Seen from across the Pond..
Some words mean whatever the person using them thinks they mean. I could be wrong but I suspect 'redneck' is one of those words that settles wherever the cap fits. I predict American rednecks will vote for Trump and there is nothing anyone can do about it. Are there enough rednecks in America for Trump to win the next election? It's a different culture over there but my suspicion is that there are.
(Jul 19, 2020 11:35 AM)confused2 Wrote: Seen from across the Pond..
Some words mean whatever the person using them thinks they mean. I could be wrong but I suspect 'redneck' is one of those words that settles wherever the cap fits. I predict American rednecks will vote for Trump and there is nothing anyone can do about it. Are there enough rednecks in America for Trump to win the next election? It's a different culture over there but my suspicion is that there are.
I’m right next door so.....
I’ll make a prediction, if Trump loses then the new guy will be an idiot within a month. Americans might need a month without an idiot at the helm or just continue on with one without having to go through the idiot recognition phase......A time saver.
YazataJul 19, 2020 05:15 PM (This post was last modified: Jul 19, 2020 06:36 PM by Yazata.)
(Jul 19, 2020 11:35 AM)confused2 Wrote: Seen from across the Pond..
Some words mean whatever the person using them thinks they mean. I could be wrong but I suspect 'redneck' is one of those words that settles wherever the cap fits.
I guess that it originated as a word for agricultural workers who work outside a lot and get sunburned. But during the 1960's and 1970's it was adopted by the left and applied to rural Southerners. The implied connotation was 'crazy violent racist psychopath'. Then there was an early slasher-genre movie called Deliverance that came out depicting a group of good sane city-boys enjoying canoeing down a Southern river through the woods and being hunted and tortured for sport by a bunch of crazy homicidal rural Southerners. And much of 60's/70's alternative youth subculture watched that movie and believed that it was a documentary. Rural America became America's "Other", reduced to a hostile and exceedingly false caricature. Since it was the media putting it out, I expect that's the picture that Britain got as well and probably became "common knowledge" there too.
The antidote is to actually travel through the vast expanse of America between California and the Boston-NY-DC Northeastern urban corridor, through what is sneeringly dismissed as "flyover country" (where most Americans damnably live) driving by road through the smaller cities and towns. The America that the big-city urbanites rarely if ever see, but fantasize about as their evil "Other". What you will discover are friendly people. You will find towns full of beautiful tree-lined streets with so little crime that people don't always lock their doors. People actually talk to you and not just to swear at you like New Yorkers. You will start meeting people within minutes, instead of remaining isolated like big-city life, unaware of who lives in even the next door apartment.
'Redneck' is an urban caricature of rural life C2, that's all it is.
Quote:I predict American rednecks will vote for Trump and there is nothing anyone can do about it.
The people who vote for Trump will be most of the people inside the boundaries of the United States who still identify as Americans and who love their country and still believe in what it stands for. People who don't cheer burning the flag, disrespecting the national anthem, tearing down statues of the country's founding fathers, people who still celebrate Independence Day, and people who don't dismiss the history of the United States as nothing but a tale of evil "capitalism" and "racism".
They aren't just in the South, the Rocky Mountain West shares similar sentiments and crucially, the Midwest is what put Trump over the top in 2016. That's where he breached the democrats' vaunted "blue wall" and won what Hillary had assumed were safe democratic party states like Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin. Part of the reason he won was definitely the social issues, by indicating that unlike his opponent, the people whose interests he was most concerned about weren't illegal aliens and transvestites. He did it by opposing what I call "the Professor's Conceit", the idea constantly fomented by the subculture of higher education that 'Everything you think you know is wrong! Everything that previous generations of scholars before me told you is wrong!' Trump's voters were people who still embraced the country and its traditions, even in the face of withering attack by all its ostensible elites. Which naturally leads to the populist distrust of would-be cultural elites and opinion-leaders of all sorts. That's what lies at the base of the growing distrust of science, which is discussed a lot in other threads.
And he won on the economic issues, by attracting the factory workers (many of them ancestral democrats) who were out of work or feared their jobs were threatened by incessant globalization and deindustrialization. People who could see that the rise of China was coming at the expense of the United States as factories closed over here and reopened there, and store shelves were increasingly filled with Chinese products. They could see that the rot could only continue a few more decades until the US was reduced to third world status, with the bulk of the population jobless and impoverished while a small minority of incredibly rich tech billionaires and celebrities control all the country's remaining wealth, just as the professors control what passes for its intellectual life.
