In mid-2024, for a couple of weeks, the biggest question on social media was whether women were better off alone in the woods with a randomly selected man or a full-sized adult bear.
The Democratic Party has, since the second Obama term (more or less) become the party which is pro-censorship, pro-war, pro unchecked corporate power, anti civil liberties (except for a few small favored identity groups du jour) anti small business, pro vaccine mandates, and so on.
People voted for the “bear” because they are hoping against hope that they will at least be given a fighting chance to survive. Tens of millions of us aren’t looking for a handout. We just want to be left alone. The Dems used to allow that, even champion that, but that party has disappeared.
This is the smartest explanation of Trump's victory I have read. I hope the sane Democrats will listen to it. I also hope it will bring some of the lost ones back from the precipice.
The problem with "just being left alone" is that's how you get a company like Google killing off your local paper by taking all of their ad revenue. It's how free trade allows companies to outsource big chunks of manufacturing to people in countries with no labor protections and very low minimum wages, instead of investing in modernizing American manufacturing. It's how corporate execs at Boeing decide to build a crap plane like the 737 MAX instead of designing a plane that can carry modern fuel efficient engines, so the execs can boost their immediate profits and collect on stock-based bonuses. It's how various industries become natural monopolies that eventually abuse their customers.
The problem with Democratic politicians, and liberals in general, is that we spend more time talking about land acknowledgements than these economic issues.
I think this is spot on, though I'd probably broaden it a bit. People voted for Trump because they don't like the Democratic Party's vision of America.
When they listen to "liberals" in the media or to some politicians, they hear people's moral worth classified by their sex and ethnicity. They may have to listen to DEI classes that reinforce these divisions. If you're reading an article in the liberal press, and a sentence starts 'White men ..." you know it's going to end with a diss :-)
Democrats also ask people to sign onto ideas that probably don't make sense to them. It's perfectly reasonable to ask that transgender people not be discriminated against. But many people, myself included, think that it's simply wrong factually to extend that to say anyone can simply change from a man to a woman or vice versa.
Democrats have done some great things that they don't talk about very much, including the ACA, which provides real individual health insurance plans, and Biden's poorly named Inflation Reduction and CHIPS Acts, which are succeeding at starting rebuilding our manufacturing base.
Unfortunately, I think that it will take a significant cultural change in liberals away from treating people as parts of monolithic groups classified by skin color, ethnicity and sex before Democrats can really increase their political power. And I have no idea how we get there from here.
Excellent Steve. You don't win friends by spitting in their face.
It is not necessary for me to list the reasons I did not vote for Trump, but, and there's a big but...
I understand why many women and non-white men have a chip on their shoulder, even though it is bigotry to view individuals as a part of a monolith. But there are virtue signaling white men who spew their disdain for white men in general which of course excludes them from the monolith. See, I'm a good one because I self-flagellate and condemn my brothers. Fuck them! Harris was the standard bearer for the party of those jerkoffs.
So I wrote in Peanut the Squirrel on my ballot because I could not reward the party of all the things that that I also need not list, which includes assholes that express their disdain for me because of my race and gender with my vote.
I saw little what is good about us from Democrats, just a bunch of what's wrong with "them." Everyone sees what they think is wrong because human nature prioritizes fear of harm, I'd like to hear a bit of what's good about you.
You write, about the "abortion issue," "It’s a problem for anyone who might become pregnant in the next four years or who cares about the life of someone who might."
And that caused me to wonder, wouldn't your statement be fuller, more correct and meaningful, if it had read, "It’s a problem for anyone who might become pregnant in the next four years or who cares about the life of someone who might. It's also a problem, a very serious problem, for the baby growing inside its mother, because in point of fact, through abortion, we are killing our children."
And I would ask this. If it's acceptable to kill a person inside their mother, why isn't it acceptable to kill a person outside their mother ... or because of their sex ... or their color, age, national origin, or disability status?
Well, Chris, it seems to me you are defining abortion as IN ALL CASES the termination of a pregnancy that would have succeeded in going full term and producing a living, healthy child. In many, many cases this is NOT true. Unviable pregnancies are more likely to result in the death of the mother the longer they are allowed to proceed.
I don't think Steve was trying to cover the entire issue of abortion in his single sentence; it's a very complicated issue. But there are women who have had, and will have, medical complications in wanted pregnancies who have died because of abortion bans, and Trump might well sign a nationwide ban, or reinterpret the Comstock Act as an already existing ban.
SCOTUS has made it clear abortion being ‘healthcare’ is a States rights issue. Trump has said over and over it isn’t a Fed issue. Kamala could have done nothing about it. She was lying.
I agree with you, Clemence Dane and probably several other comment writers here about why the "orange hamburglar" (excellent, what do you think of my moniker, "The Trumpet"?) won the election. People can only be ignored and marginalized for so long, then they will speak up. White men have been getting stabbed in the neck for 40 years now; time to change the channel and look at them as people too.
PS I am still researching my answer to your incisive comments about Barack Obama's influence on the Democratic party, Kamala Harris, and the still-in-office president, Joe Biden. As I read other of the UnHerd columns, I can see more places where they are just presenting theories and hypotheses, not facts. Er, um, thanks for pointing this out.
