Craig Is A Contradiction, But He Does Not Know It.
April 5, 2017 7:09 AM   Subscribe

 
That was so cringey I felt bad for the author.

It made wonder who her ideal audience for this thing was.
posted by jpe at 7:16 AM on April 5, 2017 [11 favorites]


Me. I'm the ideal audience, and I'm happy to answer any questions you might have.

*blows mournful tone on harmonica*
posted by Behemoth at 7:21 AM on April 5, 2017 [105 favorites]


As someone who enjoys both literal and figurative scab-picking, and combining those activities with primal screams, this article spoke to me.
posted by Rat Spatula at 7:22 AM on April 5, 2017 [10 favorites]


"Their waiter is David Mattress, a sentient robot who will be shut down if Trump's budget is put into practice. He loves Trump, insofar as love is possible for him."

Bravo.
posted by wittgenstein at 7:27 AM on April 5, 2017 [13 favorites]


I completely get it, because among the many things that I have long since lost the patience for are the innumerable pop populists who tell me and others that the real problem is that we just don't understand the Real Americans who methodically, repeatedly, and even somewhat gleefully shoot themselves in the foot.
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:28 AM on April 5, 2017 [70 favorites]


I feel like there have been a very few winners from the Trump administration, and Alexandra Petri is one of them.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 7:33 AM on April 5, 2017 [27 favorites]


Snark without commentary and an unclear target... So, just snark for snark's sake then?
posted by Skwirl at 7:34 AM on April 5, 2017 [2 favorites]


Tough room. I thought it was pretty funny.
posted by orange swan at 7:35 AM on April 5, 2017 [86 favorites]


Snark without commentary and an unclear target...
posted by Skwirl at 10:34 AM on April 5 [+] [!]
"Every story I have read about Trump supporters in the past week" ... "gesturing to a table in the corner where six other journalists sit writing versions of this same article"

I think the target is pretty obvious.
posted by FirstMateKate at 7:38 AM on April 5, 2017 [120 favorites]


Snark without commentary and an unclear target...

How is the target in any way unclear? She's snarking at the gazillions of "I talked to a Trump supporter who does/does not but should regret voting for him because of how I've personally been screwed by his policies" articles that have popped up in the media in the last few weeks.
posted by jacquilynne at 7:40 AM on April 5, 2017 [20 favorites]


So, just snark for snark's sake then?

Yep. And I can say, with some authority, that this is just the place for a Snark.

Also, what I tell you three times is true.
posted by The Bellman at 7:40 AM on April 5, 2017 [34 favorites]


I thought it was sad and depressing on multiple levels, furthering enforcing the secret fear beneath my cheerful optimistic exterior, that humanity doesn't deserve live and the quicker we're gone, the quicker the bees can return.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:41 AM on April 5, 2017 [14 favorites]


The target is the many, many articles being written, and podcasts produced, where some journalist goes into the heartland or the south or the remote Upper Midwest, and interviews someone who remembers when this small town was thriving, when people here took care of each other, back before the factory shut down and government safety net replaced the good neighborliness that led people to take care of each other.* This person hates Obamacare even though the lift of lifetime limits on coverage is the only thing keeping his wife/mom/son alive on the very expensive medical treatment she/she/he needs. This person will say folksy things like, "I remember when this was cornfields as far as the eye could see," or, "My mama and papa raised seven kids in a shotgun shack, but it was big enough. We didn't know we were poor."* They will reminisce about hunting for squirrels, rabbits, and raccoons.* This article/podcast will be achingly sincere in its effort to listen to and understand these people, while underlying that sincerity is a kind of sublimated contempt at these people's failure to properly understand how government policies and programs shape their lives, and a muted schadenfreude at the disappointments they've already experienced under Trump: they thought he'd get into office and really take action, but now all he does is golf and tweet. They wanted him to do something, and he hasn't done it, or they wanted him not to do something, and he is doing it. This article or podcast will have a tone reminiscent of recorded self-tours at natural history museums.

*These items are drawn directly from a podcast I listened to earlier this week.
posted by Orlop at 7:48 AM on April 5, 2017 [127 favorites]


The articles this piece is having some fun with are not worlds away from disaster-porn-in-detroit journalism. The important stories and lessons have been told amply by now, and the leftover mixture of schadenfreude and duty bound srs journalism dripping with irony is wearing very thin on me.

I found this hilarious.
posted by AAALASTAIR at 7:51 AM on April 5, 2017 [19 favorites]


Trumpgret porn is bad enough, and Trumpgret porn satire is unnecessary.
posted by tommasz at 7:52 AM on April 5, 2017 [1 favorite]



The target is the many, many articles being written, and podcasts produced, where some journalist goes into the heartland or the south or the remote Upper Midwest, and interviews someone who remembers when this small town was thriving, when people here took care of each other, back before the factory shut down and government safety net replaced the good neighborliness that led people to take care of each other. chronicling the continued death of rural America and the inability of many of its citizens to adjust to that fact.

posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:52 AM on April 5, 2017 [23 favorites]


Well, I loved it.

According to a note on his cryotube, he knows what Trump said about unplugging tubes but he does not think Trump would unplug him personally.
posted by fiercecupcake at 8:00 AM on April 5, 2017 [5 favorites]


Yeah, I thought the target was clearly the "I went to talk to poor, benighted Trump voters" article that has been all over the place recently, and I thought Petri hit her mark and, more importantly, was funny.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 8:04 AM on April 5, 2017 [11 favorites]


This is damned good writing.
posted by billjings at 8:04 AM on April 5, 2017 [3 favorites]


So, just snark for snark's sake then?

