FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2024
The problem is frequently Us: Even if only apocryphally, Diogenes wandered through classical Athens, looking for one honest man (sic).
We Blues have been in a similar pickle in the wake of the recent election.
Why in the world would anyone have voted for Candidate Trump? Again and again and again and again, we've gone looking for even one acceptable reason.
Why did anyone vote for Trump? Once again, we think you should consider what Thom Hartmann recently said.
Hartmann is a good, decent person. Last Sunday, on C-Span's Washington Journal, he offered this assessment:
MODERATOR (11/17/24): I'll go back to something you mentioned earlier. You mentioned that, since the 1960s, the Democrats have been the party that supports racial minorities, according to your assessment. But also, I want to look at this chart here about the distribution of white voters in particular.
The Democrats have not won the vote among white Americans since 1964. Overwhelmingly over the years, white voters have voted Republican, and Democrats have lost support among white voters even since Barack Obama in 2008. And what do you think that means for the future of the party and the party's dynamics?
HARTMANN: Well, I think what that reflects is the deep racism that is still extant among white people in America, you know. And certainly, the Trump presidency, and even his successful campaign in 2016, frankly shocked me.
[...]
I don't have an explanation beyond for this very clear racial division which has existed since 1964, beyond just the shocking reality that at least half of America, and arguably a little more than that, is just deeply racist.
To watch the video of Hartmann's full remarks, you can just click here. The exchange we've excerpted, including Hartmann's fuller remarks, starts at the eight-minute mark.
Just for the record, Thom Hartmann is a good, decent person. That said, who is Thom Hartmann?
The dude has had a substantial career. The leading authority on his life offers such excerpts as these:
Thom Hartmann
Thomas Carl Hartmann (born May 7, 1951) is an American radio personality, author, businessman, and progressive political commentator. Hartmann has been hosting a nationally syndicated radio show, The Thom Hartmann Program, since 2003 and hosted a nightly television show, The Big Picture, between 2010 and 2017.
[...]
Hartmann's national program, on the air since 2003 and now in the noon to 3 pm. ET daypart, was chosen by Air America to replace Al Franken on most Air America affiliates in 2007. From 2008 to 2011, Talkers Magazine rated Hartmann the most popular liberal talk show host in America, rising from number 10 among all talk show hosts in 2008 to number 8 in 2011 and 2015. According to his then-syndicator Dial Global, more people listened to Hartmann's show on more stations than any other progressive talk show in America. The Thom Hartmann Program is estimated by industry magazine Talkers to have 7 million unique listeners per week.
We can't vouch for the perfect, up-to-date accuracy of some of those statements, but Hartmann has been a very successful, highly influential progressive figure.
To see his program's current website, you can just click this. Hartmann is a good, decent person, and he's still going strong.
Have we mentioned the fact that Hartmann is a good, decent person? That said, we'd have to leaven that assessment in the following way:
In our view, his C-Span statement lies on the borderline of insane. We've never seen the famous film, but just as Destry is said to have ridden again, so did the unfortunate "basket of deplorables" comment when this good, decent person spoke, except his claim was much stronger.
Almost surely, Hartmann's statement on C-Span can be parsed in various ways. As with members of all human groups, many of us in Blue America are highly skilled at this practice.
Like President Biden's unfortunate statement about "garbage," Hartmann's statement can probably be explained, or perhaps explained away. Even so, we're forced to suggest that, on its face, the statement seems to say this:
If someone voted for Candidate Trump, that person must be deeply racist.
These Trump Voters Today! In this circumstance, calling them "racist" wasn't enough. They had to be deeply racist!
We've decided to end our series this week with this one statement by Hartmann. We're going to suggest that his statement is just this side of completely insane—and yes, he's a good and decent, highly accomplished person.
Why may people have voted for Trump? Warning! More than 77 million people did, so there may be more than one answer.
That said, we humans are wired to seek simply solutions to our epistemic dilemmas. This human impulse is bred in the bone, over there in Red America but also over here, among Us.
Why did people vote for Trump? Like Hartmann, we voted for Candidate Harris ourselves. The thought of voting for Candidate Trump never crossed our mind.
We voted for Candidate Harris ourselves. That said, we've spent a good chunk of our life trying to learn how to avoid making crazy statements.
Alas! Starting at least in the 1960s, we Blues began convincing ourselves that We are the highly moral, highly intelligent people.
