5 Reasons to Stop Talking Sh*t About People From the South and Midwest

[beerandjesus]

304. Exactly.

I'm about as left-wing as they come, and I'm pretty quick to attack the Democratic Party in general and President Obama in specific when I feel like they're playing to the right, or otherwise selling out the ideals of the party of FDR.

BUT... what galls me more than anything is that this discussion shows why the Democratic Party has lost such huge swaths of America. Instead of being the party of the people, as they once were, they've ceded populist rhetoric to the right and retreated into intellectual enclaves where they sit around and pat themselves on the back for what good non-racists and non-homophobes they are. Here in South Carolina, people KNOW the system is rigged against them, believe me, but the right is out there working hard to direct that anger and resentment in precisely the wrong direction, while the national Democrats offer little but cheap sanctimony as an alternative.

I realize that DU is intended as a safe place for Democrats (and, I hope, for those of us to the left of the party platform). But I see no virtue in not being racist or homophobic. That should be the default position, not something to go out there and feel superior about. People in the South and Midwest are suffering--a lot--and the Democrats aren't doing a whole hell of a lot about it. In fact, they're doing a hell of a lot less about it than the racist-as-fuck Democrats of 80 years ago. But here we are, acting like we're so much smarter than those country bumpkins. If I were a right-wing troll looking for ammunition, this thread would be an absolute goldmine.