"Mommy, he called me bad name."

Michael Blowhard is upset: Post-Election Wrapups.

A post-election point that seemed to me to be overlooked was that perhaps many of those who pulled the Bush lever weren't really voting for Bush. After all, who really likes what he's done to the economy, let alone his stance on immigration?

Perhaps what many Bush voters were doing instead was voting against Kerry's backers, many of whom have been fantastically abusive and snide towards Red America....Good lord, what to make of this?

Lordy lord, I thought. Indeed what to make of Michael's post!  Voting against Kerry's backers? "... fantastically abusive and snide towards Red America? " Huh? That strikes me as pretty excited language. At least it should be. If I truly thought that many of my fellow Kerry-supporters had been "... fantastically abusive and snide towards Red America" I sure would be annoyed and angry and upset.

For the first, it strikes me as just a tad peculiar that anyone would vote for a man (Bush) they don't like in order to get back (somehow) at people who also don't like that same man (Bush.) Isn't there some expression about "spiting one's face"?

I also wonder about the implication that the election was about feelings of insecurity on the part of Red voters vis-a-vis Blue voters. (I take for granted that elections are of course about insecurity about one matter or another.) To start with, where are these "snide and abusive" remarks and opinions? He offers no examples. And I wonder how many such statements, if any, he'll actually be able to  produce -- certainly not more nasty remarks from the Blue side than from the Red side. We have an intensely-divided electorate; the stakes are very high;of course there will be some rough-and-tumble. But the idea that the Blues were more obnoxious than the Reds and attacked Red-state voters is actually pretty funny, maybe even cheeky. Does Michael think that remarks about "Massachusetts liberals" were not just dripping with bile and contempt?

Get a grip; and if one can't stand the heat in the kitchen, there is always an air-conditioned cinema where one can watch a film.

UPDATE:  In response to Brian's comment, below: I saw Farenheit 9-11 and I do not believe that it contains any remarks, attitudes etc etc which are "abusive and snide towards Red America." Moore's movie is dishonest, slanted and nasty in its portrayal of Bush and his team. But, as I remember, it makes few if any references whatsoever to Red Americans and none which which could be considered nasty, even by hyper-sensitive right-wingers who need nurturing and reassurance. I do remember vaguely some scenes of people who had loved ones in the war but I think that they were sympathetic and poignant. No? Moreover, how do offensive anti-Bush bumper stickers reflect Democratic attitudes toward potential Bush supporters themselves? They may be silly, even unbecoming, as political speech but they don't say anything about the Red voter. Anyway, the number of such stickers was trivial; I certainly never saw one and I drive a lot and do notice bumper stickers. I do not believe that this Blowhard idea has any legs and I probably shouldn't have even blogged about it, because any link to a silly idea has the unforunate effect of giving it currency. The very fact that Michael uses FrontPage magazine as a source is an indicator that even he could not be giving his own argument much respect.

UPDATE 2: Michael disclaims any upset. I accept his claim. But his language strikes me as pretty excited language.

And there is no reason why it shouldn't be:  if I actually thought that many of my fellow Kerry-supporters had been "... fantastically abusive and snide towards Red America"  sure -as-shootin' I would be annoyed and angry and upset. And there is nothing wrong with being upset when you hear CS-BS, except that it does tend to puncture distant, what's-it-got-to-do-with-me, oh-so-casual fair-handed posing.

Comments

Well, Michael Moore, for one. Much of the lefty blogsphere could be read as rather sarcastic and superior in tone. And, I doubt if the utterly juvenile, puerile political "thought" represented by "Lick Bush" bumper stickers won too many friends from the great middle.

Nonetheless, this argument is completely specious. The Blue world has never been quite as downright nasty and vindicitve as, for example, a Michale Savage (real name: "Weiner" LOL! What a clown.) Let alone that...creature...Ann Coulter. I guess the red states see no evil in these folks who "just tell the truth"(gag)

[Michael Meckler]

The analysis of "Blowhard" reads like denial. I suspect that for most voters, the recent presidential election was a referendum on Bush, not a referendum on Kerry. Bush supporters voted for him because they genuinely like and approve of him, while Kerry supporters made their choice based upon the fact that they genuinely dislike and disapprove of Bush. Although I found Kerry to be in the "lower-tier" of Democratic candidates (a more electable candidate than Moseley-Braun, Sharpton, Kucinich or Dean; less desirable than Edwards, Graham, Gephardt or Lieberman), I'm not at all certain that if, say, Gephardt or Lieberman had been the candidate, either would have ultimately done any better.

Just as there were the irreconcilable "Clinton haters" in the 1990s, so in this decade there are the "Bush haters" who cannot accept that any reasonable individual could ever rationally support the president. So we end up with wild theories, such as the one promoted by "Blowhard", that claim the election was about something other than an evaluation of Bush.

[Michael Blowhard]

Well ...

