Thoughts From El Dorado by Harvey Green

Shortly after I posted my reflections on the Left/Liberal debacle of 2016, I received a note from an old friend and former professor, Harvey Green, heretofore of New England but now a resident of El Dorado, a small community outside of Santa Fe, New Mexico. He offered me his own meditations on the election, and on Liberalism’s failure. He has very kindly agreed to allow me to publish them here.~ mjt


Harvey Green


In some of the states—particularly in the Midwest, evangelical Protestants broke heavily for DT [Donald Trump], in large part because of his stance on abortion their desire to control the Supreme Court.  There is not much she [Hilary Clinton] could have done about that, however. 

But the real rub is this:   In the Midwest and states such as OH, WI, MI, PA, and FL the people who voted DT [Donald Trump] did so because he offered them some sort of vague notion that he could ameliorate some of the uncertainty borne not only of the economic crash of 2008, but also the trend in the economy that wiped out factory and other jobs that had been the bulwark of the post-World War II economic growth that had occurred over the half-century following the War.  The free-trade Democrats of the Clintons’ “third way” sold them out with only vague promises of “retraining” for the “new economy,” most of which never materialized.  NAFTA and her initial support of the Trans Pacific Partnership undercut her among those most affected by the end of the industrial economy in the US.  Clintonism led us to this nightmare as sure as the sun will come up tomorrow.  Do we think FDR would have cozied up to Wall Street? Hah!

Trump succeeded in convincing them of his worth as a candidate in large because Hillary offered them almost nothing.  She and the Democratic leadership have abandoned the blue-collar, working-class parts of American society.  I heard or read almost nothing from her in which she even said the words “blue collar", "working class”, “union”, or even “working men and women.”  When the occasion arose for her to be amongst such people she was stiff, distant and sometimes looked as if she smelled something awful.  And the narrative she preferred, that it was white working class men who were not in her camp, ignored the fact that working class women also felt disenfranchised and ignored.  This never dawned on her in part because she centered her campaign on a narrow base—feminists and women in general (not all of whom preferred her, but whom she thought would come over in some number because they are female), blacks, gay people (LBGT) and educated elites (not all of whom voted for her and in fact split pretty evenly over her).  The Democratic convention showed this blind eye to working class people.  They once were the bedrock of the Democratic party and are gone from the party now, save for the few unions still with any power in the US—namely the teachers and public employees. It would not have been difficult to expand her message to all or nearly all Americans, but that is part of her fatal flaws—her arrogance, defensiveness, and deaf ear to the working class.  How hard would it have been to actually address working people?  Sanders did.  She seemed to have learned nothing from his campaign, in which he got about 10 million votes.  These voters ignored or dismissed most of DT's awful pronouncements because he at least promised action, and that was of more immediate relevance to them.  Hillary’s plans did not address their fears and and their sense of having been left behind. 

Liberals of the coasts live at such a distance from the farmers and working class people that they have virtually no meaningful contact with them, save when they are working for them directly, and this is hardly a meaningful contact, no matter how nice the employer is.  Add to that the constant drumbeat of derision for the working class, rural people, their cultures and even the actual geography in which they live and the result is the sort of incendiary and seemingly incomprehensible divisions we have.  Just think of the language people use when talking about the working class and the rural populations.

The media had a  part in all this as well.  They aren’t just clueless, they are dismissive.  Recall Gail Collins’ lament about Iowa and her constant bleating about the electoral college in 2004, now to increase because Clinton has eked out a plurality.  She’s not alone in this.  She may travel to places on occasional assignment, but her ignorance is breathtaking, as well as her tendency to look but not see.

The Times’ article on HC’s flaws was spot on [http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/10/us/politics/hillary-clinton-campaign.html?_r=0].  It was also alarming in that some of the decisions that now look so stupid were deliberate, rather than simply errors. 

Her refusal to speak at Notre Dame on St. Patrick’s Day is a prime example.  The campaign was not interested in white Catholics.  Really.  How stupid can one get.  It’s politics; never miss a chance to harvest votes.  The article also implies that HC and her staff ignored Bill Clinton’s advice on numerous occasions, which suggests that the Clintons need to get some things straightened out in their marriage.  He did, after all, win twice, and carried West Virginia, Georgia, and other states in which she got clobbered.  The colossal arrogance of it all astonishes me.  Perhaps I am naive.  But if all these flaws seem so evident now, why did the Party and the media buy into HC so deeply and so early?