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If you're being ironic there's not much to add, so on the assumption that you meant what you said: Trump's ascendancy is evidence of what OP is saying, not the cause. The coastal elite has been completely incapable of understanding Trump's voters for decades, long before they were Trump voters. Trump hijacked the Republican party and won the presidency (twice now!) because he managed to make these long-neglected voters finally feel understood. We're not going to solve the problem of Trumpism by doubling down on treating these voters like idiots, because that's what got us here in the first place.
> Yes and no.
Yes and yes. The right and the left don't even speak the same language. I'm not a native English speaker and half the time I don't even understand what the left are even saying. Examples:
> regress into an id-dominated state of hyper-reality
> what can be, unburdened by what has been
What does that even mean? People keep calling the right stupid, but at least everybody can understand what they're talking about.
People keep calling the right stupid, but at least everybody can understand what they're talking about.
I've had the fortune of working with many people a lot smarter than me, and one thing all the smartest ones can do is explain complex topics to people outside their field in a way they can understand.
Using intellectual language to address a non-intellectual audience like voters, or a forum with many non-native speakers, that they won't understand seems a dumb thing for an "intellectual" to do. It's not about intellect, enlightenment or education, it's about using language to communicate instead of using it for... something else, not sure what.
There are a lot of intelligent people that just happen to be "uneducated".
Meanwhile I've met plenty of "educated" people that hold a wide variety of contradictory beliefs and lack the ability to critically think.
"Not educated" is just another convenient (and lazy) strawman outgroup. Liberty for me but not for thee, etc.
No. Belittling people for their lack of education led us here. People don't follow those who consistently treat them as barely-human tally marks that we (their betters) tolerate as long as they vote the right way. Eventually they get sick of being treated as less-than, and eventually someone comes along that makes those people feel important.
There are only really two reasonable ways out of Trump's populism at this point: learn from him and recognize the importance of the less-educated, or reduce the franchise and prevent people from voting unless they pass a certain educational bar (which not is not actually an option for so many reasons).
Any other approach will either take generations or is doomed to failure.
People don't follow those who consistently treat them as barely-human tally marks
>What can be unburdened by what has been
Well, yea. If you take a fragment of a sentence out, it is going to be confusing.
The full quote is on the lines of "My mother raised me to see what could be, unburdened by what has been" i.e. to look at accomplishing at the highest possibilities without the baggage of traditional limitations
Reading it now and in context, its a normal impactful thought. But the right took a cut off the middle... like if I quoted you and said "a native English speaker and half the time" a missing phrase will obviously make it confusing
> i.e. to look at accomplishing at the highest possibilities without the baggage of traditional limitations
Is much easier to understand. The other one I might have guessed correctly, but yours is quite clear to understand.