1) I'm not remotely upset. I'm not sure why you think I am. I'm doing amateur election-analysis. I'd actually like to see the Dems come to their senses next time around. Seems to me that Bush was hyper-vulnerable this election, and that the Dems threw away a perfectly good chance to beat him. This is debatable, I know, although I'll point out that Clinton did very well in very similar circumstances. What was the diff between then and now? You don't think that's a question the Dems might spend some time thinking about? You suggested in a posting that Dems admit that sometimes regulations need pruning. I suggest they lay off some of the razzing-of-mid-America. What's the diff?

2) I don't know how anyone could quantify whether the nutty right or the nutty left was nastier. Fie on 'em both.

3) That said, I'm not sure how you avoid what seemed plenty obvious to me: the fact that the left routinely (this time around) felt free to call those who disagreed with them stupid and inhumane. Check out Crooked Timber, where it's taken for granted that anyone who doesn't agree with them is stupid and/or inhumane. And that's a pretty civilized, high-end place.

4) There's been an awful lot of Bush=Hitler imagery around. I saw zero Kerry=Stalin stickers or buttons. Ann Coulter wasn't on the stage at the Republican convention; if I remember right, Michael Moore was on the Dem stage. And if you don't think Michael Moore has made a career out of ridiculing and offending mid-America while playing to the leftie choir, we don't live on the same planet. Maybe you think someone in Oklahoma should feel good about it when Moore visits Europe and talks loudly about what a hick, evil and backwards place mid-America is?

5. The Dems, it seemed to me, reverted to '60s-style interest-group ranting -- exactly what Clinton prevented them from doing. They made a bad tactical mistake in making such a big deal out of wanting to legalize gay marriage. It almost seemed to me that the Dems were determined to repeat their dumbest mistakes from ... Oh, say, the Mondale and Carter campaigns. A big part of the Clinton/Carville approach was to not just avoid spitting on mid-America but to show appreciation and respect to it. Clinton's victories showed how a charismatic Dem, with some clear plans, could win -- and it wasn't by spitting on mid-America. There are votes there that can be swayed. The Kerry campaign threw 'em away instead.

[Anna]

Timothy Burke has an excellent (long) post bearing on this, at http://www.swarthmore.edu/SocSci/tburke1/perma111804.html ("I want to address the accusation that... I’ve demonstrated a condescending attitude towards Bush voters in general or specific groups of Bush voters in particular...") - most relevant is his #3, "Strong rhetorical language in the criticism of Bush voters is seen to be condescending...")

[Brian Miller]

Even reading Michael's explanation, this still remains a case of the pot calling the kettle black. Sure Coulter was "not on the stage." But, Coulter and the religious right and their ilk-where such language is rampant-was a key part of the right's campaign. Michael Moore may be pompous and smug, but he is not nearly as vitriolic as most of the screeds published by the right during the election year.

[David Sucher]

Michael. I appreciate the time you have spent in responding but there is not enough attention to my query -- merely more claims and assertions -- to warrant a detailed response.

I made a very simple request:
Please offer some examples of how "many Kerry backers" were "fantastically abusive and snide towards Red America."

You have not done so but have merely repeated your point-of-view without offering any specifics.

My experience with people who respond like that is that they don't have anything real to back-up their claims. QED.

Honestly, Michael, I am disappointed that you would buy into such cheap politics.

No it's more than just the cheap politics that bothers me about Michael's post. It's the sloppiness, the casual way he casts aspersions. If he had some specifics to back up his contention, or if he was straightforward-enough to explain that such-and-such encounter was the reason that he himself voted for Bush, it wouldn't be quite such an unfortunate post. But it's posed in some sort of objective manner, as if it is a fair-handed examination of the election.

•••

(The only thing I'd add is that your characterization of Michael Moore is surprising and indicates that perhaps you may not be familiar with him.)

[Glen Raphael]

Fish don't notice the water they're swimming in.

If you're liberal, malicious barbed comments about Bush and his supporters have no sting in them, so you don't notice when they pop up around the dinner table, in newspaper editorials, and on bumper stickers.

Similarly, if you're conservative, you probably don't notice what Brian refers to as "vitriolic screeds published by the right". I'm sure they exist, but I (a libertarian) certainly didn't notice any. Either they weren't published in places I read, or if they were I agreed with enough of the substance that they didn't strike me as over the top.

There is a huge selection bias problem here.

[David Sucher]

There is no question that each side has cast vitriol on the others' leader. But it's been that way forever; look at how Republicans spoke of FDR; Kerry got off lightly compared to that.

But a line that was supposedly crossed by Kerry supporters and that line is that the vitriol was directed toward the Bush supporters. I do not think that that claim is supportable.

In fact I'd say it's just the opposite; if you look at recent history, you'll remember that Nixon tried to characterize his supporters as the "silent majority" -- the real Americans.

[Nicholas Weininger]

On the one hand, I've seen plenty of right-wing bumper stickers on the order of "Stop Hanoi John", which is pretty close to the "Kerry=Stalin" thing.

On the other hand, as a genuine example of vicious lefty snobbery about red state voters I'd offer Jane Smiley's column in the Slate election postmortem. Culturally I'm about as blue as blue can be-- and in particular I am a militant atheist and I hate religious-conservative voters *a lot*-- and even I thought her piece was over the top.