Wasn't it pretty to think so? Given the ways our species is built, this flattering portrait isn't accurate and it never was.
Why might "normal, decent" people have decided to cast their votes for Candidate Trump? We'll start listing a passel of blindingly obvious possible reasons in Monday morning's report.
The possible reasons go on and on and on. Like members of all human tribes, those of us in Blue America may not be able to see this.
We've met the enemy, Pogo said. Will we Blues ever ride again?
A controversial term: A bayou can be a type of backwater. Roy Orbison to the side, an array of "Blue Bayous" exist in the world, not all of them welcoming, helpful or pleasant.
Millions of American citizens feel that if you voted for Trump, you are deeply racist.
ReplyDeleteShould the feelings of millions of Americans be ignored?
ReplyDeleteAnyone who voted for Donald Trump is a perfectly normal, non-retarded American. Anyone who voted for a liberal retard is a retard.
Oh, great. Now Bob’s destined readers to go around singing Blue Bayou all day..
ReplyDelete"The problem is frequently Us: Even if only apocryphally, Diogenes wandered through classical Athens, looking for one honest man (sic).
ReplyDeleteWe Blues have been in a similar pickle in the wake of the recent election. "
This is the way Somerby pretends that the right and the left are alike, when they are very different. For one thing, blue politicians are much more honest than those on the right, who generally tells many lies and support the lies told by their leader, Trump (who has told 30,000+ lies and counting). We don't tell lies on the left nearly as much.
Diogenes would have no trouble finding an honest man, even an honest politician on the left. Not so much on the right. But Somerby pretends both sides are the same, which is a lie being told by Somerby. Want evidence? Look at the fact-checking of Harris during the election. They had to work very hard just to find an occasional exaggeration, whereas Trump and Vance were full of lies. And yet red voters elected them. And no, blue voters didn't do the same thing.
I think you're mistaken when you say that "Somerby pretends both sides are the same." He consistently says, for example, that Fox is worse than MSNBC. What I think he says, instead, is that both sides are composed of humans, who are burdened with human foibles.
Delete"both sides are composed of humans, who are burdened with human foibles"
DeleteTo think Somerby is merely pointing out this obvious but meaningless circumstance, is the height of ignorance.
"Even so, we're forced to suggest that, on its face, the statement seems to say this:
ReplyDeleteIf someone voted for Candidate Trump, that person must be deeply racist."
Hartmann says enough things that Somerby shouldn't have to make up quotes, things he didn't say, and attribute them to him. I guess it is easier for Somerby to try to refute something Hartmann didn't say, than to deal with the implications of his actual statements.
Destry Rides Again is a good movie. Somerby should make the effort to see it, before using it as a prop in one of his essays.
ReplyDeleteThe moderator asked Hartmann to explain a set of facts. Hartmann said this:
ReplyDelete"I don't have an explanation beyond for this very clear racial division which has existed since 1964, beyond just the shocking reality that at least half of America, and arguably a little more than that, is just deeply racist."
If Somerby disagrees with Hartmann's suggestion, instead of paraphrasing it into something he did not say, Somerby should propose his own alternative interpretation of that data. Why is there a racial divide between who votes for Trump and who votes for Democrats such as Biden and Harris?
Somerby needs to deal with the fact that we all saw Trump and Vance run a deeply racial campaign in which racial minorities were maligned, just as Harris herself was demeaned on the basis of her race and ethnic background. When the majority of white voters select the candidate running such a campaign, how can it be claimed that race was not a factor for those white voters?
Somerby, at this point, is namecalling. He has provided no explanation, yet he insists that Hartmann's explanation must be wrong. It is Somerby's job to explain why Hartmann is wrong, if Somerby is going to take such strong issue with Hartmann's analysis. He hasn't done that.
As usual, Somerby keeps promising that he will give us a list of the reasons why a non-racist white person might have voted for Trump. Promises, promises, but no list has materialized at the end of a week. I predict that next week, Somerby will move on to another subject and we will be left to wonder what happened to that list. Because that is how Somerby operates.
To the average White person having a dollar, the average Black person has 15 cents.
DeleteA woman is raped in America every 6 minutes.
To deny racism and sexism like Somerby does, suggests a disordered person dealing with unresolved trauma.
"A bayou can be a type of backwater. Roy Orbison to the side, an array of "Blue Bayous" exist in the world, not all of them welcoming, helpful or pleasant."
ReplyDeleteWhat on earth does this have to do with anything?
Somerby won't be able to find a Trump voter who isn't racist, any more than he and his fanboys could find a Republican voter who cares about something other than bigotry and white supremacy.
ReplyDeletehttps://hartmannreport.com/p/the-end-of-left-leaning-news-is-progressive-a4e
ReplyDeleteIn a feat of actual media analysis, Hartmann explores the future for left-leaning news sources in the face of domination of the media by right-wing billionaires. Crickets from Somerby about any of this. Somerby might have talked about the impact of the media on our election (not least the NY Times which pushed Biden out of the Democratic nomination). He might be exploring the suggestion that the left needs to set up its own Fox News and similar propaganda outlets to counter the lies coming from the right. Do we fight fire with fire? But Somerby doesn't have the chops to do real media analysis. Hartmann does.
Why has Somerby never mentioned the collusion between Russian media and right wing media during the election. Not only did Russia fund the production of deep fakes and propaganda videos and memes, but they provided a forum for right wing celebrties (Tucker Carlson, for example) on Russian media outlets. Is that the way American media should operate during an election? Crickets from Somerby about any of that, even though Somerby is supposedly a media critic/analyst.
ReplyDeleteBayous help protect communities on land from hurricanes.
ReplyDeleteSomerby misquotes Pogo today, by taking the saying out of its original context:
ReplyDelete"Kelly coined the phrase for an anti-pollution Earth Day poster in 1970 and used it again in a special comic strip created for Earth Day 1971. "
Pogo is shown looking sad, in front of a trash heap with a sack far too small to hold all of the waste. The line saying that we are the enemy refers to the discarded trash that Americans routinely left everywhere back in the 1970s at the beginning of environmentalism.
Is Somerby implying that we blues are trash? I wouldn't put it past him. But probably he is grabbing the superficiality that Kelly used the word "enemy" and Somerby is just saying that we blues are the enemy, not the miscreants who put Trump into office. Unsubtle and not the least like anything any liberal anywhere says about blue voters. If we are our own worst enemy, in a charitable interpretation of the Pogo quote, Somerby has yet to explain how that is true. Is he saying that calling out white racism and the attraction of Trump to racists, we are hurting ourselves again? Is he really calling on blues to abandon our traditional concern for civil rights by coddling the white racist Trump supporters and colluding with their delusion that they too are good decent people?
Where is the evidence of any of that? A Pogo comic strip about pollution doesn't do the job.
A long time ago, I used Pogo as a nym, until someone complained that I was ruining the comic strip for him. Now Somerby is trying to do the same thing, distorting what Kelly meant in even this famous panel.
DeleteThis finding by Pew Research supports Hartmann's position, not Somerby's:
ReplyDelete"Key takeaway: “For the first time since 2016, more Americans say the Republican Party represents the interests of ‘people like them’ very or somewhat well than say this about the Democratic Party (50% vs. 43%).”
The only question is what the Republican Party stands for under Trump. These responses are an endorsement of the racism and scapegoating that Trump doubled down on during his campaign.
Maddow has less money to “stuff down her pants”.
ReplyDeletehttps://nypost.com/2024/11/21/media/msnbcs-rachel-maddows-salary-reportedly-cut-by-5m-despite-being-ratings-viagra/
Gloating?
DeleteRight. A salary of 25 mil is chump change to me. I’m gloating that MSNBC is having issues. They have race baited their Spanx off.
DeleteExactly, showing off that famous lack of empathy again.
DeleteCecelia, I don't think you actually understand the reason MSNBC is losing audience. Hint: It has something to do with Joe and Mika taking a little trip to Mar-a-Lago.
DeleteAnonymices 11:54am, it’s amusing that anonymices always demand empathy for anyone helpful to them and eschew it toward everyone else. You’re the people who said Trump feigned a shooting injury and commented that you wish the guy hadn’t missed.
DeleteMSNBC personalities have made a passel of money nursing your grudges for you. Of course you’re “empathetic”.
We still don't know if the orange motherfucker was shot or had a little bit of plastic nip his ear.
DeleteAnonymouse 12:10pm, Comcast started going down this alley before Joe and Mika did a Joe and Mika.
DeleteMost likely, Trump was nicked in the ear with shrapnel, just like the four policemen that were nearest to him. If Trump had been hit by a bullet, it would not have healed in a few days like it did.
DeleteNo one said the shooting was "feigned", in the aftermath, political violence was universally condemned.
What is notable, is that all the "assassination" attempts were conducted by disordered White male Republican gun enthusiasts.
Anonymouse 12:19pm, don’t go soft by now pretending to be unsure of anything about that day, bro. You’ve got too much history in making accusations about it.
DeleteAnonymouse 12:28pm, if you must make a distinction between being nicked by glass or plastic rather than by the bullet that was fired at someone’s head, then you are the essence of callousness. If you say you wish the shooter hadn’t missed, you’re an absolute creep.
DeleteNo surprise there.
https://www.factcheck.org/2024/09/what-we-know-about-ryan-rouths-political-affiliations/
DeleteI noticed feelings stopped trumping facts for the Right, the minute feelings didn’t support bigotry.
DeleteSuppose Dem politicians really believed that more than half of Americans are deeply racist. What would they do?
ReplyDeleteThey would pursue their share of the racist vote by having policies and campaigns that are more racist. Of course they don't do this, fortunately. What their lack of effort to get the supposed racist majority vote shows that they don't really believe that the country is deeply racist.
Not everyone behaves like a Republican, David. Those on the left who have documented the existence of racism in our society do their best to fight it by promoting anti-racism measures, equal rights and civil rights measures, and yes, DEI. We promote these things because they are the right thing to do, to achieve our American ideals enumerated in our Constitution and Declaration of Independence.
DeleteCynical political appeals are what the right does because they do not have solid values but operate based solely on self-interest. Have there ever been so many criminals and perverts appointed by a president in our nation's history?
David, I’d take it as a given that calling contrarians racists is the biggest arrow in the Dem politician quiver. No one sweats that. No one sweats it when it’s on a blogboard.
DeleteIt’s when media members, like Joy Reid, do it, that you know we no longer have a media in this country. From the NYT to Fox News, you couldn’t get an honest assessment OR accurate info if the universe depended on it.
Suppose Dem politicians really believed that more than half of Americans are deeply racist. What would they do?
DeleteThey would fight to change this problem, not pander to the worst hateful instincts like you fucking racist trumplicans do. Fascists always have to create an object for the masses to hate. This year it unfortunately was latin asylum seekers and trans persons.
Anonymouse 12:18pm, who is the object that we “fascists” and “fucking racist trumplicans“ are being told to hate?
DeleteCecelia would like everyone to please forget Republican/ Trump voters tried to overturn an election because black people’s votes were counted in it.
DeleteHow dare Democrats notice.
You should know, Cecelia. You come here to vent your hate every day.
DeleteAnonymouse 1:09pm, no, I come here to read Bob. You come here to hate on him and on anyone who defends him.
Delete“The 100,034 refugees resettled in the United States in fiscal year (FY) 2024 represent the largest resettlement number in 30 years and a remarkable rebound from the approximately 11,400 admissions three years earlier—the lowest in the U.S. refugee program’s history. The turnaround re-cements the United States’ role as the top global resettlement destination, far surpassing other major resettlement countries in Europe and Canada.”
Deletehttps://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/rebuilt-us-refugee-resettlement-biden#:~:text=The%20100%2C034%20refugees%20resettled%20in,the%20U.S.%20refugee%20program's%20history.
"BAYOUS: The reasons go on and on and on!"
ReplyDeleteWhat reasons has Somerby provided? None. He is only objecting to the reasons provided by the left.
Trump is filing his administration with neocons, neoliberals, unqualified clowns, corrupt cronies, and sexual predators.
ReplyDeleteSomerby, his fanboys, and corporate media are saying 'everything is fine'.
We are indeed finding out.
Saying that the support for someone like Trump - who has always campaigned on scarcely concealed racism, such as "birtherism" is in no way the same as "If someone voted for Candidate Trump, that person must be deeply racist."
ReplyDeleteSome people are deeply racist - for example those who voted for George Wallace and then switched to Republican - and some are mildly racist, and those people amount to millions of voters. The rise of Trump, and the detachment of his followers from reality, can't be explained without a major influence of racism (also religiosity and misosyny for good measure).
Somerby goes mask off today, saying that Dems are the enemy within.
ReplyDeleteDems do not electorally care why Trump voters vote for Trump; Dems recognize that Trump voters are not persuadable.
Somerby's analysis is shallow and poorly thought out.