Every day, the Rude Pundit reads some oh-so-compassionate writer, often liberal, who has penned a mighty article where he (and, yeah, it's generally "he") warns Democrats and the cranky left to not be such elitist jack-offs about the people who have said they are voting for Donald Trump for the Republican nomination for president. Just a few days ago, Thomas Frank, a writer the Rude Pundit genuinely admires, took Democrats to task for not understanding where the anger driving Trump voters comes from. He centers it in the "the zones of economic misery that 30 years of Washington’s free-market consensus have brought the rest of America." Frank details how Trump appeals to this unemployed or underemployed white working-class population by his attacks on free trade agreements, for example. "Many of Trump’s followers are bigots, no doubt, but many more are probably excited by the prospect of a president who seems to mean it when he denounces our trade agreements and promises to bring the hammer down on the CEO that fired you and wrecked your town, unlike Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton," Frank writes.
Frank surmises that what's driving Trump's support isn't racism, but despair for the job market and the unfairness of the system, as one poll suggested: "Their favorite aspect of Trump was his 'attitude,' the blunt and forthright way he talks. As far as issues are concerned, 'immigration' placed third among the matters such voters care about, far behind their number one concern: 'good jobs / the economy.'" As for the popularity of the Trump movement, Frank writes, "We cannot admit that we liberals bear some of the blame for its emergence, for the frustration of the working-class millions, for their blighted cities and their downward spiraling lives."
Now, the Rude Pundit is pretty sure there is a huge gulf of difference between actual liberalism and the neoliberalism that Frank is actually blaming, but the conflation there hurts because, well, see, liberals actually do advocate for a shit-ton of policies that would help workers. As for the main free trade agreement Trump rails against, NAFTA was passed only because of overwhelming Republican support in 1993. The majority of Democrats were against it. And, let's be honest, Tommy: Trump's voters hear the anti-NAFTA stuff as "fuck those Mexicans."
The biggest problem here is that, even if Frank and others who call for us to feel more compassion for Trump's followers are correct about class issues driving them into Trump's filthy arms, they are leaving out the fact that fuckin' Bernie Sanders takes on those issues, too. His shock victory in Michigan is a direct result of his consistency on issues that matter to union members, factory workers, and other Rust Belt victims of the post-NAFTA economy. So something else is driving people to want Trump over Sanders, and it's not really that large a damn leap to say that there are just a bunch of fucking yahoos who are happy that someone is allowing them to let their racist freak flag fly proudly. (Of course, there are more vast differences between Sanders and Trump other than that the former promotes inclusivity and the latter is a deranged bigot who probably sucks his own dick in front of his children.)
On CNN last night, Trump said, "I think Islam hates us. There is something -- there is something there that is a tremendous hatred there. There's a tremendous hatred. We have to get to the bottom of it. There's an unbelievable hatred of us." To many people, many working class people, that is an appalling and ignorant statement. And if you're someone for whom that is not an appalling and ignorant statement, then you are appalling and ignorant. And you should be treated as such. Just because you happen to agree on some economic issues with the left doesn't absolve you of your fucking backwards-ass racism and overwrought fear. It sure as fuck doesn't mean that blame for that fear and anger falls on liberals. It fucking falls on the cocksuckers who shoved that shit into the brains of the willingly dumb and overtly racist Americans who drool over the rich dude who promises them he alone is the way, the path, the light. They would elect him dictator, if they could. That's what they want.
So fuck Trump's voters. They deserve all the economic support that liberals, real liberals, can get for the entire working class. But this blogger will take them seriously only as much as they are a threat (and beware what happens when Trump loses in the general). And he will disdain the shit out of their nation-harming utter stupidity.
