Interesting People mailing list archives
Simitians mission to middle America
From: "Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com>
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2017 22:40:55 -0500
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From: Chuck McManis <chuck.mcmanis () gmail com> Date: December 12, 2017 at 7:05:47 PM EST To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net> Subject: Simitians mission to middle America Dave - for the IP list. The following article appeared in the Sept 6th issue of the Mercury News, it recounts the quest of Joe Smitian (currently a Santa Clara county supervisor) to understand the vote for Trump. I embarked on a similar mission mostly with my extended family which covers the spectrum across the country. Much of what Joe found I can corroborate. But this is the key message:People really, deeply hated Hillary Clinton. Their economic problems were decades in the making. And Democrats could learn a few things by listening carefully.Simitian explains that the switch from Barack Obama to Donald Trump wasn’t as outlandish as it seems from here. In 2008, the voters in the three counties thought Obama was the change they craved. He wasn’t. With Trump, they were doubling down.I have observed similarities between suicide bombers and voters for Trump, where both groups have testified that their actions were the only way left to them with which to effect change. While they realized they were going to harm many innocent people, those same people were somewhat complicit in allowing the oppression to continue. As of this writing I don't know if Moore has won the election in Alabama or not, but I hear two different narratives, one which is appealing to voters (the system is broken elect me to fix it) and one which is not (we need to elect leaders who share our morality and values). We need empathy, we need to internalize why someone who is rational, feels that detonating a suicide vest in the middle of a crowded market is the only way left for them to get the attention of the government. We need to understand why it is important to get a "win for the Republicans" at the expense of a "win for the people they represent." We need to elect leaders who will penalize big money interests when they do wrong, and we need to expose people who pander to those interests at the expense of their constituents. I believe that only then will we get the voters of middle America to vote for competent leaders over buffoons. From the Mercury News: After Donald Trump was elected president, Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian, a long-time Democrat, embarked on a mission to Middle America to find out why. He wondered why the rest of the country saw things so differently than his own constituents. The 64-year-old supervisor spent a week in each of three counties that had voted for Barack Obama but flipped in 2016 for Donald Trump: Robeson County, N.C.; Cambria County, PA., and Macomb County, Michigan. Simitian munched on fried chicken at Candy Sue’s in Lumberton, N.C. He ate a hot dog at Coney Island Lunch in Johnstown, PA., with an 80-year-old retiree who voted for Trump. He even visited a traveling circus and a biker bar. The nub of what the supervisor found is worth repeating in our bubble within a bubble. People really, deeply hated Hillary Clinton. Their economic problems were decades in the making. And Democrats could learn a few things by listening carefully. Simitian explains that the switch from Barack Obama to Donald Trump wasn’t as outlandish as it seems from here. In 2008, the voters in the three counties thought Obama was the change they craved. He wasn’t. With Trump, they were doubling down. “It’s a mistake to think that this is a moment in time,’’ says Simitian, whose hometown, Palo Alto gave Trump only 12 percent of its votes. “We’ve been building to this point for decades.’’ Working around his board schedule and traveling with an office-holder account — not taxpayer money — the Santa Clara County supervisor checked in with his office at 3 p.m. daily and stayed in touch by phone and email. He talked to people from all stratas — cops, teachers, librarians, labor leaders, elected officials, journalists, even a college cross-country team. By and large, he found people remarkably eager to explain their viewpoint. But he did have one telling exchange on the phone with a Republican leader in Pennsylvania who resisted talking to a Democratic officeholder from Silicon Valley. Simitian asked her why. “Silicon Valley didn’t give a (expletive) about western Pennsylvania for the past 50 years,’’ the woman told him. “I have no reason to believe that anyone cares today.’’ Simitian will be talking about his mission at the Mountain View Senior Center on Sept. 9 at 2 p.m., and at the Palo Alto City Council chambers on Sept. 16 at 1 p.m.. The three places he visited offered different portraits in economic decline. Robeson County, where Democrats outnumber Republicans 5 to 1, is a poor place that has been deserted by tobacco and textiles. Cambria County in western Pennsylvania is a hardscrabble locale that has seen plants closed. Even in more affluent Macomb County, north of Detroit, people have a sense of losing ground. Simitian says Democrats in Silicon Valley underestimate just how much people loathed Hillary Clinton, who became the symbol of an establishment they felt betrayed them. He says he constantly heard the mantra, “emails, Benghazi, and foundation.’’ “It was palpable,’’ he said. “They didn’t like her. They didn’t trust her.’’ In a gas line in Michigan, Simitian asked a man whom he had voted for. The man said he had voted libertarian. Simitian asked why. “I think Hillary Clinton is the Antichrist and I fear Donald Trump,’’ he remembers the man saying. That distrust was compounded by mistakes in the Clinton campaign: In Johnstown, PA., Clinton showed up at wire-producing factory for an invitation-only event. That prompted local wags to point out that Hillary was appearing — literally — behind barbed wire, one of the factory’s products. Trump, meanwhile, invited everyone to his event at the War Memorial arena. Did people believe everything that Trump was selling? Simitian says no. But the Republican was at least talking about their economic woes, while the Democrats seemed distant. “False hope,’’ he quoted one one business leader in Johnstown as saying, “is better than no hope at all.’’ <http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/09/06/a-supervisors-search-to-fathom-trumps-appeal/>
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- Simitians mission to middle America Dave Farber (Dec 13)