I feel bad for people who can't appreciate all the wonderful things we enjoy at this glorious moment in history.
posted by octobersurprise at 8:05 AM on April 5, 2017 [11 favorites]


I thought this was very funny though it needed to be tightened up a little in places. It reminded me a bit of Robert Benchley.
posted by Frowner at 8:08 AM on April 5, 2017 [5 favorites]


I don't think anyone's figured out Trump voters yet. In focus groups, many of the Planned Parenthood supporters who voted for him assumed he was too irreverent to represent the religious right. In other words, they secretly think more highly of the religious right than themselves, and thought Trump would be a permissive compromise, but they don't know this about themselves.
posted by Brian B. at 8:11 AM on April 5, 2017 [1 favorite]


Orlop: "while underlying that sincerity is a kind of sublimated contempt at these people's failure to properly understand how government policies and programs shape their lives"

Petri really does a great job of drawing out the underlying contempt in the pieces she's mocking. My favorite bits:

* The jobs were replaced by robots, not shipped overseas, but try telling Lydia that. (I did, very slowly and patiently, I thought, but she still became quite brusque.)
* She makes a point of telling me that she is not racist, but I think she probably is, a little.
* She says she has had just enough of the “coastal elitist media who keep showing up to write mean things about my town and my life, like that thing just now where you said I was like a hubcap, yes you, stop writing I can see over your shoulder.”
posted by crazy with stars at 8:13 AM on April 5, 2017 [47 favorites]


they secretly think more highly of the religious right than themselves

WTF. I assure you, no Planned Parenthood supporter thinks highly of the religious right. Like, at all.
posted by mochapickle at 8:14 AM on April 5, 2017 [10 favorites]


This is a finely tuned snark-missile landing bang on a deserving target.
posted by Artw at 8:16 AM on April 5, 2017 [9 favorites]


That made my morning.
posted by sandettie light vessel automatic at 8:18 AM on April 5, 2017


Trumpgret porn is bad enough, and Trumpgret porn satire is unnecessary.

When I was told that the age of irony was over, I thought we might be entering a new age of sincerity, but I think we might be headed towards an age of ironic ironism. Which I guess beats an age of cynical sincerity or satirical post-optimism.
posted by GenjiandProust at 8:19 AM on April 5, 2017 [14 favorites]


I don't think anyone's figured out Trump voters yet.

Donald Trump figured them out just fine, as did Michael Moore. Entrenched groups on the left and right didn't figure out and still may not have.

But it's pretty simple, they hated Hillary and Trump pushed their buttons about what they liked. It's really that simple.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:22 AM on April 5, 2017 [13 favorites]


I thought this was hilarious and desperately needed.
posted by KathrynT at 8:24 AM on April 5, 2017 [4 favorites]


Yep, I'm on team hilarious.
posted by XMLicious at 8:25 AM on April 5, 2017 [2 favorites]


but they don't know this about themselves.


Oh, the secrets we keep from ourselves.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 8:29 AM on April 5, 2017


The Trump administration has turned Alexandra Petri into a gaddamn national treasure......see example R:

In that universe, any time people in the nightmarish hellscape of the inner city leave their homes, they are instantly shot. Every time. You cannot go to the store without being shot.
posted by Gyre,Gimble,Wabe, Esq. at 8:35 AM on April 5, 2017 [20 favorites]


This reminds me of something I just heard on the Pod Save America podcast this morning - they were talking about this very issue of the media trying to figure out Trump voters, and one of them remarked at how when white people are poor, it's somehow important and needs talking about, but when black people are poor the media doesn't talk about it. Because I guess that's just normal and ok, or something.

I think that's what this piece is getting at - the current media fetish for poor white people, as if they're the only "Real America" that matters.
posted by dnash at 8:40 AM on April 5, 2017 [62 favorites]


his No. 1 priority is keeping telephones away from the undeserving poor.

It's funny because it's true. Really. Like one hundred percent literally true.
posted by Naberius at 8:45 AM on April 5, 2017 [30 favorites]


For those of you not following along to the megathreads, Alexandra Petri wrote a similar piece Trump’s budget makes perfect sense and will fix America, and I will tell you why that was cluelessly picked up by the White House daily email blast.
posted by achrise at 8:46 AM on April 5, 2017 [22 favorites]


Well, that's the news from Lake Wobegon, where all the women are tired, all the men are disgruntled, and all the children are trying to leave.
posted by octobersurprise at 8:47 AM on April 5, 2017 [40 favorites]


This reminds me of something I just heard on the Pod Save America podcast this morning -

Jon Lovett: "We are fetishizing a very small subset of the population.There's been no soul-searching around the black working class and the Hispanic working class, who are also being screwed by this president. And the other thing is, there's just no polling that bears out focusing on this small group of people ... It is a crazy, media-produced kind of focus. Somehow it's like when white people are poor it's fascinating and nostalgic, and when black people are poor, we don't talk about it."
posted by zakur at 8:50 AM on April 5, 2017 [86 favorites]


chronicling the continued death of rural America and the inability of many of its citizens to adjust to that fact.

Yeah but when does it turn into poverty tourism?
posted by bq at 8:57 AM on April 5, 2017


The NEA will be destroyed and replaced with an armored helicopter with a shark painted on it.

Who's going to paint that shark? You starved all the artists last week, Big Guy.
posted by GenjiandProust at 8:58 AM on April 5, 2017 [4 favorites]


dnash: "This reminds me of something I just heard on the Pod Save America podcast this morning"

Maybe the media is making too much of the small-town poor. But it's pretty easy to go too far in the other direction. I was listening to "Fake the Nation" the other day, and couldn't believe how callous the hosts were about the despair and hopelessness of these communities -- which really are suffering, by the way. Can't we say that we should care about the disadvantaged among us whoever they are, instead of saying that because we don't care about African-American poor we shouldn't care about the white poor either?
posted by crazy with stars at 9:05 AM on April 5, 2017 [1 favorite]


I don't know. I think there's also a tendency to conflate "small town" (or even "not big city") and "poor". Most Trump voters aren't poor. Most people in small towns aren't poor.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 9:07 AM on April 5, 2017 [11 favorites]


More satire-- small town overrun by journalists trying to understand Trump voters.

https://theawl.com/i-talked-to-some-trump-voters-too-24d8399a6147
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 9:09 AM on April 5, 2017 [1 favorite]


For those of you not following along to the megathreads, Alexandra Petri wrote a similar piece Trump’s budget makes perfect sense and will fix America, and I will tell you why that was cluelessly picked up by the White House daily email blast.

Also, she has the best Twitter handle in the world.
posted by Etrigan at 9:11 AM on April 5, 2017 [15 favorites]


Also, she's the daughter of Tom Petri.

Of Tom Petri and the Heartbreakers fame.
I'm sorry. Really, I am.

posted by Naberius at 9:15 AM on April 5, 2017 [4 favorites]


Can't we say that we should care about the disadvantaged among us whoever they are, instead of saying that because we don't care about African-American poor we shouldn't care about the white poor either?

Theoretically, yes. But it's not unfair to point out that no one seems very concerned about poor rural and urban PoCs, who are being screwed over even harder by the Trump administration despite (for the most part) having not voted for them. And, which, reasonably, the white rural poor ought to be able to find common cause, except, well, racism (and possibly hatred for cities).
posted by GenjiandProust at 9:18 AM on April 5, 2017 [3 favorites]


I think we might be headed towards an age of ironic ironism.

blood and irony
posted by Vic Morrow's Personal Vietnam at 9:23 AM on April 5, 2017 [5 favorites]


Can't we say that we should care about the disadvantaged among us whoever they are, instead of saying that because we don't care about African-American poor we shouldn't care about the white poor either?

