Thread by @RadioFreeTom

Now, why am I taking all these images about JFK and recasting them in 2020 terms? It's not because I have any love for JFK, as @bobcesca_go can tell you. Rather, it is to make the point that the terms we use about "forgotten towns" in 2020 are ridiculous. /1

We have taken the great populist yawps of the past ten years and recast them as legitimate gripes from The Oppressed and Forgotten, when in fact this kind of malignant, backwards thinking has always been around; books were written on back in the day that we now ignore. /2

Now, as then, we conveniently forget that the *truly* The Oppressed and Forgotten are not part of those movements at all. Most Trumpers (and Lega, and Brexit voters) are middle class. Yes, Appalachia loves Trump. But that's not how populism has grown. That's not who they are. /3

Populism is not a movement of the very poorest. It's middle class white guys who think the culture doesn't respect them enough. It's the same guys snubbing JFK at TCU and putting ads in Dallas papers about Commies in 1963. It's about identity and class and race. /4

You could go to a hundred diners and gas stations in 1963 and those guys wouldn't sound a lot different from the guys you hear from in 2020, except they'd have been a lot more willing to just say "n*gger" out loud. They're insecure and hollow *people*, not hollow *towns*. /5

As @secupp once said, "the Forgotten Men" were forgotten for a reason. And @Tracinski was right to note that a lot of our rationalizing about Trumpists and other jerks is little more than "nationalist intellectuals just trying to backfill their ideology into this void." /6

I do not admire JFK as a man, even if I recognize many of the great things he did. But the reaction to him in 1963 was not that different from the reaction among the same sort of people who would hate him today as they hated him then. They've always been among us. /7

Why is it different now? Because social media and the cable news ecosystem (1) amplifies their voices, (2) allows the cranks in every city and town to unify to create a movement, and (3) provides easy access their eyeballs - AND WALLETS - in a way you couldn't do in 1963. /8

So, please, let's cut the weepy horseshit about how the Great Populist Revolt was the result of economics or culture. If the internet and Fox had existed in 1961, JFK would still be alive because he'd have been impeached by 1961. It's time to stop rationalizing. /9x