84 Comments
User's avatar
⭠ Return to thread
Colleen Kochivar-Baker's avatar

"The fact that Democrats responded with visceral dislike to a song that expressed the complicated populist views of an actual working-class person shows how unwelcoming the party has become to actual working-class people," No Mr Texeira, my frustration with working class people has nothing to do with their music. It has to do with the fact I don't dare put a Joe Biden bumper sticker on my car because the odds are very high some working class person who hates democrats will vandalize my Jeep. To say that kind of thing makes me feel unwelcome in their party is an understatement.

Expand full comment
TW Falcon's avatar

I think part of the reaction to Anthony Oliver's song, on both sides, was because 1) it came on the heels of Jason Aldean's redneck MAGA anthem "Try That in a Small Town" and was taken to be another one of those and 2) a portion of the song was played at the opening of the Republican debate and it was the subject of the first question.

In fact Anthony Oliver said it was funny seeing his song at that debate because he wrote that song about those people on that stage. And he specifically said he disliked how his song has been weponized by some.

You can see his full comments here: https://youtu.be/cv9uMXiY29s

It's well worth the listen. He seems to be a regular guy with his head on straight. Pretty centrist overall. I agree with some of what he says but disagree with other parts.

I don't follow Ruy and had to google him to find out who he is. Did he object to Jason Aldean's song or criticize how the right seized on Oliver's song as a supposed attack on the left?

Expand full comment
Catie's avatar

This gets to a HUGE frustration of mine about main stream press coverage and pretty much all election analysis. While it is true that tfg won over a lot of WHITE working class voters, the VAST majority of working class voters voted for Pres. Biden; they just happen to not be white. Drives me nuts. Gives the MAGA movement this absolutely faux "little guy down on his luck" image that they do NOT deserve.

Expand full comment
Anna Kingry's avatar

Partly, it's the association with low education, evangelical religions, and narrow perspective. They are not poor; they just live poor spiritually and intellectually. Not much generosity or understanding vs ingrained grievance and resentment. Watch MTG or the very entitled Matt Gaetz. Both rich always, but no grace to offer the world.

Expand full comment
CW Stanford's avatar

Consider that both Ruy and yourself missed the knee-jerk polarization involved here. Any Democrats reacting negatively to Oliver likely did so after, and because, the Republicans too quickly (it would seem) adopted it as hymn de guerre. I happen to live in a place where I would be frightened too -- of placing a decal on my 20 year old Toyota reading Trump 2024.

Expand full comment
Colleen Kochivar-Baker's avatar

I listened to it once and chalked it up as another woe is me barstool justification song. CW music is famous for these 'laments'. The only CW I could stand was Blue Grass and Dolly Parton. 9-5 is a way better and far more uplifting a song about blue/pink collar workers than Oliver's.

Expand full comment
Geoff G's avatar

It's strange that a very popular liberal entertainer, one Bruce "The Boss" Springsteen, has sold millions of records, given concerts to millions too, and yet his whole shtick is celebrating working class folks, and lamenting the decline of "Rust Belt" manufacturing towns. Why on earth would we dastardly Real American-haters love Bruuuuce and disdain Oliver (one first name is not enough for him) Anthony? I don't have a clue, but it may have to do with the fact that Bruce sees cops filling an unarmed Black man with 41 bullets as a bad thing, while one gets the idea that perhaps Anthony would see it differently.

Expand full comment
TW Falcon's avatar

Maybe not. Oliver is more nuanced than that.

See his comments about the reaction to his song here:

https://youtu.be/cv9uMXiY29s

Expand full comment
Steve Cohen's avatar

Not only that, Colleen, but it’s more than ironic that Ruy Teixiera’s (full disclosure - he’s a long-ago friend of mine) schtick talks about “mythical proletarians” on the very day that the UAW goes on a national strike for the first time in years.

So let’s talk about economic populism in the GOP for a minute, shall we? I’ll believe it when J.D. Vance and Ted Cruz join the UAW picket line, as Bernie Sanders is tonight.

The UAW did catch a little flak from some Democrats recently for refusing to endorse Joe Biden at this time over a year out. But these Dems failed to appreciate that the UAW might be justified in holding Joe Biden’s feet to the fire over the looming strike. They want at least benevolent neutrality from the administration - and it looks like they’re getting it. That’s smart politics for a union. If they persist in it closer to the election, it may be worth discussing.

And just maybe, if “Rich Men North of Richmond” didn’t take an up-front neo-Confederate line, the reaction from Dems might have been less concerned.

Sorry, my old friend Ruy, but the idea that Southern White Men are the working class and the actual multiracial working class isn’t, is still as offensive to me as it once would have been to you.

Charlie, you ought to think more about this before you retweet Ruy.

Expand full comment
Maryah Haidery's avatar

Was he always like this? Or did he change when the predictions from

his “ Demographics is Destiny” book didn’t quite pan out?