[David Sucher]

Oh yeah, Smiley was a bit intemperate -- the day after the election. It's to be expected.

I blogged on a strange post by a spiritual Red Stater -- Roger L. Simon -- a while back; I wonder what he would have written had Kerry won.

So you have to take Smiley's piece in perspective.

Nontheless, I am still curious to find any remotely mainstream articles, speeches, posts etc etc --- written before the election -- which are "fantastically abusive and snide towards Red America". I simply don't believe that they are there.

In fact, I think it's just the opposite, in fact.

But go ahead, prove me wrong.

[Brian Miller]

Well, there was also the whole "Urban Archipelago" essay which quickly spread through the left wing blogsphere I frequent.

Again, though...that's nothing compared with the poison the right has been shovelling out for 15 years.

[David Sucher]

What is the "Urban Archipelago" essay? Never heard of it nor heard anyone refer to it.

[David Sucher]

Oh. Just Googled it.

I haven't read it yet to see if it is "fantastically abusive and snide toward Red America" but I do not that it was written AFTER the election.

And it's in The Stranger. For god's sake, how seriously can you take that!?! Sure it is not a bad little tattooed and nose-ringed weekly but it hardly offers evidence at all that many Kerry supporters were "fantastically abusive and snide toward Red America" and that such attitude was a factor in the election.

Look we are not talking here about attitudes in the country in general. We are talking very specifically about Michael Blowhard's very specific statement so let's keep on-point.

[Brian Miller]

True all, David. Just like I don't put too much faith in the analysis of the San Francisco Bay Guardian. :)

My confession: I thought it was funny-at first.

And, to take up your theme: the right certainly did attack directly the supporters of the Kerry campaign. "Talk to a Liberal if you Must" Liberals as traitors. I would be concerned about anyone, libertarian or "conservative" who is not bothered by the vitriol in Ann Coulter's best selling books.

[Glen Raphael]

Michael's statement originally rang true for me, but the Timothy Burke posting has forced me to reconsider somewhat and think about /why/ it rang true: Since I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, all the people I encounter at work and when visiting my family are liberals, and the attitudes they express towards "the red states" are exactly that expressed in the Urban Archipelago essay.

Here's a good quote from http://www.urbanarchipelago.com/ :

'Citizens of the Urban Archipelago reject heartland "values" like xenophobia, sexism, racism, and homophobia, as well as the more intolerant strains of Christianity that have taken root in this country. And we are the real Americans. They--rural, red-state voters, the denizens of the exurbs--are not real Americans. They are rubes, fools, and hate-mongers.'

Even though I would never vote for Bush (I planned to vote for Kerry, but went with Badnarik at the last minute), I realized as the votes were being counted that I was glad Bush was winning. Not because I wanted Bush to win but simply because his winning would annoy people like the author of that article.

I've often thought of the left as much more self-righteous and judgmental than the right. But maybe that's because I don't know anybody on the right. My default view of red-staters as "probably reasonable people" was formed in ignorance, and perhaps if I knew more right-wingers I would be as aware of their shortcomings as I am of the left's shortcomings.

So to answer your (David's) question: The Blues were certainly more obnoxious than the Reds in MY neighborhood, because the Reds didn't exist.

Brian: Have you actually read any of Ann Coulter's books? All the way through? (I haven't either, of course. Maybe if I had, I'd be bothered. Maybe not. But third-hand "she's really outrageous!" reports aren't enough to bother me.)

[Brian Miller]

Re: Ann Coulter

Just sections-that was enough. Just like I don't spend any more time listening to Der UberWiener (Michael "Wiener" Savage) on Hate Talk 560. I have read and heard enough. There is limited time in my day. Why waste it on dross? There are legitimate conservatives who I do read and still respect. Heck, I find Rush very, very funny sometimes (although he is indeed a big fat lying hypocrite :)).

If there are pearls of wisdom in Coulter and her like, I guess I'll just have to miss out.

[Brian Miller]

Re: Ann Coulter

Just sections-that was enough. Just like I don't spend any more time listening to Der UberWiener (Michael "Wiener" Savage) on Hate Talk 560. I have read and heard enough. There is limited time in my day. Why waste it on dross?

There are legitimate conservatives who I do read and still respect. I read the Wall Street Journal every day-even the Editorial Page. I read the Economist. I even find City Journal sometimes interesting and thought-provoking (but way over the top) Heck, I find Rush very, very funny sometimes (although he is indeed a big fat lying hypocrite :)).

If there are pearls of wisdom in Coulter and her like, I guess I'll just have to miss out.

In the end, though, there is a lot of distrust by us urban elitists (although I live in the outer 'burbs in a military town, so...) of "the heartland." Heck, I'm sorry but I don't trust the heartland's values voters. Their superstitions do potentially directly affect me.

[Eric Brown]

Perhaps the links in this article will serve.

[David Sucher]

huh? serves to do what?