The Cultural, Political, and Ideological Divide in America

In April of 2008, then-presidential candidate Barack Obama was speaking at a San Francisco fundraiser. In attempting to explain what he believed was the resentment and frustration in some places, he said, “You go to these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing replaced them. And they (Americans) fell through the Clinton and Bush administrations, and each successive administration has said that somehow these small-town communities are going to regenerate, and they have not. It is not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to their guns or religion or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustration.”

In September of 2016 then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was speaking at an LGBTQ fundraiser in New York City. Ms. Clinton, at the time believing she would be the next president, decided to vent her own brand of frustration, and the dissatisfaction she harbored for certain of the American people. She went on to say that none of her supporters should get complacent and think her opponent (Donald Trump) because of his outrageous behavior and crude language cannot achieve victory and is done for and that in this volatile political environment anything is possible.

Then the Democratic presidential candidate revealed her true unbridled feelings, and there rose to the surface her innermost demons, and she unloaded about how she felt and thought about Americans with traditional values, much to the laughter of the assembled, “To be grossly (generalistic)," she said, "you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call a basket of deplorable(s). They’re racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic and Islamophobic, you name it.” She then said to the assembled, something like, "I place you my friends in another basket."

Mrs. Clinton mentioned how he (Trump) has lifted them - his supporters - up and given voice to their websites. And how this basket of people feel the government and economy have let them down, nobody cares about them, and that they’re desperate for change. She then added this “Now some of these folks, they are irredeemable, but thankfully they are not America.”

Recently on a segment of CNN, host Bob Lemon spoke with never-Trump Republican strategist Rick Wilson and some unknown entity called Wajahat Ali. They were discussing, in what was apparently a heated interview with an NPR host, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s asking the host if she could find Ukraine on a map. She could not, and pointed to some distant location. Wilson then went on a tirade saying this is the kind of situation that appeals to Trump's “rubes” and makes them feel smart and, in a southern drawl, said, “y’all elites are dumb.”

Both of the guests then engaged, to the hysterical laughter of the host, in insulting rhetoric insinuating that Trump supporters aren’t familiar with geography, spelling, reading, and knowing other countries. Wilson then said of Pompeo that “He was just trying to demean her, the NPR host, and deep in his heart he knows that Donald Trump couldn’t find Ukraine on a map if you had the letter ‘U’ and the actual, physical crane next to it.”

Wilson continued "He (Pompeo) knows that this is an administration defined by ignorance of the world, and that's partly him playing to their base and playing to their audience of the credulous boom rube demo that backs Donald Trump that wants to think that (again in a southern drawl) Donald Trump is the smart one and y'all elitists are dumb." There was more, but suffice it to say they revealed their ruthless belittlement toward fellow Americans, to the delight of their host.

These three examples do not represent the entirety of instances of elite bias about the American people that have occurred over the years, especially during the Trump administration. Just recently NBC host of Meet the Press Chuck Todd asked a panel of guests “If supporters of President Trump want to be lied to.” I believe, as do most, this was more a statement from a biased anti-Trump media leftist.

Someone once said, “People hate the ones who make them feel their own inferiority.” Democrats and their supporters in the media, especially the never-Trump and those on the left, have proven over time how they harbor their own bigoted resentment and frustrations toward these same American people that Mr. Obama, Hillary Clinton, and the CNN guests singled out, insulted, and spoke about. I believe their mindset is a manifestation of political, ideological, and cultural differences, and that their intent is to invalidate any support by these Americans for the president.

But it is also apparent when listening to these naysayers and malcontents, or reading their comments, that many of them believe they are both morally and intellectually superior to Trump supporters. The truth is, however, and as the quote suggests, they see in traditional America a people with qualities and virtues that are in fact beyond their ken, for they are inferior.