Why is it so important that we center whiteness in every single thing? Why "all lives matter" here when the poor whites still get first pick of the low-paying jobs? When white kids in shitty school districts still get suspended at a fraction of the rate of Black and Latinx kids (who are overall far less safe from violence and aggression from teachers and other students than their peers in bigger schools/districts), and their families have an extraordinarily hard time renting or buying decent housing? Poor white people still get the good end of the shit stick and all the relative advantages of systemic racism, it's fine for them to go wait at the back end of the give-a-fuck line.
posted by Lyn Never at 9:34 AM on April 5, 2017 [35 favorites]


As Frowner pointed out above, this is very like certain Robert Benchley columns, the ones where his humor was unleashed in the service of the Surrealist Revolution. (Benchley was the Dave Barry of the Algonquin Table.) A guy living in a rusty kettle? This is some funny stuff. And yeah, I've read at least one of these a day recently. Every so often the journalist will find someone who regrets their vote, but since less than 3% of Trump voters would vote differently, knowing what they do now, these are rare birds. Most people (including myself, I'm sure, as much as I tell myself what a rational and compassionate being I am) vote emotionally. Facts don't bother us much.

Although that climate change thing is pretty factual, and Trump is willing to fuck us all for completely non-factual reasons--unless you want to say, hey, making you and your rich friends richer is a factual position.
posted by kozad at 9:37 AM on April 5, 2017 [2 favorites]


This was my introduction to Alexander Petri, but now I'm going to see her writing out wherever I can find it.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 9:40 AM on April 5, 2017 [4 favorites]


This struck me as a very mean-spirited piece that serves as a poster child for every stereotype the right holds for the left and the "media elite."
posted by Thorzdad at 9:42 AM on April 5, 2017 [3 favorites]


But it's pretty easy to go too far in the other direction. I was listening to "Fake the Nation" the other day, and couldn't believe how callous the hosts were about the despair and hopelessness of these communities -- which really are suffering, by the way.

Forgive me if my sympathy reserves run a bit low when discussing people who -- because of some combination of hatred, ignorance, shortsightedness, and cut-off-your-nose spite -- decided to fuck everyone over on a truly global scale.
posted by Behemoth at 9:43 AM on April 5, 2017 [25 favorites]


When I was told that the age of irony was over, I thought we might be entering a new age of sincerity, but I think we might be headed towards an age of ironic ironism.

Or just sarcasm is the new irony.
posted by oneswellfoop at 9:53 AM on April 5, 2017 [1 favorite]


I completely get it, because among the many things that I have long since lost the patience for are the innumerable pop populists who tell me and others that the real problem is that we just don't understand the Real Americans who methodically, repeatedly, and even somewhat gleefully shoot themselves in the foot.

But as long as the Liberal Tears keep flowing, this is fine. What matters is that, for once, it feels like winning, even if it's losing.
posted by acb at 10:03 AM on April 5, 2017 [2 favorites]


This struck me as a very mean-spirited piece that serves as a poster child for every stereotype the right holds for the left and the "media elite."

I....think that's what the point was?

I do still believe that there is some worth to finding out what the motivation was for Trump's supporters, but articles like this don't do that. The journalists are not conducting investigations to find out the motivations for Trump's supporters; the journalists have already decided "Trump supporters must be poorly-educated, underemployed people who just don't know any better and that makes it all poignant and shit" and then they go find people likely to reinforce that assumption. It's like a central casting check-box - you've got the person who worked at the factory, the person who wants to get nostalgic, the person having trouble with the VA, check, check, check, done.

It is not what's really going on. It is a way for the media elite to subtly show off that "see, we knew better but no one listened to us and now look what's happening".
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:04 AM on April 5, 2017 [17 favorites]


This struck me as a very mean-spirited piece that serves as a poster child for every stereotype the right holds for the left and the "media elite."

It was specifically mocking the condescension of the left-liberal-media-elite, but I have no doubt that yes, the right will see it as validating their stereotypes, because neither nuance nor basic reading comprehension has ever really been their strong suit.

For my part, I found it not just hilarious but fucking gasping for air on the floor hilarious.
posted by Myca at 10:09 AM on April 5, 2017 [25 favorites]


This struck me as a very mean-spirited piece that serves as a poster child for every stereotype the right holds for the left and the "media elite."
posted by Thorzdad at 12:42 PM on April 5 [+] [!]


I can %800 see where you're coming from, though I disagree with you. I think there are several steps missing in this writing, though they exist in the real world. At first I was really enthralled by the "here's what the people who are harmed by and yet voted for trump have to say". I hurt for those people. It was easy to believe that they were naive, they just wanted to get the working class back on their feet, whatever. But, as Trump's administration continued on, and as his hate began to spread, these people that were being fucked by the administration became even more resolute in their decisions.

By all means it definitely sucks that poor and latinx and lady people that voted for trump are going to get hurt. But I lost my sympathy once it was clear that they're not naive, they just really fucking hate people like me.
posted by FirstMateKate at 10:23 AM on April 5, 2017 [9 favorites]


Uh, what Thorzdad said.
Also whaat Myca said. I considered linking the article on facebook, but then I realized I'd have to mock all the frothing uncomprehending hickrage from my more backwards acquaintances.
Well, maybe not have to, but I would.
posted by Trinity-Gehenna at 10:24 AM on April 5, 2017


Lyn Never: "Poor white people still get the good end of the shit stick and all the relative advantages of systemic racism, it's fine for them to go wait at the back end of the give-a-fuck line."

I understand that the Democratic line is to say fuck poor white people, as reflected here in your comment and in podcasts like Fake the Nation. Let me just say a) it's still cruel to tell people who are suffering that you don't care and they should just keep suffering (as wages fall, lifespans decrease, towns hollow out) and b) you will not win these voters back by telling them that you don't care.
posted by crazy with stars at 10:33 AM on April 5, 2017 [7 favorites]


Trumpgret porn is bad enough, and Trumpgret porn satire is unnecessary.

