The sneering contempt of Conservative pundits against the ordinary Republican voter that chose Trump deserves a response. IT GOT ONE!
Chris Buskirk unloads on Bret Stephens. Shows him why his arguments just don’t add up.
these critiques of Trump voters, which are arrogant when they’re not merely condescending, offer a good insight into the disconnect between voters and elites. These are not people looking for pity or scapegoats onto which to load their sins. But confused by Trump’s rapid rise and enduring appeal, that’s how pundits, pols, and the consultant community have chosen to understand it. To their minds Trump can only be understood as a base appeal to self-pity and “identity politics”—the term conservative writers use when they want to call Republican voters racists without actually saying it.
But it’s simpler than that, in fact, this is Occam’s Razor at it’s simplest. Trump voters are ordinary Americans, motivated by a core set of beliefs about the country that used to be a given, especially on the Right. It isn’t Republican voters who have changed, it is Republican leaders.
[Trump voters are rejecting ‘globalism’ including] elite rule through the administrative state, open borders that enrich big business at the expense of small even as they impoverish the working class, and an execrable crony capitalism marketed to the public as free trade.
He goes on to lay out grievances born out of the lopsided financial history of risk and reward in the last collapse (ordinary citizens getting a haircut while fat cats laughed all the way to the bank)
His conclusion is worth quoting in full:
Concluding his indictment Bret Stephens laments what he sees as the lack of responsibility of his countrymen, writing, “It used to be that Americans looked askance at people who pointed fingers at everyone but themselves.” On this we agree. But when? When were these halcyon days?
Back when American nationalism (love of this country and its citizens) wasn’t considered an embarrassment? Back when we enforced our borders? Before the administrative state had usurped the sovereignty of the people and government believed it had a duty to serve only the interests of American citizens? It’s true. There used to be a lot of people that believed all of those things and took responsibility for themselves. It turns out that there still are. They just don’t get hired to write columns for the Wall Street Journal.
Full article quoted from American Geatness
