The National Review calls Trump supporters everything but White Trash

[ehrnst]

Plantation mentality straight from the antebellum south. Classism in the oak paneled offices of conservatives is now as open as the racism in the stands at Trump events.

"If you spend time in hardscrabble, white upstate New York, or eastern Kentucky, or my own native West Texas, and you take an honest look at the welfare dependency, the drug and alcohol addiction, the family anarchy — which is to say, the whelping of human children with all the respect and wisdom of a stray dog — you will come to an awful realization. It wasn’t Beijing. It wasn’t even Washington, as bad as Washington can be. It wasn’t immigrants from Mexico, excessive and problematic as our current immigration levels are. It wasn’t any of that. The white American underclass is in thrall to a vicious, selfish culture whose main products are misery and used heroin needles. *Nothing happened to them.* There wasn’t some awful disaster. There wasn’t a war or a famine or a plague or a foreign occupation. Even the economic changes of the past few decades do very little to explain the dysfunction and negligence — and the incomprehensible malice — of poor white America. "

"The truth about these dysfunctional, downscale communities is that they deserve to die. Economically, they are negative assets. Morally, they are indefensible. Forget all your cheap theatrical Bruce Springsteen crap. Forget your sanctimony about struggling Rust Belt factory towns and your conspiracy theories about the wily Orientals stealing our jobs. Forget your goddamned gypsum, and, if he has a problem with that, forget Ed Burke, too. The white American underclass is in thrall to a vicious, selfish culture whose main products are misery and used heroin needles. Donald Trump’s speeches make them feel good. So does OxyContin. What they need isn’t analgesics, literal or political. They need real opportunity, which means that they need real change, which means that they need U-Haul."

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/432876/donald-trump-white-working-class-dysfunction-real-opportunity-needed-not-trump

In all honesty - this article made me take a hard look at my own smug dismissiveness towards the Trump crowd. I come from the rural, small town midwest, and see them when I go back to visit my family there. They're going to be with us after November, and we are all going to have to find a way to deal with them. Lord knows the GOP won't do anything to change the situation.

[47of74]

1. That crowd looks down their noses at everyone

Hell they even look down their noses with each other.

[Chasstev365]

2. Boo Hoo!

When Karl Rove and Fox News duped them into supporting W, they were known as the base.

[Uhmercan Irishman]

3. How about just saying "Trash"?

The term "white trash" implicitly suggests that ordinary trash is of another color.

[aaaaaa5a]

4. God, guns and gays!

This group of voters did it to themselves. From the Southern Strategy (which works in the North too!) to Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush, social wedge issues were used to trick this demographic into voting against their own interest.

Now 30-40 years later, they find out that it wasn't Civil Rights and affirmative action that took their jobs away. It was disastrous trade deals and ridiculous tax policies that destroyed these white communities. And they supported all of it.

And now it's too late. These communities did it to themselves. In these communities immigration, the Ten Commandments and stopping the Muslim President are more important than issues that are real and could make a difference to their lives.

Whites without a college degree in rural areas are now seeing a reduction of their life expectancy. And looking at how this group has stupidly voted for the last 35 years, I don't feel sorry for them one bit.

[aaaaaa5a]

5. Rural white school districts should be trying to get the book

What's the Matter with Kansas as a part of the school curriculum instead of the Ten Commandments.


That would be a good start to get these communities turned around.

[vanlassie]

6. Psst. I don't think they read much.

[slepp]

7. Why do Trump supporters defect?

I just interviewed a former Trump supporter and he referenced precisely this article.

He's young white Chicago native who grew up in a poor and diverse suburb of Chicago, and certainly helped me check my stereotypes about Trump supporters. Sheds light on why millions of Americans support Trump *and* what might inspire them to move in a different direction (really useful information!)

Why did he defect from the Donald, and who did he switch to? I won't ruin the surprise

Sneak peek: https://www.facebook.com/Reckonings/videos/233194323706278/