Over the past few weeks, we’ve come to learn a few things about our friends. A shocking number of dear friends, people we like and respect, people with good jobs and the degrees given by good universities, are likely to vote for Trump. Or to be more specific, are likely to vote against Kamala Harris.
It’s not that they don’t find Trump personally repugnant. They do. It’s that they fear what’s become of a nation where young people march for terrorists, obsess over race and gender and hate their nation. They do not believe that Harris will avoid pandering to the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, and see the few generic policies she’s announced, the $25,000 tax credit for first time home buyers, forgiving student loan debt and taxing unrealized gains, for example, as positive proof that she lacks the fortitude to say no to the demands of the left.
Over drinks and dinner, Dr. SJ and I have argued the point, that no matter how bad Harris might be, she’s still better than Trump. But that’s not the point. The point is that we can still enjoy dinner with our friends, even though we do not share the same political vision. We are liberals, and as such, we are tolerant of people who disagree with us and with whom we disagree.
“I urge you to meet people where they are,” said Clinton, who knows something about winning votes outside of solid blue states. “I urge you not to demean them, but not to pretend you don’t disagree with them if you do. Treat them with respect — just the way you’d like them to treat you.”
That’s critical counsel because too often since 2016, the liberal impulse has been to demonize anyone at all sympathetic to Donald Trump as a racist and bigot. This has been politically foolish, for it’s difficult to win votes from people you’re disparaging.
The comments to Nick Kristof’s op-ed, which focuses primarily on the class distinctions between Trump and Harris voters, rather stunningly make his case.
Sure. Let me know when they’re willing to extend the same courtesies to americans that don’t look like or live like them, and I’ll consider it.
Then there’s JohnnyB.
It is their tremendous hate, Nicholas, The virulent racism, the cruel xenophobia and the misogyny. I can treat them as neighbors with civility when they act like neighbors, but I will not accept their cruelty. I avoid them all.
Excuse me, but “we” didn’t start those two wars and spend those trillions, thus betraying the working class, Mr. Kristof. You know very well which party lied (not a typo) us into those disasters.
And if this seems to be a fair response to Kristoff arguing against demeaning Trump supporters, about half of American voters, it was the impetus for Kristoff to write the op-ed.
I wasn’t planning to write this column, but then I approvingly tweeted Clinton’s comment about not demeaning those we disagree with. Plenty of readers replied hotly: But they deserve to be demeaned!
There are extreme MAGA crazies who believe laughable lies and refuse to acknowledge that Trump is a vulgar narcissist who cares only for himself. My carefully surveyed estimate is that these make up 20% of the voting public, just as progressives make up 20% on the other end. The intolerance of the Democrats toward anyone who would even consider voting for Trump uses that extreme 20% to justify their immovable stance against “deplorables,” because who else but a deplorable would vote for such a person?
My friends are not deplorable. My friends are not poor, uneducated or, to be quite honest, suffering. My friends could be won over to Harris if she picked a side, and that side wasn’t the hard left but the moderate, liberal left. But the more they’re called deplorable in all its variations, the further they get from voting for Harris.
And because they consider Trump wholly incompetent and refuse to believe that he will somehow subvert democracy despite his January 6th attempted insurrection (which, they note, failed, as has pretty much everything Trump did), they fear Harris more than Trump as they don’t want to lose America to the stupid, angry and, most of all, intolerant children.
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I supppose it’s good that you can be tolerant, but really, the view of your friends seems to me a form of psychosis deserving a a title of Harris Derangement Syndrome. On the Gaza protestors, I would not expect the full Sistah Souljah, but she cut off hecklers, voiced full-throated support for Israel, gave voice to hostage families at the DNC while cutting off any chance of a Palestinian voice, and more recent statements follow suit. Literally everything she has said and done from folksy Waltz pick to the policy sketches says moderation. Yet … we have to worry, not about what she says, but that she might “give in” to the scary progressive wing? Yeah, and perhaps she will bring communism to the US. Anybody thinking like that has swallowed scare tactic lies and it seems there’s nothing she could ever do that could ever persuade them since their projection onto her is unfalsifiable by evidence. Give me a break, please. Apart from a few noisy reps, who largely have been team players with more centrist Dems when it matter, there simply is no “left” with any significant power in this country. But there certainly is an industry built on scaring gullible folks about these bogeymen.
TDS is a real disease.
I did not vote for Trump in 2016. I have forgotten my Presidential vote in 2020. I will vote for Trump in 2024.
20% of the country wants to exterminate me and anyone like me. I mean that literally.
This does not leave me with “Warm Fuzzies” toward my fellow Americans.
“We are liberals, and as such, we are tolerant of people who disagree with us and with whom we disagree.”
A tolerant Liberal?? A unicorn? Hen’s teeth? Such a thing has never made it to America’s mainstream media, ie the ‘social media’ sites, the comments after news articles, and I can’t remember any examples from the dinosaurs like TV or newspapers. I have never seen a politician so demeaned and attacked as Trump has been, the Left absolutely lost their minds about him.