They could see that both parties, in their different ways, were the enemies of the Middle Class, out to destroy it for their disseparate reasons. They realized that their prosperity, their livelihoods and the culture and traditions they loved were under attack. In the name of idealistic political-social-cultural moral cleansing on the militant left (the new Puritanism) and in the name of the desires of globalized big business on the establishment republican right. So in 2016 we saw something of a populist uprising. (And keep in mind that 'populism' is just a perjorative word for 'democracy'.) People rebelled and voted for their own beliefs, identities and economic interests. Not as the NY-DC-LA media axis told them to vote. And ultimately, isn't that what democracy is all about and why it exists in the first place?
So candidate Trump announced his America-first agenda with its MAGA (Make America Great Again) slogan (just those words set the left's teeth on edge). And he surfed the wave. I think that it was brilliant and that it's still a winning formula.
We are seeing very similar ideas on the rise in Europe, in Australia, in Brazil, in India... all over. It's probably how Boris Johnson won in so many labour strongholds in northern England. (Britain's analogue of the American industrial Midwest.) Though I'm still doubtful about Boris. He looks to me like David Cameron in populists' clothing. He sought to follow Trump and surf the wave too, but I sense that he doesn't really believe in it. President Trump on the other hand is the real deal as is Nigel Farage.
It's time for the people to take back control of their own countries and stop passively watching them driven into the ground by ruling elites whose interests are most emphatically not theirs and who oftentimes don't even identify with the country they happen to live in.
(Jul 19, 2020 11:35 AM)confused2 Wrote: Seen from across the Pond..
Some words mean whatever the person using them thinks they mean. I could be wrong but I suspect 'redneck' is one of those words that settles wherever the cap fits. I predict American rednecks will vote for Trump and there is nothing anyone can do about it. Are there enough rednecks in America for Trump to win the next election? It's a different culture over there but my suspicion is that there are.
Yaz is right about the etymology of "redneck". But within the non-coastal heart of America, redneck is just a cultural term. It's much more associated with country western music, cowboy boots and hats, horse riding, mudding, noodling, etc. than specifically rural or southern. Plenty of self-styled rednecks in large cities...even some black rednecks. And they vote for Trump because of the patriotism and love of country that they share with many people who don't identify as, and would even scoff at, rednecks. IOW, it is far from true that most Trump voters are rednecks. Leftist morons might like to paint all Trump supporters with that caricature of uneducated, inbred Appalachians, but they just can't be bothered to find out the truth. Many educated and urban people support Trump (including an unprecedented percent of blacks), and many more people support Trump now, after seeing what he has accomplished, than in 2016. He has won over many "never-Trumpers".
(Jul 19, 2020 01:57 PM)Zinjanthropos Wrote: I’m right next door so.....
I’ll make a prediction, if Trump loses then the new guy will be an idiot within a month. Americans might need a month without an idiot at the helm or just continue on with one without having to go through the idiot recognition phase......A time saver.
Biden was already an idiot, long before his current mental decline became so obvious. He didn't even have the sense to not smell women's hair or otherwise act inappropriate with women and young girls in front of video cameras. And no matter what leftists would have you believe, Trump's not an idiot, though he often plays one on Twitter. True idiots do not inspire the sort of market confidence that led to record low unemployment and historically low minority unemployment.
C CJul 19, 2020 07:21 PM (This post was last modified: Jul 19, 2020 08:21 PM by C C.
Edit Reason: typos
)
(Jul 19, 2020 11:35 AM)confused2 Wrote: Seen from across the Pond..
Some words mean whatever the person using them thinks they mean. I could be wrong but I suspect 'redneck' is one of those words that settles wherever the cap fits. I predict American rednecks will vote for Trump and there is nothing anyone can do about it.
Quote:Are there enough rednecks in America for Trump to win the next election? It's a different culture over there but my suspicion is that there are.
Nothing unique in North America. There's plenty of rednecks in the rest of the Anglophone world (Mystery Road). The UK has produced more rural and small-community entertainment programs on television than the US since 1970. That "genre" virtually disappeared for quite a while in the latter, or the shows didn't survive long. Thanks to Hollywood's evolving conception of "flyover country" as being too boring as a setting for rousing stories. This may even be the reason for the popularity of certain Brit programs in America -- due to the US having such a scarcity of bucolic servings. (At least for a good while -- just so many reruns of "The Andy Griffith" show a local TV station could make a buck off of in the late afternoon or wee hours.)
Quote:Biden was already an idiot, long before his current mental decline became so obvious. He didn't even have the sense to not smell women's hair or otherwise act inappropriate with women and young girls in front of video cameras. And no matter what leftists would have you believe, Trump's not an idiot, though he often plays one on Twitter. True idiots do not inspire the sort of market confidence that led to record low unemployment and historically low minority unemployment.
