I might just be making myself a bunch of new enemies in this blue-est of blue little town of Bloomington on a day when we’re supposed to be thankful for something or another. With that in mind I’ll start this by saying I’m thankful for at least one Democrat in the wake of the shit-kicking we suffered earlier this month. And, by the way, that we I just used…, well, loyal Pencillistas know I’ve become less and less infatuated with the party in recent years as it has gone off the rails and set itself up to be bum-paddled by that Matt Groening-joke of a once and future president.
The Dem I’m thankful for is Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, the (yuck) Ivy League-educated but, by image, regular Joe who, if his (and, yeah, still my) party has any reasoning power left, just might become a standard bearer in four years.
Fetterman gets what I’ve been coming to of late — that the Democrats’ penchant for demonizing men, Whites, the working class, and anyone else who failed to put up a Black Lives Matter yard sign in 2020 was its undoing in 2024. The Democrats lost sight of the basic pillar of democracy — that you have to get more votes than the other party. Spending the last eight years telling the non-Us how stupid, uninformed, selfish, and self-sabotaging they are only succeeded in turning them four-square against Us.
The Democrats have become an in-crowd that the uncool kids of America now loathe. The thing is, in-crowds always are a small bunch, needing a mass of Others to sniff derisively at. That might work in the high school cafeteria but it ain’t no good when counting ballots in a national election.
Each demographic that has been declared heretic by the Democrats has in turn declared itself apostate. “Oh, so I’m a dummy? Well, fuck you!”
Since June 2015, the 45th/47th president has embraced every one of those groups expelled by the Democrats. He says to them, in effect, I’m with you. That was a key to the monolithic power wielded by the first Mayor Daley, as described by my idol, newspaper columnist Mike Royko in his book “Boss: Richard J. Daley of Chicago.” Daley, Royko reported, always shouted “I’m with you!” at party rallies. Daley, for all his sins, knew how to count votes. He knew as well as anyone that turning off wide swathes of the electorate was as useful to his slate of candidates as driving a car on three wheels to save money on tires.
My social media feed is rife with memes and outraged screeds about people who selfishly base their vote on the cost of a gallon of gas, who stupidly elect billionaires to represent working people, who ignorantly cast their lot with a proto-fascist. All a lot of people hear is that Democrats consider them selfish, stupid, and ignorant. The only appropriate response to such opprobrium is Fuck you!
The New York Times this AM ran a Q&A with Fetterman. Again, he gets it, as illustrated by this excerpt:
Why do you think Democrats have struggled with men?
It’s already migrated. In 2016, I was doing an event with the steel workers, across the street where I live, and I was noticing different kind of energy with this, with Trump. It was clear at that time that people were voting for Trump. And the Democrats’ response was, “Aren’t they smart enough to realize they’re voting against their interests?” And that’s insulting, and that’s, I mean, that’s, that’s just not helpful. It’s condescending. And if anything, that reinforces that kind of stereotype.
Telling them that “I know better than you do,” that’s not helpful.
The Democrats had better heed these words over the next four long, miserable years.
