Ugly progressive

It's been about a week since Donald Trump won the popular vote to become president once again. I didn't vote for the man and I believe that his call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger asking for him to "find 11,780 votes" and his attempt to intimidate the Georgia official by saying, "You know, that's a criminal offense. And you know, you can't let that happen. That's a big risk to you." should have disqualified Trump for running for president again, if not subjecting him to charges of treason. But such are our laws.

Just as the election season is done so too am I with the post mortems. If I never have to hear Rachel Maddow bloviate again it will be too soon. Sadly, the election has revealed that the ugliness which infects Madison progressives goes deeper than a trio of moviegoers.

Take Paul Fanlund, publisher of The Capital Times. In an opinion piece called "Face it, Donald Trump’s ‘cult’ is now an American majority", he writes:

The country today is on strong economic footing, whatever the distortions. That an overwhelming majority of Wisconsin voters did not understand or appreciate those facts represents the ultimate triumph of propaganda.

The very next day Isthmus noted "Times are tight at Madison food pantries".

This echoes what Fanlund's own paper noted earlier this year in a piece called "Dane County food pantries say demand surged to record highs":

I guess these area folks who don't have a lot of money left to buy food after paying rent are actually flush with cash from the booming economy and just don't understand or appreciate how pecunious they truly are because of propaganda. Perhaps it's how you slice it, which statistics you cite but there just seems to be a disconnect between the wonderful economy heralded by this well-heeled blowhard and a growing number of Wisconsonians who are in the bread line.

"Propaganda" from Appleton's Post-Crescent dated barely a month ago indicates that the same holds true in the northeastern part of Wisconsin.

What a bunch of fools! How can they not appreciate the great economy?!

Look! Even more victims of propaganda in Menominee County:

and the Coulee Region.

Later in his screed, the querulous Fanlund claims that all Trump voters are white.

Trump voters are willing to tell young women and people of color they should continue to know their place as second-class citizens.

Trump voters are willing to tell immigrants who — like their own northern European ancestors — are simply seeking the American dream, that that door is now closed.

These comments elide the rest of the story, as Paul Harvey used to say, i.e. - the news that people without northern European ancestry voted in larger numbers for Trump than previously thought possible by the progressive clerisy. Trump made gains with Black and Hispanic voters in large part because of the economy. Support for Trump from Blacks here in Wisconsin soared dramatically.

Oh look! Latinos saying it was the economy.

And Native Americans also moved right. Here's a bit from "A Navajo perspective: why many of us support Trump over Harris":

But for Fanlund, there are no Trump voters of color and the Orange Man's lily-white supporters are all too stupid to see how great the economy is, their pocketbooks be damned. The Cap Times' grumbletonian just cannot even imagine that people unlike him might have different priorities, that their finances might not correspond to macroeconomic statistics in the ways he thinks they should.

"It's inconceivable!" he blurts out to no one in particular from the porch of his not inexpensive home, sounding like Vizzini but with the gentle humor leeched out in favor of red hot sanctimony. What a jagoff.

Being disgusted with such naked condescension, I have stopped contributing to the Cap Times.