Originally published at: How Republicans Stopped Talking About ‘Neighborhood,’ And Why Democrats Should Make That Term Their Own - TPM – Talking Points Memo
This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. Donald Trump portrays city neighborhoods as feral places, deranged by Democrats. “The crime is so out of control in our country,” Trump charged at a Michigan campaign stop during the recent Democratic National Convention. “The top 25 [cities] almost all are run…
2 Likes
Words matter, and I appreciate this essay.
Tim Walz stood out to me because he used the word “neighbor” prominently in video clips I saw of him after he became the vice-presidential nominee. I didn’t know he used the word seven times in his speech at the Convention. It is perfect for him because it is easy to believe that he likes people, has a regard for the ordinary people living near him in his life. It draws a perfect contrast between him and the supercilious JD Vance.
For the first time, I thought about the Trumps of Mar-a-Lago having neighbors, and the idea itself seems ludicrous…
I like the phrase “community not conformity.”
12 Likes
Seems like “those cities are horrible cesspools of violence because democrats” is not really a winning message when appealing to rural voters in redneckistan or elsewhere.
2 Likes
I don’t walk across the street to get a loaf of bread, and I live in Minneapolis. There hasn’t been a mugging, rape or murder on my street in a good long time.
6 Likes
Nice article. Notable that the boy from Queens only builds his big beautiful towers in big beautiful cities. Call me when there’s a Trump Tower Springfield.
14 Likes
Crime… too much crime in Springfield accordingvto trump
Doesn’t matter it’s in the most right wing part of Ohio… trump would have ya believe the place is over run with feral Black skinned rapists from Haiti so he can’t build a trump tower there.
5 Likes
“The top 25 [cities] almost all are run by Democrats… But you can’t walk across the street to get a loaf of bread. You get shot, you get mugged, you get raped"
“You get audited, you can’t feel up women. They fine you for putting up fake universities. Terrible. Terrible places.”
11 Likes
Yet to understand the significance of this seething anti-cities rhetoric … requires a brief look at a deep-seated tension in how conservatives have talked about urban areas across recent decades.
“Urban” = “Not Pink”.
How’s that for a brief look?
(What’s not to understand? This ain’t rocket surgery.)
11 Likes
The original white flight was from city inner cores to the new postwar suburbs, which were caricatured by people like Pete Seegar and others as being sterile.
But that was 60-70 years ago. Meanwhile, the suburbs have mature trees and a more diverse look, both as people remodeled their houses and different types of people moved in. Over time, the politics have changed: In 1988, GHW Bush absolutely swept the suburbs; as of now, those suburbs (which now have a much more “neighborhood” feel, are trending Democratic. In 1983, when I moved to Fairfax County, VA, it was substantially Republican. Now it’s overwhelmingly Dem. (I think only one out of 13 supervisory districts is GOP).
Where did the Republicans go? They’re out in the exurbs, those raw places, 30 or 40 miles from a metro center, with no sidewalks, no curbs, with faux chateaux. There are no community centers, no community pools, nobody knows his neighbors, no neighborhood newsletters, or volunteer organizations, etc.
And that’s the way Republicans like it. Other people are a threat. It’s the kind of armed-to-the-teeth, survivalist mentality that GOP hate radio and the NRA have been propagandizing for years. That’s why the are allergic to the concept of neighborhood – they are antisocial.
7 Likes
This exactly. Republicans envision a Mad Max future, where only those living in zombie apocalypse fortresses with Bitcoin™ can survive. Otherwise the non-whites (ie: everyone from Haitians to Jewish people, to the Irish) will eat their pets, rape their daughters, and turn their sons into girls (presumably for more raping?). I’m not sure who we’re supposed to harvest stem-cells/pineal glands from…
Meanwhile, they don’t want to address actual problems, like climate change, housing, the medical system, unaccountable judiciary, mass murders via assault weapons, etc. Most of which have been or are being addressed by other 1st world nations.
They live in a fantasy-land devoid of facts or solutions.
6 Likes
Tim Walz is your neighbor. Actually, he’s the guy you’d like to see across the fence, or on the sidewalk, introducing himself and welcoming you, if you’ve just moved in to a new community. (“Community” is another word worth reclaiming, BTW.)
If instead you are met by JD Vance, you might be double-checking your locks and window latches when you get ready for bed that night.
7 Likes
This sounds like a great idea! I can’t wait to read this…
2 Likes
No mention of Ayn Rand. Both Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher were acolytes of Rand and believed that “society” didn’t exist, only individuals, and anything collective, like government was bad. Their policies and most right-wing policies (and too much of Democratic) of the last forty-five years have tried very hard to make this belief a reality. Selfishness is not a virtue and Ayn Rand philosophy is sociopathic. The evidence is in and Trump its realization. Democrats need to repudiate Reagan’s and his BS Rand-inspired revolution and return to neighborhoods and communities and to sanity.
10 Likes
After everything he’s already inflicted on Springfield, a tRump Tower would add insult to injury.
2 Likes
7 Likes
I would never want someone like That Man as a neighbor. He simply hates poor people.
2 Likes
Dump Tower Podunk, yee ha!
“It’s a maniacal day in the neighborhood…won’t you be mine?!”
1 Like
I wish one so-called journalist would grow a pair and ask Fat Hitler how he knows a single fucking thing that’s going on in any city from his little hide-a-way at Mar-a-Shithole?
1 Like
Huh? Of course it’s a winning message if Fat Hitler or one of this obedient bitches masquerades as the bulwark to protect their rural cousin-fucking shithole from the black, brown, immigrant gay antifa horde coming to destroy their precious way of life.