Trying to gather myself, wrote down some thoughts this morning…
I’m not shocked to discover the ppl who exist in middle America. Nor do I make much of the theory that a populist surge across the Midwest carried Trump to victory. A lot of those people voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012, and liberal candidates in years before that. Wisconsin hasn’t voted Republican in 32 years. Michigan has to be similar.
I am shocked at the anti-intellectual infatuation with “middle america” among people who are so far removed from it — and have so much reason to do better. I’m shocked at the obsession with otherness for entertainment’s sake. I’m shocked at the people who call themselves down-home, conservative Christians (Mike Pence?) and voted for a pussy-grabbing, money-grubbing reality TV star from New York. I’m shocked at the Wall Street, academic and media elites who can’t stop glorifying the hopeless rednecks that showed up at Trump rallies unable to summon basic facts or reasons.
The amount of media time devoted to raucous, hateful, stupid behavior at trump rallies is atrocious. We are a little too titillated by each other’s differences and a little too taken with sleazy entertainment. Unfortunately think that’s as true of the liberal base as anyone else.
Mack Lannahan 