Trumpgret porn satire may be the only way to kill Trumpgret porn and replace it with better stories in the future.
posted by Going To Maine at 10:44 AM on April 5, 2017 [4 favorites]


It is interesting to me that that the satire itself continues to dunk on Trump voters, though Petri’s narrator is perhaps not reliable.
posted by Going To Maine at 10:45 AM on April 5, 2017 [1 favorite]


I just dont see this as helpful or particularly clever. With all the truly horrible things the Trump administration is doing, this just seems lazy.
posted by WalkerWestridge at 10:46 AM on April 5, 2017 [1 favorite]


Divide and Conquer, still working as well as ever.
posted by jonmc at 10:50 AM on April 5, 2017 [2 favorites]


*These items are drawn directly from a podcast I listened to earlier this week.

I think I must have listened to the same one though it's possible I listened to an entirely different one in the same vain. It's a deja-vu feeling, ike you've just described eating a Franchise Chain Burger familiar to all, but left out where it was.

firefox spell-checker just suggested 'deejay-vu' 😕
posted by adept256 at 10:55 AM on April 5, 2017


I just dont see this as helpful or particularly clever. With all the truly horrible things the Trump administration is doing, this just seems lazy.

Are you referring to the article, or to the act of posting it here?
posted by Wolfdog at 10:55 AM on April 5, 2017


Also, I apologize to all the Linda Blarniks and Craig Slaborniks out there, but something about those syllables in that order made me laugh.
posted by Going To Maine at 10:57 AM on April 5, 2017


I understand that the Democratic line is to say fuck poor white people...

What does the poor white people line say, besides "fuck everyone else"?

...you will not win these voters back by telling them that you don't care.

Firstly, "win back" implies that you once had their support, and secondly, it's painfully clear that no such support will be forthcoming in this political generation. The faster this imaginary bridge is burned, the better.
posted by Behemoth at 10:59 AM on April 5, 2017 [9 favorites]


Behemoth: "Firstly, "win back" implies that you once had their support, and secondly, it's painfully clear that no such support will be forthcoming in this political generation."

From the Upshot last week:

In the aftermath of the 2016 presidential election, many analysts suggested that Hillary Clinton lost to Donald J. Trump because of poor Democratic turnout...

Instead, it’s clear that large numbers of white, working-class voters shifted from the Democrats to Mr. Trump. Over all, almost one in four of President Obama’s 2012 white working-class supporters defected from the Democrats in 2016, either supporting Mr. Trump or voting for a third-party candidate.


Democrats did indeed lose a great number of poorer white voters this last election, losing them the White House. It's not crazy to try to figure out why and try to win them back.

Whites without a college degree make up nearly 50% of the electorate and their numbers are not shrinking as quickly as many Democrats want. If you burn your bridges to them, as you're advocating, you're giving Republicans all of Washington for the foreseeable future.
posted by crazy with stars at 11:07 AM on April 5, 2017 [9 favorites]


Whites without a college degree make up nearly 50% of the electorate and their numbers are not shrinking as quickly as many Democrats want. If you burn your bridges to them, as you're advocating, you're giving Republicans all of Washington for the foreseeable future.

Quoted for truth.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:17 AM on April 5, 2017 [3 favorites]


Oh God I’m tired of people reflexively holding Trump voters above criticism because they are believed to be less-fortunate than others.

You know who else is less-fortunate than a lot of other people? All the working class people who voted for Clinton. They’re just as unlikely to be college-educated* they struggle just as hard**, they’re just as underserved by the US economy as the Trump voters.

The working class population who voted for Clinton have zero advantage over the working class population who voted for Trump. They just managed to not be so blinded by xenophobia that they would vote against their self-interests.

So yes, the primary target of this piece is all the dumb think-pieces about working class Trump voters. But it’s not classist to criticize someone who is working class for beliefs and behavior that hurts themselves and others, particularly when not every working class voter does this.

*white people without college degrees went 67% trump. Nonwhites without college degrees went 75% Clinton
**Trump won only 42% of voters with incomes under $50k and only 41% of voters with incomes under $30k
posted by mrmurbles at 11:22 AM on April 5, 2017 [49 favorites]


There's a lot of conflation (not just this thread, not just Metafilter, etc.) that goes on between Trump voter and poor or non-metropolitan white people in general, and it's not a good look, especially when another (usually wealthier) white person's painting with a real broad brush on xenophobia and racism.

Anyhow, the article is indeed hilarious.
posted by The Gaffer at 11:38 AM on April 5, 2017 [4 favorites]


This was hilarious. Reminded me of Russell Baker.
posted by Schmucko at 11:42 AM on April 5, 2017


I've only encountered a few Trump voters in NYC, the only common denominator was they were all drunk.
posted by jonmc at 11:47 AM on April 5, 2017 [2 favorites]


I am referring to the article.
posted by WalkerWestridge at 11:49 AM on April 5, 2017


There's a lot of conflation (not just this thread, not just Metafilter, etc.) that goes on between Trump voter and poor or non-metropolitan white people in general,

On the off chance that was aimed at my comment, I'll point out that I'm specifically not conflating Trump voters and and poor or non-metropolitan white people in general, because I'm specifically, and only talking about Trump voters.

And the reason I'm saying they're xenophobic is that they're clearly not voting on economic issues or upward-mobility issues, because lots of people in the same circumstances went for Clinton.

So if it wasn't those things, what was it? The clear differentiator between the candidates? Overwhelming anti-immigration sentiment among Trump voters. And again, you can't explain that away with "economic anxiety" because voters who are no more educated and no richer voted for Clinton. In fact, per the article cited above, only 35% of Trump voters reported being worried about immigrants taking their jobs.
posted by mrmurbles at 11:53 AM on April 5, 2017 [4 favorites]


Trumpeteers are a one-piece puzzle. They know he's a snake. It's just that they think he's their snake. In this case, they will go to their graves without ever admitting that they've been bitten.

Hubris makes clowns of the unwary, but there's a lot of weight to the old saying: "Might makes right."

Buckle up and hunker down.
posted by mule98J at 11:58 AM on April 5, 2017 [5 favorites]


mrmurbles, I was indeed not talking about your comment, as you didn't conflate those groups.
posted by The Gaffer at 12:03 PM on April 5, 2017


Lydia Borkle lives in an old shoe in the tiny town of Tempe Work Only, Ariz.

Okay then.
posted by Splunge at 12:04 PM on April 5, 2017


Trumpgret porn is bad enough, and Trumpgret porn satire is unnecessary.

Okay wait, you hate the thing and you also hate the thing that makes fun of the thing? wild.
posted by FirstMateKate at 12:07 PM on April 5, 2017 [3 favorites]


I am referring to the article.