The Left are crushingly intolerant of anyone not in their circle, and turn on each other like rabid dogs if someone steps out of line. The Right… meh, couldn’t really care when the Left do, they’re too busy mocking them in some meme as the Left’s crazy fantasies implode.
..and was that the Clinton that people keep dying around? I thought you guys had managed to get rid of her decades ago!
It is mathematically proven that people incapable of differentiating between liberals and progressives cannot count to 21 without unzipping their fly. I thought you should know.
This wins the internet today.
Funny thing is I see democrats demonizing Trump for all kinds of things, personal enrichment, corruption, overthrowing the government, etc… But when you ask for examples all they point at is Jan. 6th and the classified documents episode. Yes 1/6 was horribly bad and needs addressing but it was never going to succeed and is a single event. And the documents case was mostly an oversight that could have been handled much better except that the democratic prosecutors wanted to make an example and Trump is an ass with an ego the size of the solar system.
At the same time you all ignore literal decades of documented Biden corruption and enrichment, literal attempts to subvert the Constitution (Yes the SCOTUS ruled that this was illegal but I’m going to try again to force my scheme through before they can stop it next time) “The Constitution (First Amendment, Second Amendment) doesn’t protect (pretty much anything we don’t like) “if Congress won’t pass the laws I demand I have a phone and a pen” (Yes that was Obama not Biden but it goes back at least that far), We are going to ignore any law (illegal immigration) that we don’t like, classified documents Biden had for, again, literal decades and even took out and showed to at least one person not cleared removing any excuse that it was merely a case of oversight and mixing up papers. And, since we are discussing riots, let’s compare 1/6 to endless riots which the dems excuse as “mostly peaceful” while the cities burned. Fascism is alive and well in the Democratic party (the whole “antifa” movement).
I don’t like Trump but I am literally afraid of what Kamala will do or attempt if she gets into the White House. In this case, much like 2016, Trump is the lessor of the two evils, he certainly can’t cause as much damage. I wish the US could actually manage to have an open election system with more choices but both of the parties are conspiring to block any effective attempt for a third party to make it to the national polls so we are stuck with what we have.
I know this is probably going to get trashed, but so be it.
Sometimes it is better to admit when someone has stated your position with more precision than you can.
Thank you, LocoYokel, for doing so.
Completely agree. I am more worried about the people who are “running Biden” right now and will continue to “run Harris” when/if she is elected. They are the real power in Washington, now. A new Politburo to run our society. They just appointed her to replace Biden on the ballots, and will continue to run the country they way they want, with no accountability whatsoever.
Trump is crude and unsophisticated, but he is up against all these Smart People in the government who think they can remake our society. “Better, faster, more expensive!”
It seems to be a nearly universally believed thing that the most powerful politicians in the nation are under the control of “handlers”. Where do the handlers come from? All the advisors I know about are hired by the boss who can fire them at will.
My company has lost thousands of dollars due to stolen and damaged equipment on our mine sites due to illegal aliens coming through our claims.
Ranchers I know have lost expensive cattle and spent thousands of dollars repairing fences and watering equipment, had equipment stolen and trash spread all over their land.
People have been shot at for being too close to groups crossing the border.
Harris has proven over and over she doesn’t give a damn about the people dealing with border problems and in fact, had made it worse.
Whatever you want to say about Trump being an ignorant, self centered idiot, he at least did something, about the border. He’ll get a lot of votes for that alone.
He sure did a lot for the border, including stopping a border bill from passing to keep the border an election issue.
“…they fear Harris more than Trump as they don’t want to lose America to the stupid, angry and, most of all, intolerant children.”
Everyone prefers their own brand of stupidity, anger, and intolerance, so they’re going to support the candidate aligns with their preferences. No one runs on the platform of uniting Americans because it’s something far too Americans don’t even want, no matter what they might say in conversation to friends, acquaintances, and even family members. A sense of entitlement is common across ages, genders, and races. Too many voters see life and politics as zero-sum: whatever anyone else gets is being taken from them. Worse, whatever they want, they want to have taken from others. There’s no rising tide here. Just a bunch of people holding each other’s heads underwater.
I could be wrong, but to many voters I think it will come down to are you better off financially now than you were in 2019.
We spent nearly $400 in groceries today. The couple in front of us was over $600, and the cashier said she’d had one even higher than that earlier. Thing is, it wasn’t noon yet. Gas prices are down some, but are still more than $1.00 higher than they were 4 years ago. Government spending seems to know no limits and that contributes to higher interest rates.
If I were Trump, I’d play Reagan’s “Are you better off now than you were 4 years ago?” ad at every commercial break from now to election.
The worst of them is the rule that proves the exception.
The worst of us is the exception that proves the rule.
10,000 years of tribalism, hatred, and warfare can’t be wrong.
Why do I get the sense that half the comments were written by people who never bothered to read the post or just couldn’t focus hard enough to grasp the point?
This turned into a pro-Trump pissing match, so I closed comments. Sometimes, the comments are truly disappointing.