Much as Republicans sold their soul to Trump, the New York Times sold its soul against Trump. After 17,436 (estimate) editorials, columns and op-eds denigrating their nemesis, what do they have to show for it?
A larger percentage of every racial minority voted for Trump this year than in 2016. Among Blacks and Hispanics, this percentage grew among both men and women, although men were more likely to vote for Trump than women.
For Charles Blow, this must have been devastating. But it gets worse.
Black women vote more reliably Democratic than Black men — only 3 or 4 percent of Black women voted for the Republican candidate in 2008, 2012 and 2016. However, Donald Trump doubled that number this year, winning 8 percent of Black women’s votes.
Black men on the other hand have been inching away from the Democrats in recent elections, and continued that drift in this election. In 2008, 5 percent of Black men voted for John McCain; in 2012, 11 percent voted for Mitt Romney; in 2016, 13 percent voted for Trump; and, this year 18 percent voted for Trump.
And if that’s not bad enough, what about their allies?
This one pushed me back on my heels: the percentage of L.G.B.T. people voting for Trump doubled from 2016, moving from 14 percent to 28 percent. In Georgia the number was 33 percent.
So what’s his takeaway?
All of this to me points to the power of the white patriarchy and the coattail it has of those who depend on it or aspire to it. It reaches across gender and sexual orientation and even race. Trump’s brash, privileged chest trumping and alpha-male dismissiveness and in-your-face rudeness are aspirational to some men and appealing to some women. Some people who have historically been oppressed will stand with the oppressors, and will aspire to power by proximity.
When all you’ve got is racism, everything is white patriarchy. Ironically, the only demographic that appears to have voted against Trump at a greater percentage than 2016 is white males.
Are all Blow’s “oppressed” people suffering from the Stockholm Syndrome? Are they willing to bow and scrape to their white patriarchs for whatever scraps they’re will to throw them? Surely, it can’t be anything else because, at least at the Times, everything is about racism and sexism.
Or maybe Blow’s ideological purity isn’t universally shared by black and Hispanic people, by women and gay people, because they hope for a future that offers them their fair slice of the American dream and not one where a nation wallows in perpetual misery and victimhood.
It wasn’t clear by Wednesday afternoon who had won the White House, but one bad idea was soundly defeated on Tuesday: identity politics. The concept that the country should be divided into aggrieved categories based on race, national origin or sex—now a core tenet of the Democratic Party—lost from coast to coast.
In California, Proposition 20, the elimination of equal protection from their Constitution so race-based preferences could openly favor one race over another. was overwhelmingly defeated. While the Cubanos in Miami-Dade are being singled out as unfaithful, they are hardly the only group under the Hispanic umbrella to vote Republican.
Identity politics lost in South Texas: Zapata County, 95% Mexican-American, went for Hillary Clinton by 33 points in 2016—but Mr. Trump won with 52.5% this time. Throughout the Rio Grande Valley, President Trump did better in 2020 than in 2016: In Starr County he lost by only five points (47% to Mr. Biden’s 52%), compared with a 60-point spread in Mrs. Clinton’s favor four years ago. In Jim Hogg County Mr. Trump lost by 18 points, down from more than 50 in 2016. In Webb County Mr. Trump won 36.6% of the vote, up from 22.8% in 2016.
How could these oppressed minorities vote for Trump? While the New York Times, in general, and Charles Blow, in particular, can see no possible reason beyond their ideological devil of white patriarchy, there is the obvious alternative, even if it would deny their worldview. People of all races, genders and sexual orientations reject a future of bare subsistence, mediocrity and perpetual grievance and want what every other American wants: Success, happiness, respect and fulfillment. They don’t want to be victims, even if that’s the best they’ll ever be to the privileged woke.
Did they vote for Trump because they like him, because they seek to curry his favor or appreciate his manliness and rhetorical skills? Hardly. They voted against a progressive future.
In other words, Ms. Kumar sees her job as indoctrination, telling immigrants and their children that the country they have come to is an awful place, which owes them compensatory justice. That such absurd propositions were defeated throughout the country by voters who saw themselves as Americans, not victims, is something to be celebrated, no matter who wins the White House.
Immigrants didn’t come here, risk it all, to be victims. They came to America to succeed, because that’s what America has to offer. Not a guarantee of success, but the opportunity for it. They voted for opportunity, not Trump.
Peter Grant.