What article? I read a satire piece.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:13 PM on April 5, 2017 [3 favorites]


dnash: This reminds me of something I just heard on the Pod Save America podcast this morning - they were talking about this very issue of the media trying to figure out Trump voters, and one of them remarked at how when white people are poor, it's somehow important and needs talking about, but when black people are poor the media doesn't talk about it. Because I guess that's just normal and ok, or something.

Or if they do talk about it, it's usually in the context of One Weird Old Trick That Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton Don't Want Those People To Know About: don't do drugs, get off of welfare, take the shitty jobs and don't complain, do whatever the policeman tells you to even if you end up getting shot anyway, etc. It's only when the poor whites end up suffering the same things that pundits fret about how America Is Broken, which is precisely what MAGA is all about.
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:18 PM on April 5, 2017 [13 favorites]


Democrats did indeed lose a great number of poorer white voters this last election, losing them the White House. It's not crazy to try to figure out why and try to win them back.

Yes, and we can craft an equally compelling narrative for losing the White House due to Jill Stein, PoC turnout, and GOP voter suppression, yet there is continued insistence on putting low-income white voters on a pedestal above all else. There are multiple avenues for not "giving Republicans all of Washington for the foreseeable future" that do not involve fetishizing the oh-so-authentic pain and anger of people who voted for the biggest scumbag in US political history and who stand by their decision even after seeing the garbage fire of the past three months. Those who do not regret it already are beyond redemption, and no one with an ounce of integrity should give a single fuck about their support, regardless of whether they voted for Obama that one time.
posted by Behemoth at 12:26 PM on April 5, 2017 [18 favorites]


Behemoth: "PoC turnout, and GOP voter suppression"

This is not what the data says.

Months later, it is clear that the turnout was only modestly better for Mr. Trump than expected.

To the extent Democratic turnout was weak, it was mainly among black voters. Even there, the scale of Democratic weakness has been exaggerated.


The election was lost not on turnout/voter suppression, but on white voters switching from Clinton to Trump (or to a 3rd party like Stein, as you say). Considering these voters as "beyond redemption" just guarantees that they won't come back, and as I said it's hard to see a way to a Democratic presidential victory if you write off 50% of the electorate.
posted by crazy with stars at 12:48 PM on April 5, 2017


Or you could not assume that the pool of voters is static and go after those who could vote (and like your policies) but for whatever reason don't. They seem like an easier get than people with MAGA hats.

Anyway I thought this was funny. All the Trump voters I know are rich white assholes.
posted by emjaybee at 1:06 PM on April 5, 2017 [14 favorites]


it's hard to see a way to a Democratic presidential victory if you write off 50% of the electorate.

It's easier when you realize that white people who vote are only 30 percent of the electorate.
posted by Etrigan at 1:08 PM on April 5, 2017 [6 favorites]


[P]eople who voted for the biggest scumbag in US political history and who stand by their decision even after seeing the garbage fire of the past three months... who do not regret it already are beyond redemption, and no one with an ounce of integrity should give a single fuck about their support, regardless of whether they voted for Obama that one time.

I love the fire in this, the anger. And I do feel the same way as a matter of principle. You voted for this guy? To hell with you. There is a line you do not cross....

But, I am also a cynical, occasionally canny bastard. And I'm scared. If we make it to the next election, I think that there should be a mission to see how to peel back some of those terrible, awful, no-good, very bad voters into the Democratic fold. I would say that the important part would be to not sell your soul. Others would say that the very act of working with such people is akin to offering your morals to the lowest bidder.

You can be seared by the anger of what these people did. I certainly am. But I'm also chilled by the fear of who they elected. The two are not mutually exclusive. Invigorate the base. Get out the vote. But also see if we can, perhaps, bring some of them back into the fold while not trading away the store.
posted by aureliobuendia at 1:10 PM on April 5, 2017 [4 favorites]


I hope that the thread on a satirical article doesn't turn into a new politics thread!

oh no
posted by Going To Maine at 1:12 PM on April 5, 2017 [18 favorites]


This is not what the data says.

I'm not sure if you've actually read the article you keep linking, but it certainly doesn't offer anything resembling conclusive proof that white voter flipping was the singular deciding factor in this election. Jill Stein got more votes in several key states than Trump's margin. Black voter turnout at Obama levels would have given Clinton the win also. Voter suppression is, for blatantly obvious reasons, next to impossible to model accurately using available data. Other (admittedly older) analyses reach different conclusions.

Also, please stop throwing out 50% of the electorate as if that's the number of voters lost. The number you've actually been talking about "winning back" is less than a fifth of low-income white voters who had previously voted for Obama switching to Trump. Even in a white-dominated state like PA, that's about 5-6% of the electorate according to 2012 exit polls. Nationwide, it's substantially less.

IMO TL;DR YMMV attract more good people to vote instead of trying to convert the awful.
posted by Behemoth at 1:18 PM on April 5, 2017 [14 favorites]


Maine, I'll strawman your argument if you promise to strawman mine, too.
posted by radicalawyer at 1:22 PM on April 5, 2017 [1 favorite]


Mod note: Folks, maybe let's consider these points (about persuading white working-class voters vs focusing elsewhere) to have been made one million times already, and drop that specific very repetitive back-and-forth? The article's really about other journalists/the formulaicness of these types of profile pieces, anyway.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 1:28 PM on April 5, 2017 [3 favorites]


Damon Young, Very Smart Brothas: "How Many Profiles Are We Going To Read About Idiot Trump Supporters Doubling Down On Self-Sabotaging Whiteness?"

And perhaps quotes like that articulate the true value of these endless and mind-numbing profiles. It’s not for us to be sympathetic to them, or to determine how to reach them, but for us to finally collectively realize that they just can’t be reached. That we’re operating with different currencies, and concepts like “logic” and “literally saving your own fucking ass” are valueless to them. That they’d rather see us gone or dead (or both) than themselves alive.

---

Mara Casey Tieken, Washington Post: "There’s a big part of rural America that everyone’s ignoring"

A look at county-level voting and demographic data suggests that this rural America [rural Americans of color] voted for Hillary Clinton.

In defining rural white America as rural America, pundits, academics and lawmakers are perpetuating an incomplete and simplistic story about the many people who make up rural America and what they want and need. Ironically, this story — so often told by liberals trying to explain the recent rise in undisguised nativism and xenophobia — serves to re-privilege whiteness. Whiteness is assumed; other races are shoved even further to the margins.