"In September 2017, a Washington Post–ABC News poll asked people an open-ended question: “What one word best describes your impression of Trump? Just the one word that best describes him?” The first most common term to describe him was “incompetent.” Other related characterizations in the top 10 descriptors included “idiot,” “ignorant,” and “unqualified.”
Quinnipiac asked a similar question in December 2017: “What is the first word that comes to mind when you think of President Trump?” By far, the most frequent word that came to mind was “idiot.” Other common terms included “incompetent,” “moron,” “ignorant,” and “stupid.”
(Jul 19, 2020 11:35 AM)confused2 Wrote: Seen from across the Pond..
Some words mean whatever the person using them thinks they mean. I could be wrong but I suspect 'redneck' is one of those words that settles wherever the cap fits. I predict American rednecks will vote for Trump and there is nothing anyone can do about it. Are there enough rednecks in America for Trump to win the next election? It's a different culture over there but my suspicion is that there are.
There might be some truth to the red bandanna stories. If so, then it was a term that union organizers used to unite white, black, and immigrant miners.
Trump ran as a political outsider, not an underdog. Four years in office, three of which a resounding success, against a constant onslaught of attacks from within the government, and relative to career politicians like Biden, still finds him an outsider. He's largely no more welcomed by the entrenched political and bureaucratic elite than he was his first day. And if anything, the left has only escalated their attacks on America, making his first campaign all the more relevant now. And the correspondence between Hillary and Joe is striking. While Joe may be a "nice guy" compared to Hillary's shrillness, they're still following the same game plan. Keep Joe out of sight so people forget about all his gaffes and mental deterioration, artificially buoying him in the polls. Like Hillary, the more people are reminded of who Joe really is, the less they like him. Whether people want to admit it or not, the 2020 election is remarkably like 2016.
(Jul 19, 2020 07:36 PM)Magical Realist Wrote:
Quote:Biden was already an idiot, long before his current mental decline became so obvious. He didn't even have the sense to not smell women's hair or otherwise act inappropriate with women and young girls in front of video cameras. And no matter what leftists would have you believe, Trump's not an idiot, though he often plays one on Twitter. True idiots do not inspire the sort of market confidence that led to record low unemployment and historically low minority unemployment.
"In September 2017, a Washington Post–ABC News poll asked people an open-ended question: “What one word best describes your impression of Trump? Just the one word that best describes him?” The first most common term to describe him was “incompetent.” Other related characterizations in the top 10 descriptors included “idiot,” “ignorant,” and “unqualified.”
Quinnipiac asked a similar question in December 2017: “What is the first word that comes to mind when you think of President Trump?” By far, the most frequent word that came to mind was “idiot.” Other common terms included “incompetent,” “moron,” “ignorant,” and “stupid.”
Argumentum ad populum that doesn't do a single thing to refute anything I said. There's more and more evidence that polls cannot reach Trump supporters, just like they failed to do in 2016. So it's no surprise that leftists are over-represented in poling.
Wait, I mean, yeah, there's no way Trump is going to win. You should rest easy that those polls mean certain success for Biden.
“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”
~~ Isaac Asimov, Newsweek: “A Cult of Ignorance” January 21, 1980
SyneJul 20, 2020 07:41 AM (This post was last modified: Jul 20, 2020 07:42 AM by Syne.)
(Jul 20, 2020 07:27 AM)Magical Realist Wrote: “There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”
~~ Isaac Asimov, Newsweek: “A Cult of Ignorance” January 21, 1980
Asimov became a staunch supporter of the Democratic Party during the New Deal, and thereafter remained a political liberal.
... He was unhappy about what he considered an "irrationalist" viewpoint taken by many radical political activists from the late 1960s and onwards. In his second volume of autobiography, In Joy Still Felt, Asimov recalled meeting the counterculture figure Abbie Hoffman. Asimov's impression was that the 1960s' counterculture heroes had ridden an emotional wave which, in the end, left them stranded in a "no-man's land of the spirit" from which he wondered if they would ever return.
...
...Asimov's name appeared in the mid-1960s on a list of people the Communist Party USA "considered amenable" to its goals... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Asimov#Politics
Jul 19, 2020 11:35 AM
![[Image: ?u=https%3A%2F%2Fmedia.salon.com%2F2015%...f=1&nofb=1]](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fmedia.salon.com%2F2015%2F10%2Fdeliverance.jpg&f=1&nofb=1)
