From time to time, a Democrat/socialist/communist (D/s/c) social anthropologist will be motivated to venture out into deepest, darkest Flyover Country—you know, places like South Dakota or Kansas--to live for a time among the unfathomable natives. They hope to answer three eternally vexing questions: (1) what’s wrong with them anyway? (2) How can anyone live like that? (3) Are they human? Obviously, there are additional questions like are they kidding about liking Trump? And why don’t they recognize and praise the moral and intellectual superiority of the self-imagined elite?

It's a topic I’ve often explored in the past. In a 2017 article I wrote: 

Some hope to discover magic that can unify the country. Of course, such unification must be, without question, under progressive policies and rule, so they search, as all progressives do, for the right “messaging,” the correct way to spin their ideas to make them acceptable to non-believers. In other words, “how can we trick the rubes into voting for our latest messiah?”

Or their latest policy, multi-billion-dollar pork expenditure, moral outrage or dimwitted, malicious and/or demented candidate for any office. In the wake of D/s/c’s epic loss to Donald Trump and their loss of the Senate and House, a few are asking at least semi-insightful questions. Could their failure, which some are actually recognizing as failure, possibly be their fault? Could their policies have been crazy? Is it possible Americans were tired of gaslighting, of being unable to afford gas or groceries or rent? My colleague Olivia Murray recently explored those issues:

Nearly a dozen House Democrats tell Axios that party members need to increase their appearances on conservative-leaning and non-traditional platforms, or risk irrelevance.

They say they no longer can look past the huge audiences offered by Fox News and conservative podcasts, whose messaging power became evident when Republicans swept the White House and both chambers of Congress in last month’s election.

(After all, “conservative” media like Fox News ranks number one as the “most-watched” cable news channel.)

Here’s the translation though: Democrats realize they might need to consider the voters, stop demonizing a majority of the nation, and allow opposing ideas and voices to be heard if they want to win elections.

Graphic: X Screenshot

Indeed they should realize that, but do they? Can they? Is it possible to abandon decades of increasingly dismissive rhetoric and political certainty? Can they possibly admit everything for which they’ve stood, all the harm they’ve caused, all the evil they’ve enabled was wrong? How can the self-imagined elite, the intellectually and morally superior, the people whose ideas and policies are perfect, non-falsifiable, possibly admit error?

Notice their reliance on messaging, on just the right gaslighting to achieve their ends. Notice too realizing they have to appear on enemy media outlets in order to properly message/gaslight is not the same thing as recognizing it was their policies, beliefs and attitudes toward Normal Americans that cost them the election and threatens to cost them future elections. Absent the willingness to change, to convince Americans they don’t hate them and America, appearing on more widely watched platforms will only convince even more Americans of their malice and arrogance.

What unites Americans is Constitutionalism, based in the Constitution, the rule of law, equal justice under law, hard work, self-reliance, honesty, reliability, punctuality, actual tolerance, a belief in second chances and redemption, self-sacrifice and delayed gratification, merit, sincerity, all the historically American virtues. Flyover Country Americans can’t be convinced to abandon those values with messaging, with slick, empty rhetoric, with promises those delivering them know are lies made obvious by the mere flapping of their lips.

Contradicting D/s/c doctrine is hard. The Party marches in lockstep and those that fall out of step are trampled. A few D/s/cs have begun to abandon their sinking ship, but most fear the consequences of breaking ranks. Even though they know their political, even personal, lives have been a lie, that’s a hard thing to admit, and even a harder thing to act upon, particularly if one recognizes no power greater than one’s political party. God forgives; D/s/cs don’t. That’s why so many are willing to disown family in favor of failures like Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

That’s why those Flyover Country visiting social anthropologists never get it right. The irony of it is Normal Americans, people who recognize a power beyond politics, believe in second chances. They’re willing to forgive, if not forget. Even a Democrat of days long past—JFK—said: “forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.” The very unfathomable, backward, racist, unsophisticated Deplorables D/s/cs loath are also the people who accept and embrace the genuinely repentant.

That’s also why D/s/cs may be in for a generation in the political wilderness, and deservedly so.

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Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, life-long athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor.