Those silly liberals and their prejudices, Part 92,640

By Isaiah Thomas
Washington Bureau Chief

LAS VEGAS Nev. –  Here surrounded by Trump voters we stumbled upon the latest Nick Kristof offering, bemoaning all those mean liberals who demonize Trump voters without so much as sharing a crank pipe with all 46% of the electorate who voted to elect a crooked ignorant lying bigoted sex criminal President of the United States.

Welcome to Part 92,640 of Those Silly Liberals and their Sillier Generalizations. This time our ace columnist, apparently on the basis of three Tweets whose arguments he never addresses on their merits, tars all liberals who have a problem with the decisions that Trump voters made.  He assumes that such liberals don't actually know any Trump voters, although that seems to be based on nothing more than – what’s the word for it? – a prejudice.

In fact we know them just fine, even if we don’t hail from Kristof's home town, Bumfuck, Oregon, where these salt of the earth types have been voting for white male bigots since the days of Richard Nixon.  We live next door to them.  We play blackjack with them.  And we read their pathetic excuses in the New York Times.

Things are tough in Bufmuck, or whatever it is, so Nick says don’t blame folks for slitting their own throats by voting for a bronzed pig who allies himself with reactionary plutocrats devoted to immiserating them even further.

Well, we do.

Progressives in this country fought hard to give all people, “enemies” or not, health care, a clean and safe environment, and good-paying infrastructure jobs.  They don’t need Nick Kristof to tell them how to appeal to people who reject all that in favor of anti-immigrant bigotry masking government by and for billionaires.  By the way, did those Trump voters really vote to give the mouth-breathing Trump spawn billion dollar tax cuts?

Kristof’s argument, such as it is, seems to have two prongs: the pragmatic and the ethical.

Pragmatically, while no one is “writing off” white working class voters (indeed the entire Democratic platform is devoted to measures to help them), the pickings may be better among better-educated voters who either did not vote last time or voted for Aleppo Gary or Ethan’s Crazy Mom.  In any event, that’s a matter for dorks named Nate.

Ethically, Trump voters and their apologists need to own up to their decision to install a case of nitroglycerin in the White House.  If you ignored the public record of bigotry, sexism, criminality, incompetence, and just utter bullshit because that didn’t seem all that important to you, what you or Nick Kristof say in your defense matters not a toss.

So you or your old buddy Nick say you’re not a bigot?  Funny, that’s what George Wallace, Strom Thurmond, and Theodore Bilbo said too.  Have you ever met a bigot who says “I’m a bigot and I’m proud?”

Kristof says those mean liberals shouldn't treat supporters of the Grifter-in-Chief as enemies. We say it's a great place to start. Enemies can be persuaded or they can be defeated.  One thing they can’t be is tolerated.