One hears a great deal these days about Democrats failing because we don't talk like "regular
people".
For example,
here is John Fetterman being quoted by Fox News...which, in turn, is quoting The New York Times. Which is all just super helpful.
Fetterman says Democrats lost male voters by being insulting,
condescending
Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., believes the Democratic Party has turned off
male voters by being "insulting."
In a new interview with The New York Times, the lawmaker stated that liberals turned off male voters, who supported
President-elect Donald Trump in droves.
"Telling them that ‘I know better than you do,’ that’s not helpful,"
Fetterman said, characterizing what he saw as the party’s approach to
courting men.
This genus of punditing is currently in vogue and to be found
everywhere. Like "Joe is too old!" and "But her emails" and 'Why won't Obama
lead?" and "It's going to be Rubio!" and "Live, from this Ohio diner...", it's
every two-bit opinion-haver's cheap and lazy way to fill column inches, but it
leaves me very confuse. So I'd appreciate it if someone would explain it
to me.
Slowly.
Using little words.
As if I were a Florida Republican.
First, well, this isn't really a question. It's just that I can't help but notice how so many
of the people hectoring non-specific "Democrat" and "Liberals" as being too
snobby and condescending are themselves some of the most condescending humans
extant. Looking at you, panel of Mona Charen's "Beg to Differ" Bulwark
podcast. Looking at you, Ezra Klein, and the Time's op-ed page.
Looking at you, Pod Save kidz. And Morning Joe has every flavor of condescension you could ever want. The braying, talking-over-everyone condescension of Joey Scabs himself. The mousy condescension of his sidekick. And whole chorus of condescension from their regular panelists.
Second, I've also noticed how quickly you, John Fetterman, jumped from condemning
"the Democratic party" to slagging nonspecific "liberals", and then back to "the party"
again. Put a pin in that: we'll get back to it.
Third, if arrogant and dismissive and outright repulsive language is so damn off-putting, John Fetterman, I gotta ask: have you ever actually heard how the Right talks about us America-hating, terrorist-loving, filthy,
socialist, commie pedophile baby-killers? Because it may surprise
you! Of course you may have missed it since they've only been talking
about us this way, very openly, for the last 30-40 years.
On the radio.
On teevee.
In print.
On podcasts.
Shall I go on?
So, fourth, why it's only condescending and off-putting when Democrats hit back?
Fifth, how is it every two-bit opinion-haver in Murrica is always very lavish
condemning "the Democratic party"and/or "liberals" generally,
but can never seem to get around to identifying any specific Democrat or
liberal by name or title? Who are these people, John
Fetterman? Where do they live? What do they do for a living?
If you've got specific names and addresses, I'd be happy run over and tell
them to cut it out. Y'know, one condescending liberal to another?
Sixth and last, just exactly how does Slack Jawed
Cletus from Sisterfuck, Arkansas know what the hell liberals are saying about
him, or about anything, anyway? Are there liberals with sound trucks
rolling through the shitty, potholed streets of Sisterfuck, Arkansas,
promiscuously shouting big words and smarty-pants phrases like
"epistemic" and "counterfactual" and "bounded rationality" and "disenthrall"
just to make the locals feel stupid? Are liberal women swarming the
local pickup bars, quoting Bell Hooks and making fun of the male denizen's
tiny penises?
Or, as is 1000% more likely, Slack Jawed Cletus from Sisterfuck, Arkansas has
never actually encountered a real-life snooty, condescending liberal in the flesh.
But Cletus watches a lot of teevee. NewsMax, mostly, with
some Fox for Sean and Jesse and the hot ladies. And when he's out on
Cletus business, he listens to one of the three local station, all of which
carry sports and Conservative talk.
And all of the media Cletus has consumes
all day long, every day, for decades, tells him that, out there somewhere, millions of
uppity, condescending liberals are plotting against him and laughing at him
behind his back.
Cletus' media will include tiny snips of actual Democrats saying crazy,
insulting things like "the 2020 election was not rigged" and "Donald Trump is
a criminal" and "January 6th was an insurrection" and "inflation is
coming down" when everyone knows none of that is true! And Cletus knows
that everyone knows that none of this is true because all of it will be
repeated over and over and over again, in different ways, on all the garbage propaganda Cletus gobbles up like Christmas ham.
Inevitably, the outraged bellowing from Sisterfuck, Arkansas will slop over
into the legacy media and a fleet of Zeitgeist Media Action Vans will be dispatched from the East coast to interview a whole passel of Cletuses in a bunch of local diners. From there, Cletus' down-to-earth, recited-by-rote wisdom will make its way into the comments of quotable, high-profile
people who won't scold Cletus for being a dumbass who listens to liars, but will instead blame Democrats and liberals for being pompous and
highfalutin.
And the circle of life will once again be complete.
If you would like a blueprint of how this process works, including a complete list of materials and tools, just send $64 to the...
Burn The Lifeboats Fund
Or you could just go here ("Joe Walsh and The Triumphant Return of Joey Tabula Rasa") to a post in which I wrote about a specific, traceable example of this phenomenon. A fragment of a speech by Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm was taken wildly out of context by one conservative asshole. It was passed upward through the Conservative media digestive system until it was allegedly overheard by one of Joe Walsh's many, nameless, imaginary just-plain-workin'-folk friends who, like Tom Friedman's many imaginary cab drivers, always just so happens to say exactly what Walsh wants to yell at Democrats about on any given day.
And on this particular day, Walsh transmogrified that entire daisy-chair of fiction, fake outrage and nonsense into yet another tirade about how out-of-touch Democrats are with the just plain regular American proletariats.
In that post I break down that whole process, and you can go read it for yourself for free. However, if you are inclined to send along $64 or more, I wouldn't think less of you.
UPDATE: Jim from the comments makes an important point. When you consider the vast, empty expanse of all the things about which Cletus is dead-rat ignorant -- "Cletus doesn't know Trump is a convicted rapist. Cletus doesn't know Trump spent $160 million on NFL TV ads bashing TWO (that's right 2) trans prisoners who continued their transition treatments in prison following the TRUMP Administration's guidelines. Cletus also doesn't know Trump is convicted on 34 felony counts." and so forth -- how is it that Cletus doesn't know fuck all about anything, but is 100% for damn sure that some college professor out there at Hah-vahd spends all his days and nights cackling about Cletus not using the right pronouns.
