Hump day!!!! Mixing it up this week, with Stephen’s post today instead of Monday. Have a good one!!!
Recounting elections past, or of recent past more precisely, candidates on the left in America have said their opponents were bitterly clinging to their guns and bibles, were their enemies, and were downright deplorable people. Certainly not the best way to win friends and influence people.
Despite this vicious rhetoric, they did manage to win two terms of President Obama in the face of Republican candidates John McCain and Mitt Romney; who aside from coming across as exceedingly milquetoast candidates were in many respects about as far leftist as one can get as ostensibly still called Republican candidates.
Electorally speaking, none of this energized the Republican base to generate any swelling of voter turnout, though many did cross their fingers, hope, and vote.
In contrast, with the rise of the first black nominee by a major party, the Democrats enjoyed much higher voter turnouts of their base along with sizeable, and very public, crossover votes from people like Colin Powell who though being technically a Republican and opposing virtually every policy Obama represented came out to vote for him purely on the basis of identity politics, in this case identity trumping any pretense of principles for a fair number of voters.
While identity politics was sufficient to maintain the presidency, the vitriolic rhetoric and leftist policies redounded to the effect of turning over the House, and then the Senate to Republicans not merely as the usual off year reaction but a sustained rejection of the leftist policies.
People in the hinterlands were not taking kindly to be mocked and ridiculed and seeing their fellow Americans treated like ignorant yokels for having the audacity to disagree with the limousine liberals from ivory towers who incessantly look askance at people like Joe the Plumber.
It is in the nature of resentment to build. While resentment builds slowly, it does not fade quickly; in fact, it fades far more slowly than it builds. Contrary to the oft expressed sentiment in political circles, people do remember when they have been slighted by one party or another.
Traditionally, this resentment remained unfocussed because the political slighting has been perceived as coming from one’s own party as often as from the opposition party. Democrats get mad at Republicans, but then turn around and have their own party compromise on some issue or another thus feeling betrayed by both, and vice versa. It is hard to remain focused in anger at the opponents when your own party appears to stab you in the back.
The resentment has not gone away, it has had decades to build, it just remains unfocussed.
This stops when one party tries to focus that resentment against their opponents in an effort to shore up their own base, to try to push and agenda and weaponize that resentment rather than diffuse it.
During the entirety of the Obama presidency, that resentment was mobilized to support leftist ideology with healthcare, taxes, foreign apology tours, climate change tax grabbing schemes, and a number of other leftist policies. The resentment was focused for the leftists against the “bitter clingers”; so the “bitter clingers” suddenly had a clear target against which to focus their own resentment.
This is the source of the political division about which so many complain without understanding. The political division has been there since time immemorial, but it has lacked focus because in normal politics people compromise, they win some and they lose some, they resent other for pushing an agenda but they resent their own for the compromise.
However, the radical wants change, not compromise, the zealot will not concede a single inch and never give ground. As the left became a crossbreed of radicalism and zealotry, it became obvious that they would push through their agenda no matter what the consequences. That creates a focused resentment.
Along comes the 2016 election and appears a bombastic candidate who knows just how to poke the media and political anthills to get just the reaction he wants as they scurry mindlessly in an aggravated attack mode.
This has an appeal.
It is said that you can catch more flies with honey than you can with vinegar. But when a large group of politicians has spent a decade insulting you, you cheer the person who insults them in return.
The news media, television, movies, musicians, marketing, and academia has spent decades insulting any American who was outside the beltway or major urban center and shoving vulgar tripe into the American culture.
Suddenly, the voters who had been turned off of politics, essentially resenting both parties equally had a focus, a reason to cheer their champion insultor, they had someone to insult those who insulted them.
Just as conservatives were finding it frustrating to fight against the left leaning party establishment, and were not turning out to vote, someone was turning upon that party establishment, winning their tacit but not enthusiastic support.
On the other side of the aisle, the identity politics which had energized voter turnout for a black candidate, failed to energize those same black voters when their candidate was an old white woman. Identity politics failed to energize the female vote in the same manner as identity politics had driven the black vote.
The voters who were energized in 2016 were not the traditional voters for either party, rather the “deplorables”, the “bitter clingers”, the people who normally eschewed politics due to their resentment of the establishments of both parties.
These voters were energized by a resentment of the vinegar being showered upon them by a constant barrage of insults about their intelligence, their education, and their morality. Having been told for years that they were throwing grandma off a cliff, didn’t care about children, were racist, hated immigrants because they wanted border security, et cetera, they rallied behind someone who attacked their attackers.
The incessant, ubiquitous name calling from the left was the vinegar which not only did not attract voters to their leftist cause, it fostered resentments at the Democrats which lined those voters up against the Democrat candidate. Trump won because he focused that resentment against the name callers: the media and leftist politicians.
What has been the result? What lesson learned? Leftist became more shrill, more insulting, more openly hateful and hostile since losing the election. It has come down to the point where the leftists openly call anyone and everyone who voted for President Trump a racist.
It is not sufficient to just call Trump a racist, now it is anyone who voted for him, or might consider voting for him, must be a racist.
This is the left’s election strategy: “vote for our candidate or you’re a racist”. It is their fervent hope that people will so want to avoid the label of “racist” that they will vote for the Democrat candidate no matter who gets nominated.
Identity politics has failed to produce voter turnout for the left, so perhaps they can hope that intimidation politics can keep their opponents home come election day. It is my estimation that this strategy will resoundingly backfire against the left. Just as many people voted against Hillary more than they voted for Trump, those same people are going to vote against those people calling them “racist” or “sexist” or some other “-ist”.
These are the Vinegar Voters, those who will vote against the hatred and insults being thrown at them, whose resentment promised to doom any Democrat candidate nominated. Notice that there is no real difference in the candidates on the left? Because it really does not matter to them or to their opponents who the actual nominee is. They are not running a candidate to win, they are just trying to beat the opponent.
Their strategy is to insult and intimidate his supporters.