---
Jeff Guo, Washington Post: "If white America is in ‘crisis,’ what have black Americans been living through?"

(This last piece seems apropos in light of David Brooks's mind-numbingly stupid proclamation that "Steve Bannon is the Frantz Fanon of the whites.")
posted by dhens at 1:28 PM on April 5, 2017 [20 favorites]


eh. This still struck me as a bit mean spirited even if bits are pretty funny. It is sort of unclear whether the author is criticizing the bigoted (let's call a spade a spade) attitudes in vogue among Democrats that, "Those People deserve to suffer for voting the way they did," even though Those People include a lot of folks who didn't vote the way you insist as well as a whole bunch of women, people of color, LGBT folk, disabled folk, etc., who are just getting left out in the cold, nevermind that it was mostly upper-middle class whites who voted That Way, anyway...or if the author is delighting in same.

Caring about social justice and equality isn't a zero sum game, and if you find yourself arguing that "we" ought to hold one group of disadvantaged people in contempt because other groups have it harder (nevermind that, again, intersectionality means the lines between disadvantaged groups get kinda blurry here and there), congratulations, you're making a stand on the same hill as all those, "If the Left Just Got Rid of Identity Politics, We Could Get Things Done" dudes. I am done handling bigots of any stripe with kid gloves, and don't care if your bigotry is still socially acceptable. The current climate is one in which is increasingly important to take a stand against bigotry and injustice whether it's popular to or not.

To be extra clear: Trump supporters can go to hell. But for fuck's sake, can we stop conflating "Trump supporters" with "all poor people"? Coming back and clarifying that you just meant poor white people doesn't mean jack when your attitudes are still hurting poor people of color, poor LGBT people, poor disabled people and poor white people who are your political allies.

I just can't get behind attitudes and policies intended to ignore or increase suffering and inequality. Like, that's in essence the exact thing I am resisting, and it is not a better look on lefter-leaning folks than it is on foaming-at-the-mouth Jesusist Republicans.
posted by byanyothername at 1:32 PM on April 5, 2017 [4 favorites]


Whew, dodged a bullet. Had drafted a long-ish post profiling my Trump-supporting friends who are very different from the subjects of the media pieces being satirized. Was hesitating on pressing the button... and then saw LobsterMitten's suggestion. Heeded. (If anyone would really like to see said Trumpers profile, MeMail me.)

So I'll just say that as a former reporter, I thought it was hilarious and spot-on for mocking a certain subset of my one-time colleagues. (I'm thinking of a couple in particular.) Those stories can be done well, but most aren't. We can't all be Eli Saslow.
posted by martin q blank at 1:39 PM on April 5, 2017 [1 favorite]


So the thing is ... there's a tension sometimes between saying what you believe to be true and saying what you believe to be politically helpful. I think that's part of why there are these two groups in the comments here, the "Jesus, look at these dumbfucks" group and the "If you keep calling them dumbfucks you'll never win another election" group.

Both of those can be true.

But to the larger point, that tension between saying what you believe to be true and saying what you believe to be politically helpful is exactly what the original satirical piece is poking fun at ... all the articles that play up the pathos of #trumpgret while still barely hiding their classist sneer.

Which is why I find it So(!) Goddamn(!) Hilarious(!) to watch the reaction to the satirical piece be, "how dare you talk bad about us like we're stupid for voting for Trump?!?" Because it refutes the satire. It indicates that they 100% don't understand the attempt to defend them, and that yes, they're just as dumb as everyone said all along.

It's not just voting for the Leopards Eating People's Faces Party and then getting your face eaten. It's rousing yourself just long enough to shoot anyone who tries to stop the leopard, and to act affronted that anyone would suggest you needed help. And then getting your face eaten again.
posted by Myca at 1:39 PM on April 5, 2017 [12 favorites]


Me, I thought he was a repellent buffoon from the beginning, and I don't think that people who didn't see that are very smart.

That's not a very well-formulated political ad, sure, but on the other hand, I didn't vote for a fucking fascist, so.
posted by Myca at 1:42 PM on April 5, 2017 [12 favorites]


Yadda yadda yadda. Trump lost the popular and won the electoral college by 1-2% in several states. Had that 1-2% gone a different way, we'd be bemoaning the Republican congress refusing to vote on Garland, along with stories of Hillary being the Satan incarnate and won't anyone think of the chillun'.

The Democrats could win that back by throwing occasional BBQs in rural American and promising to drop gun control issues.

But it's gotta be GOOD BBQ.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 1:57 PM on April 5, 2017 [9 favorites]


The article's really about other journalists/the formulaicness of these types of profile pieces, anyway.

Also quoting for truth.

I don't think anyone is trying to argue that there are racist/fascist/what-have-you Trump voters and that this is a bad thing. I don't think that anyone is arguing that they are to be pitied and coddled or whatever.

We are asking you to consider, however, that maybe if you took about half of those people who seemed to have a chink in the racist chucklefuck attitude, and checked in to see, "now hang on, is this really about Trump and immigrants and all that, or is it about the fact that your plant closed down because they automated?" And then you maybe could find out that "ah-ha - so they automated. Okay, something to think about - Did you know that one of Trump's biggest donors was a guy who closed the plant down and hired robots instead? Just like what your boss did. And I don't think that's fair either, and that's actualy one reason why I didn't vote for Trump, is BECAUSE of what they did to you."

You know? The point behind understanding the Trumpers motivation isn't so we can get cuddly and forgive them, the point is so that we can figure out if there is any way we can get an 'in' and flip them back to our side. Figure out the weakest part of their argument and swing it. Will it work for everyone? No - but it will work for someone.

But what won't work is depicting all Trumpers as the same kind of impoverished country yokel who doesn't own any of their own agency, because they probably won't want to listen to you if they sense that that's what you think of them.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 2:05 PM on April 5, 2017 [8 favorites]


Another thing to consider -

Every "Whither the poor white Trump voter" article that gets printed means one more "How the Rich Corporate Shitheels Bought The Election" article that we don't get to read.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 2:08 PM on April 5, 2017 [22 favorites]


Anyway, the BBC's take on it was extra-absurd

This has been a problem with the BBC for a while. They really can't do liars. And they really can't beat the dead cat strategy.
posted by ambrosen at 2:21 PM on April 5, 2017 [1 favorite]


In the new Arrested Development universe we find ourselves living in, Trump voters are George Michael, Trump is Ann, and the media is Michael Bluth perpetually asking: "Her?"

Also: light treason, build that wall, and I've made a huge mistake.

