What is intended isn’t always what happens. They had no control over how far mainstream White culture would take the bigot archetype or how people would internalize the political arguments. They couldn’t stop Archie from being a hero in the eyes of folk who agreed with him.
This is the crux, you can’t dangle a “lovable bigot” in White America’s face and expect it to not take the bait or choose its “better angels” instead. This is why Putin and the GOP ran Trump for POTUS.
As it goes, much of mainstream White conventional wisdom held that Trump was a cartoon that other White people wouldn’t take seriously or support and look what happened on 11/8/16. He wasn’t the butt of the joke to them, he’s their hero.
People need to be more careful about declaring fake victories over hatred with levity. Deplorables don’t grasp snark or any liberal argument that refutes their deeply entrenched and bigoted worldview. They aren’t growing or learning anything but more hatred.
This for the umpteenth time is why the mythology of Bernie on the left is so dangerous, it’s predicated on a fantasy that basic logic on dollars and cents will somehow bring conservatives into the tent when they’re actually avoiding it *intentionally* for bigotry’s sake.
If you aren’t appealing to the White working class in terms of rage and resentment you are being tuned out in favor of folk like Trump, Roseanne and @FoxNews. They won’t settle for less when the field is ripe with folk who will speak their exact language. These are the stakes.
It doesn’t make sense for clever White liberals who avoid family gatherings or have completely written off their conservative family members/friends to expect that a clever White liberal who abets/excuses bigotry in service of populism will ever convince them to vote Democrat.
Bernie goes out of his way to convince us that Trump and the people who voted for him are capable of evolution, cooperation and humanity when they do nothing but prove otherwise. He embraces the lovable bigot archetype far more than he denounces it.
Food for thought...
Food for thought...