Expand full comment
Mary's avatar

Charlie rarely misses a chance to endorse Teixera’s take. It is a blindspot for him. It is frustrating.

Expand full comment
Craig's avatar

Yes, you would think that Charlie would realize at some point that Ruy is now just a professional contrarian.

Expand full comment
Steve Cohen's avatar

Yes Ruy basically wants Dems to behave like Fox News

Expand full comment
Oldandintheway's avatar

Which Democrats are they complaining about? The six kids at NYU film school. Everyone else is listening to Taylor Swift. This is another ridiculous made-up conflict. Meanwhile the rains continue to wipe out roads, dams, and communities. Why isn’t that an issue?

Expand full comment
Mary Brownell's avatar

Have you all been keeping up on the disasters in other countries? It was reported this morning that, so far, over 11,000 people have died in the flooding in Libya, with another 10,000 reported missing. At least in this country, so far, we have infrastructure in place to both avoid some of the worst results of such disasters (i.e., building regulations), and people and processes in place to respond when they occur. Once Trump 2.0 gets back into office and decimates the federal government, any federal money and programs will be gone, and the states will be on their own. And depending on the state you live in, tax cuts may have weakened disaster response systems so individual families are on their own. Something else to look forward to as we get rid of all those pinko Dems who think we should put money into safety nets.

Expand full comment
TW Falcon's avatar

That crap predated Reagan but he gave it full voice with his comment that the scariest words in the English language were "I'm from the government and I'm here to help you."

I guess I can understand why Charlie and Mona revere him but I can't, for the life of me, understand why JVL and Sarah do.

Expand full comment
Dave Yell's avatar

I totally agree about these made up phony cultural issues.It is more "noise" over news.As Charlie says; its performance.

Expand full comment
Carolyn Spence's avatar

Could someone please tell Ruy that Democrats are unwelcoming to assholes? Everyone else is welcome.

Expand full comment
Maggie's avatar

Imagine if the same sentiments were expressed by an African American rapper. Then we'd hear about "identity politics" and "declining work ethics" and "excusing substance abuse".

It's a song about a guy complaining about working overtime, using it as a justification for binge drinking, and then blaming his plight on hypothetical morbidly obese people. But unlike good folk music, it doesn't tap into any emotion other than self pity. Utterly solipsistic. It makes me want to listen to WHAM!

Expand full comment
Maryah Haidery's avatar

Lol - Joe Perticone made a sly reference to this exact point in a brilliant line that I think didn’t get enough credit about what would have happened if Dems had started their primary asking about why Fetty Wap’s “Trap Queen” seemed to resonate with so many on the left ;)

Expand full comment
Maggie's avatar

YES!

Expand full comment
Mike Lew's avatar

They had some embarrassingly catchy songs!

Expand full comment
howard's avatar

2 other points.

The first is that most democrats didn't respond to the song at all! Honest to christ, it was yet another shiny object that came and went.

And second, there's a party that lives to make life easier for capital and there's a party that acts to help working people. The fact that some working people prefer to vote social resentments rather than economic self interest is nit because democrats aren't welcome to the interests of working people.

Expand full comment
Geoff G's avatar

It also overlooks the fact that Pravda on the Hudson, a/k/a the New York Times had an op-ed by the (allegedly) liberal Nick Kristof "On Their High Horse Too Many Liberals Disdain Oliver Anthony" while very conservative, but non-MAGA David French, had a piece earlier responding to Aldean's "Try That in a Small Town" with an op-ed titled "Try Tolerance in a Small Town." French's piece was an on-the-ground view from the actual small town he lives in, pointing out that many of his neighbors despise Blacks, LGBTQ folks and anyone who's not full on MAGA, like Mr. French himself.

If Ruy really wanted to change politics, you know what he could do? Implore Reps to cater to the entire working class, not just White folks, by dropping racial resentment and adding policies that would benefit all working class folks, instead of tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires. A GOP like that would be pretty hard to beat.

Expand full comment
Linda Oliver's avatar

David French lives in Franklin, an upscale suburb of Nashville. Hardly Mayberry. But it is Southern.

Expand full comment
Carolyn Spence's avatar

Yeah I have not heard it, the title was enough for me.

"try that in a small town" like so many other phrases, boils down to "I'll decide who you get to be." Just another example of a base that sits in judgement all day every day.

Expand full comment
Sko Hayes's avatar

I think Charlie was referring to Oliver Anthony's song, Rich Men North of Richmond. Turns out Anthony is a liberal who doesn't agree with Republicans very much.

Aldean's song was a big waving flag for racists.

I've lived in small towns down south and now out west for 40 years. Each town has its good and bad side, but no town I've ever lived in was ever hostile to strangers.

Until Trump.

