This blog tells Democrats they are right--but should stop being stupid and self-destructive.
This blog tells Republicans they are smart, cynical, and effective--but should stop letting Trump undermine democratic government.
Apparently it is mostly Democrats who want to read that.
Wednesday morning I got an email from an American ex-pat living in the Caribbean and voting in Alaska. He said he was "Populist Right." He was only the second Populist Right person to respond to my survey, and he moved the number of responses from 199 to 200, and on that even number, I stopped accepting new responses.
Establishment Liberal: 35%
Progressive Left: 22.5%
Democratic Mainstay: 16%
Outsider Left: 5%
Stressed Sideliner: 6%
Ambivalent Right: 8%
Committed Conservative: 6%
Faith & Flag Right 0.5%
Populist Right 1%
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| General public profile |
I am not surprised and should not be. I have written repeatedly that Trump actively and intentionally worked to undermine a bedrock element of democratic government, that leaders are elected by the people and that the loser respects that vote. I write that Republican thought leaders and officeholders share Trump's guilt when they sit quietly and let Trump assert that he won the election and bully election officials into changing or overturning the vote count. Their verbal gymnastics, saying they "acknowledge that Biden was inaugurated," but refusing to say that he was inaugurated because he won the election, makes them party to the erosion of our democracy.
People in the Populist Right, the Faith & Flag Right, and Committed Conservatives groups generally support Trump wholeheartedly and believe him--or desperately want to believe him--and so have good reason to dislike what I write. Only 7.5% of my readers are in that group.
Most of my attention is toward Democrats. I write what many of them dislike reading. I say that the puritan know-it-all shaming they do on cultural issues is a giant turn-off and creates backlash, not "personal growth." I live in a purple county, and I rode the bucking bronco of our politics here as an elected official, so I know that people view things very differently, and they experience politics with their guts, not their logic. My farm is in an area that voted three to one for Trump. I try to explain to my educated, urban, politically liberal friends that the price of gasoline is likely a bigger and more motivating issue to working people than is the notion of "climate change."
I would undoubtedly have more readers if I were a cheerleader for the left--if I said that Bernie was wildly popular, that Biden is sharp as a tack, that AOC speaks for the majority of people. People might send me "attaboys" and my posts might get circulated more. I don't say those things, because whatever my own political instincts and desires in a perfect world, I don't think those things are true. The progressive left hasn't made the sale to enough people to win elections. My friends on the left can be as deluded by wishful thinking as are the voters on the right who are certain--absolutely certain--that Trump won by a landslide because, after all, almost everyone they know shares their view that Trump is great.
I realize the survey was far from "scientific." The 200 responses are likely-unrepresentative. The survey questions were awkward. Maybe it was garbage-in-garbage-out, but the results seem generally plausible to me. I intend to write for everyone but had guessed that my readers skew toward people sort of like myself: Left-friendly Boomers. That is what the survey showed.
Meanwhile, I will keep writing, urging Democrats to be better at politics and urging Republicans to realize that Trump is a dangerous authoritarian.
11 comments:
"puritan know-it-all shaming"...hmmm
Yesterday, all but two Republicans, including our own pathetic hobo, voted against censuring one of their own who posted a death threat against another member, a woman of color, and in fact stood behind him in the well of the House of Representatives as the censure was pronounced.
Shaming, indeed.
Agreed, Mr. Millward, it's ipso facto worse that Gosar's target was a Woman of Color, whether or not race was otherwise implicated.
On the Pew survey, Mr. Sage, I didn't send in my result because I didn't care for the methodology. I was "Committed Conservative".
Not that I object to that title per se, but I could see how they put me there, and I think more questions would have been more telling.
Also, since here and in general the Trump lens is so crucial, a question about Trump would have helped cast conservatives aptly.
I and conservatives I know personally do NOT indulge the conceit that his election claim lasted past his summary failure in courts.