“ Millions of voters who supported Donald Trump did not do so because they liked him, or even necessarily his policies. They did so because the alternative was absolutely, totally and completely unacceptable.
I fall into that category. I dislike Donald Trump’s public persona; I find him boorish, brash and blustering. Nevertheless, he was – in this election – the only viable alternative to a socialist-oriented, group-think, politically-correct, social-justice-warrior busybody party, one that would never allow me to be who I want to be, but would insist that I live my life according to its dictates and whims. I will not do that. Not now, not ever. Ergo, I have no choice but to support the candidate (and party) that will not force me to do that.”
I still hold out hope that creepy old Joe is going to come out on top. But there’s something nagging at the back of my brain, some old adage about people who don’t learn from history….something.
In 2016 Hillary was the option and she was not your president, she was there to represent someone else. And we got Trump as a rejection of everything Hillary was pushing. This time around the Dems tried to straw-poll to find the least objectionable candidate. 2020 appears to have repeated events. The electorate is again rejecting everything the progressive left has insisted the people want.
Can’t wait to see what 2024 has to offer. Maybe we’ll get lucky and climate change will kill us all before then.
But here’s the question: Is Joe the last liberal? Who is coming up behind him to run in 2024 who isn’t pandering for the social justice vote?
It’s a fair question but my magic eight ball just keeps telling me to ask again later.
I mean a return to classic liberalism would mean acceptance of white supremacist patriarchy. Apparently if you want a return to normal, you hate women and minorities. I don’t see any candidate being able to capture the support of the left while risking an accusation like that.
I guess we’ll see what the progr3ssives become in the next four years and what the democratic party looks like as a result.
There was a good demographic study after the election suggesting that woke social attitudes and concern with social justice were strongly tied to being single, i.e. unmarried. The social justice vote is going to keep expanding and needing pandered to unless millennials start getting married, buying houses, and having families, but that is going to be hard going if enough under-35 people have marinated in the idea that marriage and families are, much like classical liberalism, acceptance of white supremacist patriarchy.
Maybe, until all those biological alarm clocks start ringing.
I’m told biological alarm clocks are white supremacist patriarchy as well.
Yo call hi. creepy Joe – but who do really think will be the President. Creepy Joe is demonstrably unable of “working” unaided- by teleprompter or wife or wide nearby – for more than 30 minutes. Who does his job if he’s elected? Not someone I voted for.
The election is over. Let it go.
That’s hardly responsive. The election might be over but I’d like to know the answer – we’re going to be governed by who? If you know – clue the rest of us in. If you dont care, then own that. But don’t pretend smug elevated indifference.
Responsive? Nobody owes you a response, silly person. Go spew that idiocy elsewhere.
You tried to be nice and let the nutjob post her stupid comment. See? SEE?!?
Kamala Harris, after Joe fails the competency exam she forces him to take. Who did you think?
Ever notice your inclination to reply to the stupidest comment possible? Have you considered controlling your impulses?
Don’t hate me for playing to my level.
I believe in you, LY.
You also have no idea how many comments I start and then abandon.
Psst, AnnieP… Jill sent a message via courier.
Apparently, she is looking to host a seance to speak with Eleanor Roosevelt during the transition and wanted the Anthropologists for Apathy to look into acquiring some artifacts that might improve the connectivity.
Don’t tell anyone especially our esteemed host, because he just fucking hates it when his back-pages are used to pass the word up the QAnon chain of command.
But don’t you worry Rudy is going to sort this all out before Melania finds out and asks the Anthropologists for Apathy for a refund on the sneakers Laura Bush used to wear when walking Barney.
Poor Chuck Blow. Of course it is devastating to him that an increasing number of black people refuse to join in lock step and adopt the opinions he dictates as their own opinions. How can he ever be recognized as the Most Imperial High Grand Black Marshal of Pangea if the bloody serfs won’t fall into line and properly defer to him?
It’s good to reach self-actualization, freeing one up for higher order beliefs.
The wokeistas never admit that their excesses piss off not only potential ‘allys’ but also members of racial identity groups they are striving so hard to liberate from oppression. It’s like the way radical feminists describe women who object to their brain farts as suffering from internalized misogyny. Heads I’m correct, tails you’re deluded.
Let’s see if I get this. The polls were massively wrong about how people would actually vote. So we wet our beds because a different set of polls purports to show that our identity based racism is wrong and strategically stupid in that inspires a backlash and revert to ignoring the critical (that’s a pun) flaw in our world view. It is the usual deja vu when Marxists found that all the the “workers” weren’t on their side they invent the horror of false consciousness rather than consider that there is a slight flaw in their unifying theory of everything. A nice lesson in cognitive dissonance.
