Yes, I’ve got more, and all of it unwelcome.
2. Trump takes a kernel of truth and grows it into complete insanity. The kernel of truth, however, is there. And since people don’t hear this kernel acknowledged anywhere else, they perceive Trump as refreshing.
Example. The “Trump is anti – PC” trope. Yes, the bastard legitimized public nastiness, absolutely. But that’s not the whole story. There are crowds of eager speech-policers that try to shut one up constantly. Their smugness is very off – putting. Yes, they are a tiny minority. But they yell very loud. They need to get a pushback. Let’s stop excusing the snowflake rebellions on campuses. And as for campuses, by God, let’s stop being such a blasted echo chamber. Let’s stop censoring because we totally do. Many of our students are religious and conservative. Let’s show tolerance and fucking respect that.
Another example. Yes, not all Mexicans, absolutely. Not even close to a majority either. And not all men but try trotting that out at a feminist website and you will be rightfully chucked off. It’s deranged, simply deranged to deny that the heroine which is causing the current epidemic of addiction is not coming from outer space. And it’s as deranged to deny that the ideology of affirmative consent sounds ridiculous to many Hispanic immigrants. It sound ridiculous to me, too, actually.
3. And God, the holier-than-thou enforcers of ideological purity. Those are the absolute worst. When people see how actively Hillary tried to move to the left but still failed to impress the guardians of progressive virtue, they realize it’s hopeless and they’ll never find a place amidst such impossible orthodoxy. All of these snobs who despised “incrementalism” and pouted about wanting everything right now are not attracting anybody to the movement.
Clarissa's Blog 
I like this:
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2016/11/what-this-means-how-this-happened-what-to-do-now
“For some, the source of this was most likely economics. For many, immigration. For others, it was probably simply an existential despair at the hopelessness of modern life, such as we all feel. But many of them simply didn’t know what they were angry at. They just knew they were angry. Trump came along and gave them a convenient narrative: the source of this anguish was ISIS, Mexicans, and Hillary Clinton. This was very powerful. Democrats didn’t have a good counter-narrative. They lost.”
“Note that maybe it is racism that fueled their Trump votes. But it’s clear that racism is something that can be exacerbated by demagoguery. Just because someone is capable of being a racist doesn’t mean they will be one. We are all highly susceptible to social influences. Trump can make people more racist than they were otherwise inclined to be. The question for Democrats is how to get people to move in the other direction.”
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Great quote. I like it. And I agree that absolutely, people can be moved in the opposite direction. But you need to meet them where they are to take them in that opposite direction.
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I do not dispute the validity of the points you made, but wonder whether the weight you attached to them was not exaggerated by your subjective experiences.
As a professor, you are in the natural position to notice and search out information (from blogs of other academics, press, etc.) about “crowds of eager speech-policers” and “the snowflake rebellions on campuses.”
As a reader of progressive blogs, you sometimes read texts by the “enforcers of ideological purity.”
But where would most blue-collar Trump voters find those loud progressives in their red states with conservative campuses? Also, blue / white – collar Trump voters probably don’t frequent websites like Feministe. 🙂
Most people are probably like me and have never met “crowds of eager speech-policers” in their lives. Yes, I do not live in America, but it’s not like such people are a majority in America either.
\ When people see how actively Hillary tried to move to the left but still failed to impress the guardians of progressive virtue, they realize it’s hopeless and they’ll never find a place amidst such impossible orthodoxy.
Surely, those people did not vote for Trump because of that?
I do not understand exactly who those guardians are, how low information voters doubting between Trump and Hilary would find them, and why those voters would care what somebody obviously much more progressive than them thinks.
Btw, I thought that Trump’s populism reminded me somewhat of Naftali Bennett, “an Israeli politician who has led the right-wing religious The Jewish Home party since 2012.” Then I turned on TV and saw Bennett talking how a win for Trump was (somehow) supporting Israeli Right and how a Palestinian nation state will (fortunately, of course) never become a reality after this development. Also, he said that the Left should … I forgot what exactly, but the idea was to confront reality / look at oneself.
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They find endless discussions of the liberal snowflakes on campus, aggressive transgender toilet enforcers, speech police, etc on the conservative websites they read, conservative newspapers and magazines and radio.
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