If you’re up for some more political reading this morning, Professor and Senator John Thune mainstay Jon Lauck has written a great piece on how President-elect Donald Trump captured the fancy of midwestern voters, how the Clinton Campaign was an exercise in electoral malpractice, and how the mainstream media seems fixated on the liberal elite, and not “real people.”
As demonstrated by the starkly different voting patterns between university counties and rural Midwestern counties, the election returns in 2016 exposed cultural divisions in the Midwest and the nation that are worthy of serious examination. Demographer William Frey of the Brookings Institution called this a “cultural-generation gap” between rural Republican Trump voters and modern urban Democratic voters.
Long-time reporter, Midwestern analyst, and author Richard Longworth argued that it was “impossible to overstate the alienation between the two Americas, between global citizens and the global left-behinds, between the great cities that run the nation’s economy and media, and the hinterland that feels not only cheated but, worse, disrespected.”
and…
Madison Avenue advertisers, ever responsive to cultural trends, adjusted to these cultural criticisms after the election – they announced that they would be reorienting their work away from “metro elite imagery” and more toward “Des Moines and Scranton.” When hiring workers, they decided a diversity hire “can be a farm girl from Indiana as much as a Cuban immigrant who lives in Pensacola.”
The narrow visions that limited the media and advertising worlds, some argued, also prevailed in the entertainment arena. One commentator noted how an “industry arose to cater to the smug style” of the “educated, the coastal, and the professional” in the form of the “Daily Show” and other programs which “advanced the idea that liberal orthodoxy was a kind of educated savvy and that its opponents were, before anything else, stupid.”
Great stuff. Read his entire analysis here.
Pat, thanks for providing Jon’s analysis. I can’t wait to read the whole thing and compare his analysis to Cory Heidelberger’s “new economy vs old economy” explanation that seems to paint Democrats as capitalists and Republicans as socialists:
http://dakotafreepress.com/2016/12/01/clinton-carries-economic-doers-trump-appeals-to-gdp-slackers-red-state-moochers/
This is the guy who probably advised Thune to dump Trump in an election against Hillary Clinton.
He’s smart, he’s articulate but he was flat out wrong.
Good read.
Excellent read. Amazing work for so soon after the election. Jon must be a prolific reader and have lightening-quick analytical skills to have this published already. Thanks for sharing
too bad democrats won’t care to read / believe this. their top potential candidates will follow heuther’s lead and go independent while the democrat party plan is to pour every resource into gaining one party rule at the very top.