What Liberals Get Wrong About 'White Rural Rage' -- Almost Everything

[Sympthsical]

136. Democratic union types sound like rural types, too

See, this is more of a class thing. Or even a labor vs. professional thing.

I get it from my brother and people back home. They "WORK!" for a living, you know. No, they don't work. They WORK! And what they mean is they're usually doing a blue collar job that requires a bit of labor. Unlike me who *checks* jumped from social work to HR to nursing. Which isn't WORK! Not that manly getting fucked by the weather work.

Whenever I bop on in for a visit - and I'm about to tomorrow - they make nonstop comments about the commie hellhole they think California is. And, I swear to god, I could make a drinking game with my brother. Every time he says something along the lines of, "Well some of us work for a living," I take a shot.

And these are Democrats. Lifelong.

There is a cultural disconnect between the professional and working classes in our party. Even here - and absolutely in this thread - there's a looking down and sneering at people. Some call it elitism. I don't, because I don't think the people engaging in it are particularly elite. I don't think people in media are very bright at all most of the time. And too many people think if they're wearing the right t-shirt, they're automatically intelligent. Not so much.

Maybe economic elite is nearer the mark. The upper half of middle class and above who got advanced degrees in circle-jerking. Our party runs into problems when they are the dominant voice, and more and more over the years, I perceive the disconnect. I hear it. I don't know how many times in how many ways I've been reading something and thinking, "Have you ever met people?"

I don't think technology is helping either. Media types and many political activists now live terminally online. They're not spending a lot of time in any of the areas they self-appoint themselves as expert on. And many of those who do are usually rushing online to tell their social group what they want to hear, because people like being a part of the group.

I've spent my life around union blue collar Democrats, and they sound a lot more like the "white rage" people than Democratic professionals. I think we've gotten too smug, too high on our own self-congratulatory awesomeness and mutual back-patting. We lost a lot of them in 2016. And some people closed the bubble around themselves more tightly. "Oh, those are all the racists." Oh, all of them? Obama voters?

You can't learn to do better if self-awareness doesn't exist. And self-awareness is just not a thing right now.

We don't much like people not like us. And who does that sound like?