it seems like there's *so* much self hatred happening about not being "real Americans" or whatever with a lot of these metropolitan/affluent suburban people who tweet like Jacobins-and so much of it coexisting so awkwardly with contempt for the working class! It's very strange.
The unfortunate fact of the democratic psychology (in my anecdotal experience + some theorizing) is probably also tied to the liberal faith in humanity, and therefore also to American liberal obsession with misinformation and gerrymandering. Because we found our beliefs off of humanistic principles, because we say that “we will do what is right for everybody”, we assume that everybody will just realize that we’re better for them. “The only reason”, so we want to believe, “why people don’t like us is because of propaganda and unfair elections.” We then, upon suffering any setback or even having a random poll with an outcome we don’t like, question how we have “betrayed the people” and lament how the “masses have been misled into believing x is bad for them.” Therefore, we need to make it super ultra clear we don’t have anything to do with x. The issue is almost that we place too much faith in the American people to recognize what is good for them, and ignore the thing that’s been pointed out in this newsletter countless times. The Republicans win elections because enough people like them and hate us for that to be possible. It’s not because we’re abandoning what “real Americans” feel, it’s that unlike a significant chunk of the republicans we still believe that people who disagree with us are “real Americans” and hence see ourselves as standing for them even if they want to kill us.
it seems like there's *so* much self hatred happening about not being "real Americans" or whatever with a lot of these metropolitan/affluent suburban people who tweet like Jacobins-and so much of it coexisting so awkwardly with contempt for the working class! It's very strange.
One thing I would add is that a lot of this has to do with the decline of labor unions.
The unfortunate fact of the democratic psychology (in my anecdotal experience + some theorizing) is probably also tied to the liberal faith in humanity, and therefore also to American liberal obsession with misinformation and gerrymandering. Because we found our beliefs off of humanistic principles, because we say that “we will do what is right for everybody”, we assume that everybody will just realize that we’re better for them. “The only reason”, so we want to believe, “why people don’t like us is because of propaganda and unfair elections.” We then, upon suffering any setback or even having a random poll with an outcome we don’t like, question how we have “betrayed the people” and lament how the “masses have been misled into believing x is bad for them.” Therefore, we need to make it super ultra clear we don’t have anything to do with x. The issue is almost that we place too much faith in the American people to recognize what is good for them, and ignore the thing that’s been pointed out in this newsletter countless times. The Republicans win elections because enough people like them and hate us for that to be possible. It’s not because we’re abandoning what “real Americans” feel, it’s that unlike a significant chunk of the republicans we still believe that people who disagree with us are “real Americans” and hence see ourselves as standing for them even if they want to kill us.