Dear God Make it Stop, Open Thread

by Ugh

Today in what must be the eleventy-billionth article on the subject, the WaPo makes the rugged, overland, sometimes I'm sure dangerous, journey to the restive provinces to find out just why Trump voters voted for Trump and what Trump voters think of Trump now that Trump has been Presidenting.  Farming, lamb processing, and a John Deere hoodie make appearances.

Also:  “I think Trump brought out the fact that — I mean, as crude and callous as he was at times — so many people had been almost discriminated against because they were Republicans and not Democrats that we felt inferior.”

And: “This is my observation, it is not necessarily my belief,” he said as he described their motivations. “Number one, they said minority political people have been well taken care of. Small business and working people have been identified as the source of income to take care of those people.”

And: Bustos knew that workers were losing faith in Clinton during the campaign. “You could just feel it,” she said. “You go into these labor halls and guns would always come up. I don’t care where I [would] go, it would be like the first question. . . . Where’s Hillary stand on guns?”

I give up.

Open thread

Comments

[Countme-a-Demon]

More like Russia every day:

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/epa-bars-associated-press-cnn-national-summit-water-contaminants

[wj]

I have a similar complaint about the concept of microaggressions, because aggression implies some person is actually 'aggressing'. Yet microaggressions often come about because the person is simply unaware, but the reason we call is an 'aggression' is that we have to conceptualize it as an attack in order to make it into unacceptable behavior.

My perception, with "microagressions," is that the term is usually applied to actions which are not intended as attacks, but which the person on the receiving end perceives that way. That is, it seems like, as much as anything, a justification for feeling like a victim.

I can see how there are cases where those microagressions are, in fact, intentional attacks. Deliberate "put downs", if you will. But I wonder how big a portion that really is.

[CharlesWT]

"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." —Eleanor Roosevelt
(probably a misattribution)

"“A snub” defined the first lady, “is the effort of a person who feels superior to make someone else feel inferior. To do so, he has to find someone who can be made to feel inferior.”"

[wj]

Sometimes, the mind just boggles. From the Dallas Morning News:

Vickers ‘Vic’ Cunningham, a former criminal district judge now in a Republican runoff for Dallas County commissioner, acknowledged Friday that he set up a living trust with a clause rewarding his children if they marry a white person. . . . Vic Cunningham denied harboring racial bigotry but did confirm one of his brother’s primary allegations — that his trust includes a stipulation intended to discourage a child from marrying a person of another race or of the same sex.

I know, intellectually, that there are people like that still. But even so, I find it a bit bewildering.

Still there is some small amusement in the fact that his son's girlfriend is Vietnamese (so he's locked out of the trust if they marry). And his brother is in an interracial gay marriage. It's just so hard being a bigot these days!

[EB]

Why do they bring up guns? because, out in the hinterlands almost everyone owns guns, but they do not commit crimes with them. Therefore, they see the effort to restrict gun ownership as a gratuitous slap in the face. They also object to being called "gun nuts," which is a term that does not describe most of them.