Apparently a couple of the National Review thinkerati have gone full retard and decided that the best thing to do is describe exactly why their base are complete morons who just don't get it. Kevin D. Williamson takes a baseball bat to it:
He's not entirely wrong, mind you, but what Williamson seems to gloss over in his rather poetic rant is just how roundly screwed-over these folks were, by politicians of both parties. You can't just yank them along with false promises their entire adult lives, and then abruptly say, "Ah well, fuck you." But that's exactly what happened.
It's gotta be frustrating for movementarians and orthodox conservatards and such like to agonize over the belated discovery that their salt-of-the-earth base, who are defecting to Drumpf -- who is neither truly Republican nor conservative, mind you -- have no regard whatsoever for the "conservative" principles, as codified by Williamson and other keepers of the flame at the think-tank net-rags. Most of this simply boils down to the old trope that conservatism cannot fail, but only be failed. Therefore, these losers are losing because they did not heed the ministrations about bootstrapping and constancy, sweet constancy.
This would probably be more catastrophic if any of Drumpf's flock actually read National Review, but I'll bet you my next paycheck that less than half of them could even tell you what it is. They're missing out; Williamson deserves credit for merely saying what the owners and donors have been thinking and saying among themselves all along. Hell it's what Drumpf is thinking of them when he's not shilling his infomercial to them. He's going to use them and toss them, and they'll love him for it. Which is why, at the end of it all, they really are getting exactly what they deserve.
Economically, they are negative assets. Morally, they are indefensible. Forget all your cheap theatrical Bruce Springsteen crap. Forget your sanctimony about struggling Rust Belt factory towns and your conspiracy theories about the wily Orientals stealing our jobs. Forget your goddamned gypsum, and, if he has a problem with that, forget Ed Burke, too. The white American underclass is in thrall to a vicious, selfish culture whose main products are misery and used heroin needles. Donald Trump’s speeches make them feel good. So does OxyContin. What they need isn’t analgesics, literal or political. They need real opportunity, which means that they need real change, which means that they need U-Haul.
He's not entirely wrong, mind you, but what Williamson seems to gloss over in his rather poetic rant is just how roundly screwed-over these folks were, by politicians of both parties. You can't just yank them along with false promises their entire adult lives, and then abruptly say, "Ah well, fuck you." But that's exactly what happened.
It's gotta be frustrating for movementarians and orthodox conservatards and such like to agonize over the belated discovery that their salt-of-the-earth base, who are defecting to Drumpf -- who is neither truly Republican nor conservative, mind you -- have no regard whatsoever for the "conservative" principles, as codified by Williamson and other keepers of the flame at the think-tank net-rags. Most of this simply boils down to the old trope that conservatism cannot fail, but only be failed. Therefore, these losers are losing because they did not heed the ministrations about bootstrapping and constancy, sweet constancy.
This would probably be more catastrophic if any of Drumpf's flock actually read National Review, but I'll bet you my next paycheck that less than half of them could even tell you what it is. They're missing out; Williamson deserves credit for merely saying what the owners and donors have been thinking and saying among themselves all along. Hell it's what Drumpf is thinking of them when he's not shilling his infomercial to them. He's going to use them and toss them, and they'll love him for it. Which is why, at the end of it all, they really are getting exactly what they deserve.
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