Interesting point. But do not dismiss the fact that more people voted for Biden and Hillary then for Trump. Clearly, the majority of Americans are more simpatico with the Dems and their support for a “right” to Health Care and on Social Justice issues. What surprises liberals/dems/progressive is how Trump could get anyone who didn’t vote for him in 2016 to vote for him in 2020. And for a President who always averaged around 43% in the polls throughout his term, this clearly wasn’t a ridiculous position to have. And it looks like Trump did not gain any states in 2020 that he didn’t have in 2016.
“Clearly” is doing far too much work there. If that was remotely possible, Biden wouldn’t have been the Dem nominee. The majority of Dem voters were repulsed by Trump. The majority also rejected Sanders and Warren.
So you would rather “dismiss” the higher percentages of every demographic except white males, but then tell us what the majority of American’s support? Rather privileged of you.
In California proposition 16 was the one that would make discrimination legal, prop 20 made parole stricter and changed the classification of some crimes.
I used the wrong number and changed it, LY. It’s not my fault that CA uses numbers instead of descriptive phrases. Am I gonna hear this all day?
It’s all good.
On a better note, going to Fed-Ex today with about 12 lbs of pickled, smoked meat.
I don’t know I’d go that far that’s only a couple dozen sandwiches, at most. I can get through that in a couple of weeks.
Mr. Blow’s astonishment at Black and Latino voter’s apostasy shows the fallacy of critical race theory. Assuming a specific identitarian group is a monolith is foolish because they act as individuals. It can be equally foolish to assume that people who look like will automatically think like you.
I find hope that from my perspective, the ideology that motivates Mr. Blow seems to be rapidly circling the toilet bowl, along with several others. The most fundamental reason for this is the dawning realization among almost everybody with a pulse is that: This #### don’t work.
I believe that we as country are seeing the last gasps of “progressivism” and the return of pragmatic and rational thought into the political and legal process. We do not need to be led to golden unicorn rainbow land where we all live off of golden rainbow farts. We need to recognize and do what is necessary, we need to do things that work, we need realize that there are things that no government can do. We need to stop doing stupid ####.
I believe that we as country are seeing the last gasps of “progressivism” and the return of pragmatic and rational thought into the political and legal process.
I wish this was true, however the problem with this is that you are dealing with two separate groups. First you have a bunch of 20 and 30 somethings who are not inherently smart enough, nor have enough life experience to have that realization beaten into them, these are the cannon fodder and it is a self-replenishing group as individuals graduate out of it by one means or another. Secondly, you have a few different groups of politicians, educational establishment and other instigators who are getting a not insignificant amount of prestige, power and money off of the movement and who will do anything they can to keep the gravy train running. This group also replenishes from the first group as true believers move up the chain and may have come to realize the lie but have started gaining their own benefits from pushing it.
To kill the movement we have to eliminate the second group by somehow terminating the benefits they are acquiring.
So many journalists will be losing their jobs, now that it will not be necessary to maintain the 24/7 howling against the evil one. Perhaps Chuck Blow will be among them. Ratings at select cable networks are sure as Hell going to be taking a mammoth hit as well. Now they are going to have to scramble for anyone who can remember how to report actual news.
The current ideology is weak. If it doesn’t succeed, then the party in opposition should adapt accordingly. Hopefully we can get a populist of our own who can succeed on the free-cheetos-for-all plan. It’s good praxis. Populists aren’t so predictable and might actually shake things up.
More seriously, healthcare is a human right. Drug treatment is the same. At a minimum you capitalists should be supplying a robust safety net for those less fortunate out of the surpluses wrought from labor. It’s always been about class. Build ladders instead of walls.
Identity politics might have been doomed to fail from the beginning, but the left has ideas to offer too if we would only return to our roots and stop cancelling card-carrying minority commies of all people, for Marx’s sake. There’s a disaffected populace to be won.
I see the false narrative that Republicans stand for opportunity. Their policies are always geared to the rich and big business. The notion that Rs care about small businesses and providing paths of opportunity is something the American people have been hoodwinked to believe. I am not about to say the the Ds are great at that issue, but the Rs are not.
Then you should go wherever those false narratives are being promoted and tell them. Why are you here?