This universe sucks.
posted by supercrayon at 2:35 PM on April 5, 2017 [2 favorites]


oh my god, I fell in a time hole and woke up four years ago when metafilter was very angry about mallory ortberg because people WOULD persist in posting randomly selected pieces of hers here and then ugh, what does this mean, does she think she's being funny? Is it a joke? What ARE jokes?

just going to go jump backwards through the time hole and try to come out right at the spot a few months from now when everybody says what are you talking about, everybody loves alexandra petri and we have always understood what jokes are, you must have just come out of a time hole or something
posted by queenofbithynia at 3:45 PM on April 5, 2017 [30 favorites]


If you want to understand intra-GOP warfare, the decision-making process of our president, the implosion of the Republican healthcare plan, and the rest of the politics of the Trump era, you don’t need to know about Russian espionage tactics, the state of the white working class, or even the beliefs of the “alt-right.” You pretty much just need to be in semi-regular contact with a white, reasonably comfortable, male retiree. We are now ruled by men who think and act very much like that ordinary man you might know, and if you want to know why they believe so many strange and terrible things, you can basically blame the fact that a large and lucrative industry is dedicated to lying to them.
posted by tonycpsu at 3:53 PM on April 5, 2017 [15 favorites]


I'm definitely the target audience for this article. I was laughing all along, though the humor did go down hill a bit to the end.

I'm a white working-class Democrat who sure as hell didn't vote for that racist &@$%*#. I'm sick and tired of reading articles by journalists going into some (exotic to their readers) economically depressed town or working-class neighborhood, and only interviewing people who match their stereotypes of 'stupid white trash Republicans' while ignoring everybody else, whether they're black or Hispanic working-class people or working-class Democrats of any race or ethnicity, though I can guarantee you their are tons of us working in the kitchens, and making up a lot of the clientele, of the working-class restaurants they went to find their victims in. But these reporters are bigots and went out with bigoted stories pretty much already written, and only had to get a few quotes from people who met their criteria for stereotypical 'stupid white trash Republicans' and get a few pictures to fill them in.

If they interviewed the rest of us they might get an interesting story or two, though still a depressing one. But those aren't stories they're interested in telling.

Anyway, thanks, Alexandra Petri, for mocking that shit.
posted by nangar at 3:58 PM on April 5, 2017 [19 favorites]


WTF. I assure you, no Planned Parenthood supporter thinks highly of the religious right. Like, at all.

The majority of Trump supporters also supported federal funding for Planned Parenthood, even after Trump promised to do away with it, and with Pence as an active crusader against it. Planned Parenthood wanted to know why. Aside from excuses ranging from not being ready for a female president, and imagining that a playboy cannot be taken seriously, there is the likelihood that Trump represents these voters accurately as hypocrites, and they would not necessarily realize this about themselves. If Trump had prayed in churches and thumped his bible and lived the life of a moral lecture, they would probably have rejected him, but not his message.
posted by Brian B. at 4:10 PM on April 5, 2017 [1 favorite]


This is good satire, I like how it singes the eyebrows on all sides of the issue.
posted by fleacircus at 4:52 PM on April 5, 2017


Trumpgret porn is bad enough, and Trumpgret porn satire is unnecessary.

This is correct: it is not food, water, or oxygen.
posted by Sebmojo at 5:16 PM on April 5, 2017 [1 favorite]


You've got to admit - there is probably at least one case where somebody did vote for Trump to break up their relative's marriage to an undocumented worker and is trying to find an awkward way bring that up before Thanksgiving.
posted by Nanukthedog at 6:12 PM on April 5, 2017 [2 favorites]


Democrats: "Don't be chumps!"
Trump voters: "Don't call us chumps!"
GOP: "Chumps."
posted by klangklangston at 6:45 PM on April 5, 2017 [11 favorites]


This makes me miss The Toast.
posted by fshgrl at 10:30 PM on April 5, 2017 [5 favorites]


I heard they're confused and afraid the way the world is changing and just need someone to feel superior to.
posted by fullerine at 11:25 PM on April 5, 2017 [2 favorites]


I don't read the Post in great detail and so hadn't come across Ms. Petri before. She strikes me as the Washington analog of Andy Borowitz. I'm a fan of The Borowitz Report, so that is a good thing.
posted by TedW at 12:13 AM on April 6, 2017


I heard they're confused and afraid the way the world is changing and just need someone to feel superior to.
The great thing about your comment is that I can't tell whether you are referring to Trump voters or to the reporters writing these pieces about them..
posted by Nerd of the North at 1:34 AM on April 6, 2017 [9 favorites]


So much of what is going on now is like the Bush years on acid. Satire is way up again, yeah! And much of that satire is devoted to critique of journalism, because the media are really not doing their job, and it seems impossible to get them to do it. Did they learn nothing during the 00's? Nothing at all??
Sunday night I was on a long road trip, and part of the time I was listening to a weekly US politics show a public service radio here (in Denmark) sends. The journalists running it are mixed socialist/conservative, but all find Trump ridiculous. Still, they are absolutely clueless. It's infuriating. They are payed a very good wage to be well-informed on US politics, but their perspective is narrowly that of well-payed middle aged white men, and they can't see anything out of that frame.
Sometimes it's hilarious - when something happens that has been foreseeable for weeks/months and they haven't noticed at all (WOOO - there's something going on about Trump and Russia!!). Mostly it is criminally negligent, specially when one knows that important decisions are made on the basis of knowledge equivalent to or even based on theirs. Like when during the Bush years a Danish top official told me that he leaned heavily on the writings of Thomas Friedman for guidance..
posted by mumimor at 1:36 AM on April 6, 2017 [3 favorites]


"This still struck me as a bit mean spirited even if bits are pretty funny. It is sort of unclear whether the author is criticizing the bigoted (let's call a spade a spade) attitudes in vogue among Democrats that, "Those People deserve to suffer for voting the way they did," even though Those People include a lot of folks who didn't vote the way you insist...

To be extra clear: Trump supporters can go to hell. But for fuck's sake, can we stop conflating "Trump supporters" with "all poor people"? "


I don't know why this point keeps being brought up even the article was painfully explicit about only being about trump supporters who are sticking with their vote because they're assholes who don't care about cutting their nose or eyebrows or cheeks to spite their face. Being a poor person who is probably definitely going to get fucked by trump in multiple ways, I really don't appreciate being used as a straw man.

