Extremely feeling this and the entire rant that precedes it. I don't think Tom is fluent in Woke, but the phenomena he's talking about here have names: white innocence & white fragility. Patterns of behavior & rhetoric familiar from, eg, Confederate states in the runup to the CW.
https://twitter.com/RadioFreeTom/status/1332134829685673985
It's always the same. No matter how much cruelty & suffering they impose, however unjust the cultures they build, they are always the victims -- of misunderstanding, of condescension -- and it is always everyone else who's obliged to "reach out" & understand them better.
That's the dumbest part of it. "We need to understand Trump voters better." Guess what? They aren't that fucking complicated! They've told us, through their words & behavior, what motivates them. It's a group dynamic as old as humanity; it dominates US history. We get it!
In US politics, "understand them better" just means "don't hold them responsible for what they say & do." That's always been it. Hold white conservatives blameless, even as they kick you in the face, because ... well, they're upset. They don't feel special like they used to.
Finally, this is almost too obvious to point out, but look at how subaltern groups in the US are treated -- Black people, gay people, immigrants, take your pick. When they grow frustrated & lash out, does the establishment rush to say "we need to understand them better"? Ha.
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