They Hate Us

I’ve been switching from network to network, and all the pundits are talking about rural voters and voters who didn’t go to college. I think the Democrats haven’t been doing a very good job speaking to those voters and their fears. Not everyone is suited for college and advanced technical training. We need to do more to make sure that those people do not face a life of poverty, either now or in the near future. For instance, I’m very much for renewable energy. I think that’s something we should have been working toward for decades. But I spent most of my life in West Virginia, a big coal mining state, and I know how much of a disruption a move away from coal would be to West Virginians. When Democrats talk about renewable energy, they go on about how it’ll create new, high paying jobs. Almost as an afterthought, they’ll promise to try to find some funding for training for displaced workers. It’s never very specific, and it’s not very reassuring. And many of the coal miners probably worry they’re not up to doing the new high tech jobs even with training.

A lot of the pundits are talking about how Hillary Clinton isn’t a warm and cozy person who elicits much enthusiasm, how she represents the status quo, how she never connected with these rural, less educated voters. There might be some truth to all of that.

But I don’t think an amoral New York billionaire is a likely buddy of rural, less educated voters. And I don’t think they believe he’s going to help secure their economic future. I don’t think they embraced him because of those understandable, practical reasons. I think they’ve seen the increase in the minority population, and it disturbs them. I think it disturbed them when a black man was elected president. I think the chance of a woman being elected president disturbed them. I think marriage equality and the rise of LGBT rights disturbed them. And voting for Trump was their way to protest against all of that. I think tonight they saw a chance to poke us in the eye, and they took it.

They hate us. They really do hate us. They’re willing to burn their own houses to the ground to get that point across to us.