Peter Hasson of the Daily Caller notes the disdain some liberal pundits display for a once-large segment of the Democratic base.
Democrats should stop trying to win over white Republican voters, according to several prominent liberal writers.
That was the point of a column Washington Post writer Paul Waldman wrote on Tuesday, which liberal journalists approvingly circulated on social media, adding their agreement.
Waldman, who previously worked for left-wing group Media Matters, blamed Fox News and conservative media for the fact blue-collar Trump voters don’t vote Democrat.
“In the endless search for the magic key that Democrats can use to unlock the hearts of white people who vote Republican, the hot new candidate is ‘respect,’” Waldman snarked. “If only they cast off their snooty liberal elitism and show respect to people who voted for [President] Donald Trump, Democrats can win them over and take back Congress and the White House.”
The problem isn’t Democrats, according to Waldman — it’s that Trump voters are too uninformed to vote for Democrats.
“The right has a gigantic media apparatus that is devoted to convincing people that liberals disrespect them, plus a political party whose leaders all understand that that idea is key to their political project and so join in the chorus at every opportunity,” he argued.
Waldman advised Democrats to keep in mind “that white Republicans are not going to vote for you anyway, and their votes are no more valuable or virtuous than the votes of any other American.”
A key component of Waldman’s column was Democrats are already sufficiently respectful of white working class Republicans.
Just last month, he dismissed Trump voters as “dumb.”