A list of the characters to drive the point home:
Craig Slabornik - "has no regrets about pulling the lever for Donald Trump in November"
Lydia Borkle - "does not regret her vote for Trump and likes what he says about business"
Linda Blarnik - Okay, I'll concede on this one, Linda didn't explicitly vote for Trump, though she calls it the "coastal elitist media"
Carla Blarnik - "is married to an undocumented immigrant yet voted for Trump, who has vowed an increase in deportations."
Mark Hooglats - "voted for Trump. He will vote for Trump again, maybe up to 10 times if he does the thing with the economy."
Herm Slabornik - "will vote for Trump again in 2020, provided he is not unplugged. Also, he hates Obamacare"
Glom Pfeffernitz - "No. 1 priority is keeping telephones away from the undeserving poor."
Claudia Barknappen - "taken aback to see that Trump’s budget would replace her home with a sinkhole, but she says that she is reserving judgment and likes how much he hates immigrants."
posted by FirstMateKate at 5:50 AM on April 6, 2017


I don't know why this point keeps being brought up even the article was painfully explicit about only being about trump supporters who are sticking with their vote because they're assholes who don't care about cutting their nose or eyebrows or cheeks to spite their face.
It's not even about that, I don't think. It's a parody of a rash of articles about Trump supporters who are sticking to their votes, all of which seem to be competing to find the dumbest, most self-sabotaging yokel they can interview. And the Trump supporters I know are not like that: they're more like "Tim Smith, a 32-year-old mortgage specialist at a bank," or a couple of my co-workers at a university student services job. The articles are stupid and insulting, and they confirm stereotypes while not shedding a ton of light onto the people who supported and still support Trump. I think those people are, in many cases, motivated by extremely ugly impulses, but they're not the caricature that is emerging in the press. And it's an old, gross thing that American elites do: pretend that racism, xenophobia and what have you are traits that are particular to poor white people, while ignoring the many middle-class-and-up white people who also share those attitudes.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 6:28 AM on April 6, 2017 [17 favorites]


Satire is hard. For me, it edged a little close to the thing it was mocking, and I can't shake the feeling that the author or audience or both are complicit in same. Probably a large part of it's because I'm so burned out on classist, racist, cherry-picked "A Look at Real Americans" articles that I'm just not feeling this. As a poor person whose life has already been hugely disrupted by Trumpism, I would like to see less overall blaming fascism on poor people and/or minorities. It would also be great to see more highlighting of people in rural/poor regions who aren't white/cis/hetero/dudes/Jesusists/Republicans, because that's hardly representative and it's pretty frustrating that upper-middle class white people seem unable to get that. This piece reads a bit as not so much intended for me as for the kinds of upper-middle class white people who've been desperately blaming everyone but their own socioeconomic group for the rise of Trumpism, who are now tiring of it not because they realize they're wrong but because it's no longer as fun.

I dunno. It's highly likely my sense of humor's just much more singed right now, but this feels more laughing-at than laughing-with even though it's over the top enough that I know it's meant to be the latter.
posted by byanyothername at 2:02 PM on April 6, 2017 [2 favorites]


Another thing I've noticed is that when political reporters do focus their attention on white rural voters and their support for right-wing candidates, there's little discussion about the hick town top dogs - people who are doing really well for themselves either in spite of or because of the forces that are making it more difficult for their less affluent white rural neighbors.

These big fish wield enormous influence in their small ponds, even when they and the tiddlers aren't consciously aware of it. And they're right there with the Bannons and Pences on abortion, guns, immigration, laissez-faire capitalism, Christian theocracy, the whole ball of wax.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 9:26 AM on April 8, 2017 [3 favorites]


I wouldn’t mind reading an article profiling the rich/middle-class white dudes & ladies in non-rural areas who still support Trump.
posted by Going To Maine at 11:39 AM on April 8, 2017 [6 favorites]


I am also on team this is hilarious, partly because I was sick of the clickbait hot takes it's mocking months before the benighted election even happened.

If we must continue to talk about Turnip voters, can we get to the older suburban WASPy set next? That's a wild bunch, for sure, and possibly more interesting as a cultural relic

I wouldn’t mind reading an article profiling the rich/middle-class white dudes & ladies in non-rural areas who still support Turnip.


^This. These are the true deplorables. They have had every opportunity to learn not to be terrible, and doubled down instead.
posted by aspersioncast at 1:48 PM on April 9, 2017


As a corollary, there was a sketch in this week's episode of SNL in which Trump visits Kentucky, promises to take away various things from his voters, and they are all confused by continue to be supportive.

In many ways, it felt like a deliberately comic version of the columns on which Petri is riffing, with all of the sneering subtext converted to text: check out these Trump voters, the administration is abusing then to their face and they're just eating it up. It's slightly elevated by giving the voters real problems -opioid dependency, high premiums under the ACA, etc.- but the thrust of the gag is that the voters are chumps who are getting conned and failing to realize it.
posted by Going To Maine at 5:30 PM on April 9, 2017


When WaPo steals your Twitter thread
Jamie Nesbitt Golden—a.k.a popular Twitter user @wayoftheid, a.k.a 1/2 of Hood Feminism. and 1/5 of Nerdgasm Noire—is one very busy woman who recently shot off a hilarious series of Tweets mocking the endless onslaught of “Reports from Trump Country”-style pieces.

Two days later, the Washington Post published a similar piece by Alexandra Petri. Golden’s supporters have pointed out the overlap goes beyond topic and tone, right down to the language such as Golden’s “When Becky McCrackerson pulled the lever for Trump in November” versus Petri’s “he has no regrets about pulling the lever for Donald Trump in November.” Petri reached out to Golden and maintains it’s just a coincidence.

Golden isn’t so sure.
I'm not sure that Petri was "inspired" by Golden's piece directly, rather than the general zeitgest of cliche Trumpland sameness. I DO find it interesting that no media orgs at the time offered to pay Golden to republish or expand upon her popular Twitter thread, while Petri was paid by a major newspaper to publish a similar article days later.
posted by nicebookrack at 6:22 PM on April 10, 2017 [1 favorite]


citing “pulled the lever” as your example of plagiarism seems kind of weak, IMO, but many stranger things have occurred.

I DO find it interesting that no media orgs at the time offered to pay Golden to republish or expand upon her popular Twitter thread, while Petri was paid by a major newspaper to publish a similar article days later.

Petri is a columnist for the post, who writes a regular column on deadline. This wasn’t some one-off thing; it was her doing her day job.
posted by Going To Maine at 6:28 PM on April 10, 2017 [2 favorites]




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