The elites who think MAGA voters are rubes are
Republicans
Opinion by
Columnist
November 11, 2020 at 10:45 a.m. CST
A
central tenet of the outlook of many conservatives is that “elites” look down
upon them and regard them as bigoted, uneducated rubes. Well, they have a
point: That’s exactly how Republican politicians and the revenue-generating,
right-wing media machine regard them.
It was
not the Democratic nominee who thought suburbanites would be
afraid of integration; that was President Trump. Using George Soros — a
Hungarian Jewish immigrant — as a slur and anti-Semitic code word is a right-wing tactic;
Democrats have no such Jewish bogeyman. It is Trump who
believes fear of immigrants is what motivates his base; Democrats trust voters
to understand that immigration is essential to the United States. And it is
Republicans such as Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.) —
not Democrats — who are convinced that constituents will buy into the
anti-Ukrainian Kremlin agitprop that they dish out in generous portions.
Fox
News is apparently convinced that its viewers want a steady diet of Hunter
Biden conspiracy theories, horror stories linking immigration and crime, false
and ludicrous claims of voter fraud from anonymous witnesses and
climate change denial. Rupert Murdoch and his clan, not to mention producers
and executives, surely know this is bunk; its own reporters on the news side
know it is claptrap. But, hey, this is the slop they figure their audience
craves. (Disclosure: I am an MSNBC contributor.)
Republicans’
contempt for the masses is nowhere more obvious than in the latest Trump scam —
his claim of a “stolen election.” I have zero doubt that Senate Majority Leader
Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and every Republican senator knows the election was
definitive. Biden won. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), who said he has
“nothing to congratulate” Biden for, must figure members of his base are so
ignorant and irrational that they will think better of him if he practices
election denial. And when educated senators call on election officials to count
only “legal” votes — as is always the case — they must think bamboozling and
enraging voters is the way politics is practiced.
The
entire GOP strategy for the Georgia Senate elections apparently centers on a
belief that Georgia voters are irrational and will rise up in fury because they
think they have been wronged — again — by conniving Democrats. The Post reports: “Fear
over losing the Senate majority by falling short in the upcoming runoff
elections for two U.S. Senate seats in Georgia has become a driving and
democracy-testing force inside the GOP, with party leaders on Tuesday seeking
to delegitimize President-elect Joe Biden’s victory as they labored to rally
voters in the state.”
Georgia’s
Republican Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler seem convinced that ideas and
political philosophy do not motivate voters. Seething, blind resentment is what
they need to instill in voters (hence their letter calling
for the resignation of Georgia’s Republican secretary of state). McConnell
seems to agree. The Post reports: “For McConnell,
as well as Perdue and Loeffler, keeping in step with Trump — and with the White
Republicans in Georgia who are loyal to him — is paramount as they go about
trying to win the seats, according to GOP aides and Republican strategists
interviewed Tuesday.”
Democrats,
meanwhile, operate under the assumption that voters are not idiots. Per the
Post: “The first ad by [Georgia’s Democratic Senate nominee Jon Ossoff] for the
runoff campaign asserts that his priorities, if he joins the Senate, will be
managing and fighting the coronavirus, helping small businesses and
passing an infrastructure bill.” In other words, Ossoff thinks voters are
rational, appreciate policy choices and expect politicians to address real-life
concerns. It’s almost as if he does not think politics is performance art for
self-pitying cultists. How quaint.
Meanwhile,
Raphael Warnock, the other Georgia Democrat preparing for a Senate runoff
election, “has talked up his rise from being one of 12 children growing up in
the Savannah projects to running the church the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
[preached at] as a platform for national change.” Hope, change, progress. He is
not selling hate or fear.
The metaphor
in the closing days of the Trump campaign was striking: Trump held campaign
rallies that apparently became superspreader
events. He also left supporters stranded in the cold in
remote locations without transportation back to their homes or vehicles. Total
disregard for their well-being is part and parcel of the Trump campaign.
Respect? Hardly.
Republicans’
leap into anti-democratic conspiracy theories, climate change denial and
economic illiteracy (selling protectionism and fear of immigration) reflects
their abiding belief that politics is about inflaming ignorant people — or
making people ignorant about the real choices they have. Missouri Sen. Josh
Hawley (a product of Stanford and Yale Law School), Cruz (Princeton and Harvard
Law School), Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton (Harvard and Harvard Law School) and the
rest of the possible 2024 Republican contenders are not stupid. But they
apparently think their voters are, and they think their political careers
depend on voters’ irrationality, bigotry and gullibility.
The
MAGA voters are right: Many politicians and media personalities regard them
with contempt. But they come from their own party and movement, and they are
laughing all the way to the bank. There is nothing they think their voters
won’t buy.