The Democratic Party has, since the second Obama term (more or less) become the party which is pro-censorship, pro-war, pro unchecked corporate power, anti civil liberties (except for a few small favored identity groups du jour) anti small business, pro vaccine mandates, and so on.
People voted for the “bear” because they are hoping against hope that they will at least be given a fighting chance to survive. Tens of millions of us aren’t looking for a handout. We just want to be left alone. The Dems used to allow that, even champion that, but that party has disappeared.
This is the smartest explanation of Trump's victory I have read. I hope the sane Democrats will listen to it. I also hope it will bring some of the lost ones back from the precipice.
@Joe --
The problem with "just being left alone" is that's how you get a company like Google killing off your local paper by taking all of their ad revenue. It's how free trade allows companies to outsource big chunks of manufacturing to people in countries with no labor protections and very low minimum wages, instead of investing in modernizing American manufacturing. It's how corporate execs at Boeing decide to build a crap plane like the 737 MAX instead of designing a plane that can carry modern fuel efficient engines, so the execs can boost their immediate profits and collect on stock-based bonuses. It's how various industries become natural monopolies that eventually abuse their customers.
The problem with Democratic politicians, and liberals in general, is that we spend more time talking about land acknowledgements than these economic issues.
Point and laugh. A leftist laughing at other leftists who are one iota more blind about the right than he is himself.
I think this is spot on, though I'd probably broaden it a bit. People voted for Trump because they don't like the Democratic Party's vision of America.
When they listen to "liberals" in the media or to some politicians, they hear people's moral worth classified by their sex and ethnicity. They may have to listen to DEI classes that reinforce these divisions. If you're reading an article in the liberal press, and a sentence starts 'White men ..." you know it's going to end with a diss :-)
Democrats also ask people to sign onto ideas that probably don't make sense to them. It's perfectly reasonable to ask that transgender people not be discriminated against. But many people, myself included, think that it's simply wrong factually to extend that to say anyone can simply change from a man to a woman or vice versa.
Democrats have done some great things that they don't talk about very much, including the ACA, which provides real individual health insurance plans, and Biden's poorly named Inflation Reduction and CHIPS Acts, which are succeeding at starting rebuilding our manufacturing base.
Unfortunately, I think that it will take a significant cultural change in liberals away from treating people as parts of monolithic groups classified by skin color, ethnicity and sex before Democrats can really increase their political power. And I have no idea how we get there from here.
Excellent Steve. You don't win friends by spitting in their face.
It is not necessary for me to list the reasons I did not vote for Trump, but, and there's a big but...
I understand why many women and non-white men have a chip on their shoulder, even though it is bigotry to view individuals as a part of a monolith. But there are virtue signaling white men who spew their disdain for white men in general which of course excludes them from the monolith. See, I'm a good one because I self-flagellate and condemn my brothers. Fuck them! Harris was the standard bearer for the party of those jerkoffs.
So I wrote in Peanut the Squirrel on my ballot because I could not reward the party of all the things that that I also need not list, which includes assholes that express their disdain for me because of my race and gender with my vote.
I saw little what is good about us from Democrats, just a bunch of what's wrong with "them." Everyone sees what they think is wrong because human nature prioritizes fear of harm, I'd like to hear a bit of what's good about you.
Steve ---
You write, about the "abortion issue," "It’s a problem for anyone who might become pregnant in the next four years or who cares about the life of someone who might."
And that caused me to wonder, wouldn't your statement be fuller, more correct and meaningful, if it had read, "It’s a problem for anyone who might become pregnant in the next four years or who cares about the life of someone who might. It's also a problem, a very serious problem, for the baby growing inside its mother, because in point of fact, through abortion, we are killing our children."
And I would ask this. If it's acceptable to kill a person inside their mother, why isn't it acceptable to kill a person outside their mother ... or because of their sex ... or their color, age, national origin, or disability status?
Well, Chris, it seems to me you are defining abortion as IN ALL CASES the termination of a pregnancy that would have succeeded in going full term and producing a living, healthy child. In many, many cases this is NOT true. Unviable pregnancies are more likely to result in the death of the mother the longer they are allowed to proceed.
I don't think Steve was trying to cover the entire issue of abortion in his single sentence; it's a very complicated issue. But there are women who have had, and will have, medical complications in wanted pregnancies who have died because of abortion bans, and Trump might well sign a nationwide ban, or reinterpret the Comstock Act as an already existing ban.
SCOTUS has made it clear abortion being ‘healthcare’ is a States rights issue. Trump has said over and over it isn’t a Fed issue. Kamala could have done nothing about it. She was lying.
I saw the article as being about the party of insult to white men losing the vote of white men to someone who didn't insult them.
I agree with you, Clemence Dane and probably several other comment writers here about why the "orange hamburglar" (excellent, what do you think of my moniker, "The Trumpet"?) won the election. People can only be ignored and marginalized for so long, then they will speak up. White men have been getting stabbed in the neck for 40 years now; time to change the channel and look at them as people too.
PS I am still researching my answer to your incisive comments about Barack Obama's influence on the Democratic party, Kamala Harris, and the still-in-office president, Joe Biden. As I read other of the UnHerd columns, I can see more places where they are just presenting theories and hypotheses, not facts. Er, um, thanks for pointing this out.
What a great article. You knocked it out of the park!
Love it… brilliant work