My work with Democrats started in high school, when I was an alternate-delegate for Hillary Clinton. Later, I interned on Barack Obama’s campaign. Most recently, I volunteered at last month’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
Initially, I was thrilled to attend this rite of passage for every political operative. But once there, wandering amidst the glitz and glam, imbibing the gloss and schmaltz of it all, I couldn’t escape a sinking feeling. I felt submersed in a hollow chamber whose mottos were “Brat summer” and “Joy”—totally out of touch with regular, every-day Americans and their pressing needs; instead, the most elite people in the world chanted in unison that “We’re not going back!”
Many of my family members are proud construction workers and lifelong union members. I grew up believing that the Democrats were our party. Fast forward to today, and many of those same family members are no longer Democrats. They feel the party has changed, left them behind.
At the DNC, I couldn’t help but think about my family. Every time the elites chanted “We’re not going back,” what I heard was, “We’re not going back to the party your union family members used to vote for.”
At first, I naively thought the system was broken. But now I realize, it isn’t broken; it’s doing what it was designed to do, which is to keep working class people from true representation. That is the point, a feature, not a bug.
This smells off.
WTF?
My work with Democrats started in high school, when I was an alternate-delegate for Hillary Clinton.
Then you just weren’t paying attention, because that was the peak of Democratic smug elitism. That was the period when it was just about impossible to read anything by or about any Democrats without seeing them making scoffing, condescending references to "flyover country " and “Jesusland.” The Democrats of the early 2000s weren’t just elitist, but overt about it - they didn’t just think they were better than everyone else (and particularly everyone outside of New England and Cascadia) - they told us so, on a virtually daily basis.
Either you’re shamefully ignorant or a fraud, because without a doubt the current Democrats are less - not more, but less - elitist than they’ve been at least since Bill Clinton.
The peak of smug elitism is now. Nothing has gone lower than #Joy Genocide.
No, that’s not smug elitism at all. Smug elitism was when the limousine liberals were jetting around the country to go to $10,000 a plate dinners and wring their hands over the fact that the ignorant hicks in flyover country wouldn’t vote for them.
#Joy Genocide is realpolitik. It’s the DNC and Harris trying to juggle the fact that they need to run on positives to counter Trump’s negatives with the fact that if she makes even the tiniest hint that she’d cut off the flow of arms to Israel, a whole bunch of fabulously wealthy and influential individuals, corporations and lobbying groups who profit off of it would stop at nothing to utterly destroy her.
It has nothing at all to do with elitism and everything to do with the simple fact that the US federal government is wholly owned by special interests, and those involved in the Israeli military/industrial money laundering scam are among the most influential of them.
My family floated between working poor and middle class. My parents were divorced, and neither has a college degree. As is the case with many American families far from the Acela corridor, my mom’s yearly income determined if I would live in a house, apartment, or mobile home, if I would attend decent schools or the worst in town.
My family background is messy. But there was one constant: Many of my family members are proud construction workers and lifelong union members.
This woman’s story is a lot like my own. My dad was a construction worker and a proud union member. Neither of my parents went to college. (My dad didn’t even finish high school.) Work came and went, and there were times we lived in a house, times we lived in an apartment, and times we lived in a trailer. I changed school eight times.
And I’ve seen the way the Democrats lost people like my father (who became a Fox News-watching Trump fan).
A lot of it isn’t even about any specific policy. It’s a persistent feeling that the Democrats aren’t speaking to us. That they don’t care about us. That they look down on us. We don’t factor into their messaging anymore, and on a personal level, they think we’re dumb hicks.
But it’s not a new thing. I’m 20 years older than her, and I went through the same disillusionment she did.
I hope she joined her local Communist party.
No, she is going on Fox News and doing the “both sides” argument while only really criticising Democrats.
