had been twice vetoed by former Gov. Maggie Hassan (D)...
As the GOP rolls back rights for LGBT Americans, puts looters, polluters and anti-science goblins in charge of our air and water, rounds up our neighbors, openly conspires with our enemies and hides from their constituents...
...I'll be on my middle-class porch in the middle of Middle America, waiting for The New York Times Action Van to show up and ask me about my feelings.
In the meantime, to prep for what I'm sure is the Times' Roving Flyover Zeitgeist Action Team's imminent arrival, I shall bone up on what The Grey Lady is saying to America today.
Trump Voters Are Not the Enemy
Nicholas Kristof FEB. 23, 2017
Oh Jesus. Really, Kristof? Really?
Well, maybe it's a parody. And I could really use a laugh right now.
...the comments...registering legitimate anxieties about President Trump — but also the troubling condescension that worried me in the first place. I fear that the (richly deserved) animus toward Trump is spilling over onto all his supporters.
I understand the vehemence. Trump is a demagogue who vilifies and scapegoats refugees, Muslims, undocumented immigrants, racial minorities, who strikes me as a danger to our national security. By all means stand up to him, and point out his lies and incompetence. But let’s be careful about blanket judgments.
Nope.
Not a parody.
So here's how this will go.
First. Kristof will know some guys. Some guy from his home-town, or where he went to college, or where his car broke down that one time...
My hometown, Yamhill, Ore., a farming community, is Trump country...
Check.
And these guys he knows? They're not bigots at all!
In Yamhill, plenty of well-meaning people were frustrated enough that they took a gamble on a silver-tongued provocateur. It wasn’t because they were “bigoted unthinking lizard brains,” but because they didn’t know where to turn and Trump spoke to their fears.
Check.
And now comes the money shot, because the whole reason for this column's existence is to spin a comforting fairy tale for Nick Kristof's hometown pals and his insulated Beltway readers. That the real problem here is not the meatheads who elected The Bastard President, but my Liberal disdain for the meatheads who elected The Bastard President.
Or, rather, the three reasons why yadda yadda yadda because depending on word count requirements, there are always two or three reasons why this is all my fault:
There are three reasons I think it’s shortsighted to direct liberal fury at the entire mass of Trump voters, a complicated (and, yes, diverse) group of 63 million people.
Check.
First, stereotyping a huge slice of America as misogynist bigots is unfair and impairs understanding.
I'm sorry, I couldn't hear can't hear you over the constant roar of tens of millions of Republicans screaming that I am an America-hating traitor out of tens of millions of radios for the last quarter of a century.
Maybe you missed it. Maybe radio reception isn't so good in New York City.
But please, do go on.
Second, demonizing Trump voters feeds the dysfunction of our political system. One can be passionate about one’s cause, and fight for it, without contributing to political paralysis that risks making our country ungovernable.
Tolerance is a liberal value; name-calling isn’t...
Our country is ungovernable, Nick, because your fucking homies, keep electing assholes who make it ungovernable. Is there something in the water in Yamhill, Oregon that makes people just surreally stupid? If so, maybe your homies could take it up with the Environmental Protection Agen...
Oh wait.
Never mind.
Your homies voted to liquidate the EPA.
Because Freedom! And because I was mean to them.
The third reason is tactical: It’s hard to win over voters whom you’re insulting...
Again, can't quite hear you over the etcetera, etcetera and also --
-- the etcetera.
But sure, please ramble on
Yes, the Trump camp includes some racists and other bigots. But it’s a big camp, and let’s not be so quick to affix labels on every member of a vast group.
Yes. Only some of them are bigots. And only some of them are homophobes. And only some of them are xenophobes. And only some of them are misogynists. And only some of them are fascists.
The rest are obviously either just as dumb as a bag of hammers, or are, for some reason, really, really, really comfortable with bigots and homophobes and xenophobes and misogynists and fascists.
Go ahead and denounce Trump’s lies and bigotry. Stand firm against his disastrous policies. But please don’t practice his trick of “otherizing” people into stick-figure caricatures, slurring vast groups as hopeless bigots.
Translation: Please don't hold voters in a democracy responsible for the votes they cast.
If you need me, I'll be out on the porch, Nick.
Waiting for the van.
*Thanks for the catch, mystery editor
12 comments:
Never forget:
1. The average IQ in this country is 100.
2. Half the country has IQ's less than 100.
3. These are Dubya's and Trump;s "base".
4. Oh yeah, some of them get sweet media deals too.
"...a silver-tongued provocateur."
Silver-tongued? Really? That's the tell right there. If you find the awful, awful stuff Trump says to be something that a "silver-tongued provocateur" would say, you either have one or more of the above mentioned pathologies, no grasp of the English language, or are just an amoral, lying asshole.
Or perhaps some combination of those three.
-Doug in Oakland
Clearly last Friday's memo from the guys upstairs was: Talk/write Why-Are-You-Liberals-Being-SO-MEAN!-You're-Scaring-Off-"Moderate" Conservative-Votes segments/articles....something I don't remember people telling the Tea Party when they were portraying Obama in racially insensitive ways and claiming he was trying to kill their grandmothers.