Rick is right. Gosar epitomizes today’s GOP. Besides the cartoon that would get him fired from any other job, he spews lies about election fraud, claims the whackos who attacked our Capitol are “patriots” being tortured in jail by the police, foments fear of COVID vaccines, promotes ivermectin as the latest quack cure, etc., etc.
It makes me wonder if he’s planning a run for president. Such a serious ignoranus would have far more appeal to the Trumplicans than Chris Christie.
Thanks for the update. Results not surprising. I’m in a minority, also not surprising.
But, if this were not your tack:
“My friends on the left can be as deluded by wishful thinking as are the voters on the right who are certain--absolutely certain--that Trump won by a landslide.”
I wouldn’t read the blog.
My take on the survey in your blog is "I don't know for a fact, I just know it's true."
Joe Manchin said it best, (I paraphrase) If you want to enact liberal agendas elect more liberal Senators (politicians). The truth stings. That is where we are currently.
With elected Republicans mum about the Big Lie that Trump won and the voting was rigged; they also are mum on the fact that THEY were ELECTED and the Democrat opponent LOST in that very same election! An inconvenient truth so lets not speak about that.
Another inconvenient truth is that our system of government is slow to respond and act. Except when faced with War, then a Declaration of War gives us an authoritarian Commander-in-Chief as President. So, absent a war, special interests shower the politicians with "champaign funds" to influence an outcome in their favor. Is it any wonder our policies are skewed in the direction of Big Oil, Big Tech, Big Ag, Big Pharma and Big Banks (not a complete list).
All in all, I "enjoyed" getting a taste and sense of the individuals following your blog. Thank you Peter.
Yes, Peter, it may be true that "the price of gasoline is likely a bigger and more motivating issue to working people than is the notion of climate change." However, that doesn't change the fact that climate change is a far more important issue. In fact, the Department of Defense currently lists climate change as an “existential threat” [DOD Climate Risk Analysis (defense.gov)].
The damage it's doing is already costing us more than it would to address it. If not for ourselves, we should do it for our children.
While it's perfectly logical to slice and dice Democrats/Progressives into various categories based on ideology, Republicans/"Conservatives" are one big happy family.
Their acceptance of the rot at the top disqualifies any shading of values.
I wonder how many people actually watched Gosar’s anime cartoon video.
It pictured a giant AOC stalking through the streets like the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man from the first Ghostbusters movie, and then a samurai sword wielding small character with Gosar’s face on it flies in to attack the giant AOC. The reference to Ghostbusters is obvious.
Calling this a “serious death threat” seems like ridiculously overblown politically motivated uptight rhetoric to me. People have gotten so sensitive that it amazes me. It wasn’t a serious threat. How did so many people miss that?
Yet actual explicit, lurid and personalized death threats, audio and online, directed at the Rittenhouse judge AND his children, don’t even rate a mention on principled legacy news outlets. Leftist ends justify or at the very least mitigate leftist means. Still AOC is Of Color….
Michael:
If someone in your office had tweeted the cartoon and you were object of the attack, is that what you'd be saying?
To me, I have seen the Democrats run from the working laborer, the machinist, the manufacturer, the maker of and fixer of things and so on.
I am old and can see and feel the fading and crumbling of the American middle class, Jobs offer 32 hours, not 40, not double time and a half for overtime, pensions are gone replaced by the 401 joke, medical coverage is offered with $1000 dollar deductibles. Debt has replaced lay away. Capitalism should be proud of itself ,, it has seeped into most communist countries thinking it is exploiting the cheap labor but is starving the workers of America and making billionaire Communists who are A far cry from the ideas of Marx or Lenin or even Mao. The global market has destroyed my belief in the Democratic Party, it is a sell out and not worth defending most of the time. The only reason I care is because of Bernie Sanders and his efforts to get me dentures, glasses, and a hearing aid and maybe a rise in Social Security or even elder care in the home. The young are screwed. Climate change will wipe out many of their dreams. No political party or nation has the will to effect change, A soft watered down message from the Democrats will not gain votes. They stand for nothing and do not have the balls to go to the wall for the poor let alone the collapse of lower middle class.
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