This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. It was originally published at The Conversation.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1450001
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1450001
Not sure but I think it was Ms Haley who said “wokeness is worse than any pandemic.” I heard the quote on NPR just as I was exiting my car so I missed the attribution.
edit
must add cat pic…
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Meanwhile, Democrats are told time and time again they need to be chasing that white working class voter in fly over country.
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One of our Hive cohort insisted that “fly over country” is pejorative…and there I was patting myself on the back for not using “Dumbfuckistan”.
What’s a coastal elitist supposed to say?
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Of the US we say…
Civilation in the East and West, Corn in the middle.
Works for talking about Pennsylvania too 
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Tim Scott fails to understand that his arc is an anecdote.
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Perhaps we can start to subtly shift that term of white working class away from white rubes.
I know I am somewhat in a ‘truthiness’ bubble, but I just can’t find much news of rank-n-file, Joe and Jane Regular liberals doing much wrong. The R white working class, in just about every account I read, has a bankruptcy or two in their closet. They fall for all the Gold and Silver and Crypto stuff. All the fake remedies. Don’t pay their taxes. Seem to fall for construction, contractor, farming, and sole-proprietorship-type rugged individual ‘job creator’ fantasies where they end up stiffing their undocumented employees, leave a trail of victimized customers, manage to not pay their taxes, and file for bankruptcy. Seem to abuse their kids at a pretty high rate, all while professing Jeebus has prosperity waiting for them around the next bend. Spend most of their lives advocating against the very protections, education, and public services that kept their low-info, tax-cheating, grifting, dead-weight-on-society asses out of prison. Oh, and they usually have a newish mortgaged pole shed filled with boats, ATVs, Gators, snowmobiles, jet-skis, and other vehicles they bought on credit and attempted to write-off as sole-proprietor business expenses on their unpaid taxes.
I know, that is a lot of generalizing. Also, I know there are plenty of honorable farmers and self-proprietors but that seems more from a bygone era. When liberals go the self-proprietor route…they seem more responsible and don’t leave a wake of destruction and debt if it doesn’t go well. I am pulling quite a bit from recent history…the bios of the J6 rioters and influx of new Rs into local and election politics. None of the folks I sample just plain worked a job, and led a thrifty life.
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I guess what concerns me is if we focus too much on the “white working class,” and ignore “the issues facing a majority of African Americans and other people of color,” we will see Republicans take votes because the Nikki Haley’s and Tim Scott are at least speaking to them while Democrats are focusing on the people who aren’t going to vote for us anyway.
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So conservative people of color will vote against their own interest just as poor white conservatives vote against their economic interests. Just keep taking more books away and the base will continue to expand.
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Ahh, ok. I wasn’t concentrating on who Dems should be reaching out to…just an observation that slightly more than half of the ‘white working class’ are almost worse than Big Money. Chewing through, and wasting, more resources and goodwill than any other group by population. And nearly every story of malfeasance and mayhem not caused by entrenched industries and Big Money has idiotic, self-deluded conservative regular Joes and Janes leading a life of scams which result in bankruptcies and net-losses for the planet and all humans everywhere. White Working Class is too good a name for those folks. I do not believe Dems need to focus MORE on African Americans and people of color…but I also do not know what the answer is.
I DO know what I heard a recent R politician saying about voting demographics. She said it was a waste of time trying to woo other populations when there is a tiny chance of success. Much easier to convert white blue-collar folks suffering from off-shoring of our blue-collar economy and Union destruction.
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“. . . the first female minority governor in history.”
Who goes by the name Nikki Haley instead of her given name of Nimarata Nikki Randhawa Haley.
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Hey!! I resemble that!
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In my volunteering i have seen a run down trailer in a trailer park. 2 brand new cars with dealer plates next to the trailer. And a less than 3 yr old Ram pick up out front with Texas plates
. I’m left wondering. … brand new cars, biiig truck, crappy trailer. Who would they vote for?
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I don’t have an issue with her name. A lot of people go by their middle name, and a lot of married women take their husband’s last name.
There are a lot of things about Nikki that I question. Her name is not one of those things.
One of the things that I do question about Nikki is her stupid tweets.
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My daughter says, “Hi Mom! What weekend is our family reunion this summer? And what should I bring?”
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I am not aware of a federal program that teaches anyone to hate America. Questioning a policy is not “hating America”. Seems Ms Haley misunderstands civil disagreement. And freedom of speech does not mean instant agreement. Let’s see Ms Haley try to remove that from the Constitution.
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Not that it will affect the next election cycle (or two), I do believe that people like Malcolm Kenyatta of Pennsylvania are making inroads with rural Pennsylvanians.
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Grift.
A new form of it.
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Pennsyltucky works for a certain portion of it.
The Rust Belt works for a chunk of it, too.
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The Democrats may well seem not as flashy as these people, but, for the most part, they are endeavoring to govern for the benefit of all citizens.
This all smacks of salesmanship.
PERIOD
ETA…Haley seems to be enamored with her oratory cleverness.
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