Van Jones Blames 'Hurricane Trump' on Unexpected Culprit

[dawg]

51. You deserve a thorough response.

You say that Trump voters are "just fed up and pissed off at you not caring about their children having a home and food ..."

Well, our party offered them:

1. an increased minimum wage
2. a free public college education for those children
3. expanded access to health care
4. re-training for workers hit by job losses in declining industries
5. guaranteed maternal leave
6. a vastly expanded tax credit for parents of young children
7. major expansion of green energy jobs

What did Trump offer them? A vague promise to "Make America great again"? A promise to bring back coal mining jobs that are never coming back?

In actuality, we offered them help and they gave us the finger.

Also, I think it's cute that you think the fact that you once lived in rural Maine makes you think you understand these people. I live in red rural Georgia. I didn't "used" to live there. I'm here now, and have been for most of my life. I literally talk to white working-class Trump voters every day of my life. I don't read about then in the NY Times. I don't watch Van Jones interview them on CNN. I hear the shit that comes out of their own damned mouths, live and in person.

I remember the good "Christian" woman who told me that Obamacare would be a disaster because if all "those" people had access to health care, doctor's offices would be too crowded and she would have to wait to get an appointment. (Fuck all those people who were previously shut out of the health care system, I don't want to have to wait.)

I heard all the "sensible" people who told me Obama was "persecuting" the churches. The ones who said he was coming for our guns. (And yes, I have guns. And a pickup truck, too. Am I still a coastal elitist?)

These people believe a vast array of delusional things. In my opinion, we do them no favors by playing nice with them and making believe that they, perhaps, have a point. They do not.

As for your comment about about liberals being more concerned about getting legally stoned than they are about children's needs, I can only conclude that you are talking about Johnson and Stein voters. Democrats certainly gave you nothing to gripe about there.

You want to know the sad, sad truth? It's this ...

White working-class voters didn't vote for Trump because they are hurting. They voted for him because they weren't hurting *enough*.

The economy is better than it was eight years ago. Back then, we were at risk of a systemic financial collapse. People knew something had to change, and they started at the top.

Now, things certainly aren't 100% rosy, but they are better. Voters who listed the economy as their main concern overwhelmingly voted for Secretary Clinton. But others felt *safe* enough to revert to their default setting - bigotry, intolerance, xenophobia, and scapegoating of the "other". Or, as they would put it, they just rejected all of this "political correctness" that has been "shoved down their throats" the last eight years.

We do ourselves no favors by imagining a world that is different from the one we really live in. We offered these people real, concrete policy proposals that would help them and their children. They told us to go fuck ourselves.