I wonder how much this has to do with the Democratic Party about to vote on its future leader with several candidates advocating focusing on local grassroots progressive voter organization that entirely marginalizes the "moderate conservative who had nowhere else to turn."
Vis the concealed carry guns in NH: I guess Louie Gohmert ain't going there any time soon because no doubt liberals will be the ones to really FEAR big time, not the reptiles on the right. I mean, who are the ones who open carry weapons to demos? Oh right: rightwingers at Tea Bagger rallies, but really, it's libruls we must FEAR.
Vis Kristof: yeah, yeah, we've seen this movie before. I think, like you Driftglass (except you do it for a good reason), Kristof just dusts off old screeds to cut and paste for today's version of the daily bullshit swill. We've read crapola like this before, where we gawd-awful LIEbruls are skooled and lexturched by rightwingers about how we're being such meanie bullies to the poor pitiful delicate flowers on the right who are getting all their pitiful fee-fees so hurted when they're told the truth about who and what they are, including photos.
The left has had to put up with (well we didn't have choice) with 30+ years of Hate Radio, Fox, "Christiany" Broadcasting constantly spouting out diatribes about how horrible, awful, disgusting, sinful and loathsome libruls are. The name calling is constant. The hype, spin and shrieking goes on daily. Regnary publishes "books" aimed at how dastardly, disgusting unpatriotic LIEbruls are totally ruining everything in sight.
But we libruls must always be gracious, softly spoken, mealy-mouthed suck ups to the always correct conservatives, no matter how they treat us or speak about/to us or threaten us with extinction (really). Calling us traitors, whores, liars, creeps is just the beginning, really.
And protesting that we don't want to breath polluted air and drink polluted, lead-filled water? How DARE we do that??? When after all, conservatives are the only true-blue bona fide real 'Murkins who live in Fly Over country. All dirty LIEbruls live on the disgusting coasts in urban hell-holes where the dirty minorities are daily going on murder and rape sprees that never ever happen in that sweetest of all places, the Rust Belt.
Yeah, seen it, read it, been there, done that. Same old, different day now with a new vasty more stupid, worthless, know-nothing, completely egregious "leader" sort of "in charge." Great. Just great.
Yamhill county's election results:
R D. Trump 50.1% 22,589
D H. Clinton 41.3% 18,635
L G. Johnson 6.5% 2,940
P J. Stein 2.1% 952
Trump votes: 22,589
Non-Trump votes: 22,527
Difference, 62 votes.
Yeah "Trump Country" -- right.
If only Kristof had suggested we use facts and logic to reach out to Trump supporters. Oh, wait ...
So, reason's off the table. So that leaves us with base emotions, such as shame and fear. That, and lawsuits. A poor cousin to an honest discussion, true, but history teaches us that such methods put racists under the rocks for years. Time we started up the old jitney again.
Liberals, progressives and to a degree, even the Give-,e-tarians have enough self awareness to know the difference between, Freedom and the free for all.
Only Conservatives lack that presence of mind.
First they came for the minorities.
Then they came for the Transgender.
Now they come for the pot.
Because state rights are only for republicans.
Mentally disabled must be able to have guns. But for Christ sake not medical marijuana.
We must ban all alternative greener energy for the addiction to big oil profits and accept the negative effects that they say they don't know about because they are not scientists and they won't listen to scientists.
Yes, the Not My President's presidency is taking shape.
If you don't like it they will deport you too, right after they send their patriots out to desecrate your family's burial grounds for good measure.
Where are all those angry midwest/ rust belt folks that ran around mimicking the AM radio frothers? Aping, "anyone but Hillary".
Their Trump is creating jobs tailored specifically for them. As the deportations add up, each of those Trump voters will now be employed.
You think Trump Adm will have a jobs retraining program to teach these folks how to pick vegetables and fruit?
Thanks, driftglass. I am so deeply sick and profoundly tired of hearing people, even other liberals, telling me that "voting for Trump doesn't mean they are racist or bigoted. They're just frustrated with corrupt government who doesn't listen to them. They voted for change, not racism."
Sorry, the Trump campaign and base made no secret of the racism and fascism and chauvinism that is the essence and intent of this administration. If you voted for it, you are it.
We won 3 million more votes than Trump, but lost due to the electoral college that was established to protect slave states. We had more Democratic votes for the house, but couldn't gain enough seats because of gerrymandering by ideological extremists. And we lost the presidency and Senate because of a white patriarchy that is terrified that they might lose their privilege and be accountable for the decades and centuries of oppression and abuse.
I'm still waiting for that arc of history to bend toward justice, but there is such a mass of ill-informed over-privileged asshats desperately pulling against it that I'm losing hope.
It's now the Live free and Die State.
As an Antidote, here's Kristof's colleague Charles Blow:
This is why I have no patience for liberal talk of reaching out to Trump voters. There is no more a compromise point with those who accept, promote and defend bigotry, misogyny and xenophobia than there is a designation of “almost pregnant.”
2013 population: 100725
Trump got 22.43% population support. The vast majority oppose him.
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