Expand full comment
Slide Guitar's avatar

It boils down to Jason Aldean threatening violence.

Expand full comment
Sheri Smith's avatar

I grew up in a tiny, remote mountain town. There’s a reason I left.

Expand full comment
steve robertshaw's avatar

(Howard comment) Yours is the perfect response to the report of that opinion piece. The facile use of "Democrats" with no descriptive term like 'some Democrats' is plain misleading, he did it so he could create his own narrative.

Expand full comment
Jeff the Original's avatar

I hang out at FoxNews and you're 100% correct that they paint the Dems with the world's largest paint brush and always negatively. They literally have made the Dems out to be more evil than satan.

Bigfoot, Loch Ness monster and the the Dems...all very scary things in the GOP world...

Expand full comment
BlueOntario's avatar

You take a risk driving in parts of some states in a car with a license plate from NY or California.

Expand full comment
Amy H.'s avatar

Can confirm about the license plates. Our California plates got us nearly pushed off the 2 lane, winding rural Ozark roads in AR several times. And our car was fully keyed in a hospital parking lot. We ended up hiding our car behind our relative's home and just using their vehicles. And when we left to head home we were on the road at 3am to at least get onto an OK freeway by dawn.

Expand full comment
BlueOntario's avatar

Don't bring smartass ideas like science, public health, or where to deposit their used oil into their towns. And books....

Expand full comment
TW Falcon's avatar

Yep. Get your Yankee ass off my property.

Expand full comment
Mary Brownell's avatar

Wow, this takes me back to the 60's, and how dangerous it was even for white people with northern license plates to drive in the south--it was assumed they were there to support the civil rights movement.

Expand full comment
Amy H.'s avatar

It didn't help that the hospital administrator insisted on loudly greeting me every morning when I came in with "How are you today, Miss California?" 🙄 This was in a lobby atrium so nearly everyone in the area on 2 floors would turn around and give the me look over. Pretty sure that was his intention.

Expand full comment
Kathe Rich's avatar

Me too. I live in MyKevin's district (in a gated equestrian & golf community.) If I put a Biden sign on my lawn, it would be removed that night. But the guy across the street can fly his huge t**** flag from his huge house, and he's fine.

Expand full comment
MProvenza's avatar

I am so glad redistricting took me out of MyKevin's district into Valadao's. I still have to deal with the same people, but I don't have to acknowledge McCarthy.

Expand full comment
steve robertshaw's avatar

Yup. And the wealthier they are, the bigger the flagpole they can afford. Witnessed it often here on A1A.

Expand full comment
knowltok's avatar

There's an over-compensation joke in there somewhere.

Expand full comment
Carolyn Spence's avatar

Rich, classy property on Lake Erie had a huge (30' tall) metal man they decorated as Trump. They also had a mini jail with a hilary and a white-haired guy peeking out a cellar door. I think a lot of maga share the quality of passive aggressive at work & straight aggression the rest of the time.

Expand full comment
Liberal Cynic's avatar

The odds are higher that the person that will threaten you is a guy making over $100k/yr calling you on his new $1,000 phone while lounging on the new boat he just bought.

Expand full comment
Nancy (South NJ coast)'s avatar

Yup, $100k/yr-$1,000 phone-new boat guy is the trump menace where I live. "Ultra Maga" sign on the front lawn 2 doors down. My Ukrainian flag has been left alone (so far).

Expand full comment
Tracey Henley's avatar

Daughter has high school friend w/fam in Cape May. 2020-2022 I used to drive her from MD to CM and my God, those last 30 miles thru the Pine Barrens were an education.

Expand full comment
CW Stanford's avatar

I am sorry, but this is exactly the kind of bipolar class stereotype that reinforces populist inclinations.

Expand full comment
MJ's avatar

I can attest to that. Truth!!!

Expand full comment
Colleen Kochivar-Baker's avatar

Around here it's 100,000 dollar pickups with Trump flags and lift kits, but it's all bought on credit.

Expand full comment
Walternate's avatar

This is why they're so angry about the economy. Interest rates are up, so their unaffordable financed lifestyle is becoming harder to afford.

Expand full comment
Colleen Kochivar-Baker's avatar

That's spot on.

Expand full comment
User's avatar
Comment removed
Sep 15, 2023
Comment removed
Expand full comment
CW Stanford's avatar

Here is the bipolarity again. So which is it? Were the Capitol rioters middle/upper middle, or spending beyond their means? And, does money, or consumer goods, do anything at all to explain their motives to riot? Again, how many of these people had surnames which but a half-century ago were disdained outsiders from South and Eastern Europe, or the dreaded Irish island? Did they finally earn a spot in fortress-bigotry and decide to slam the gate behind them?

Expand full comment
Tracey Henley's avatar

Both, all three, and YES.

Expand full comment
R Mercer's avatar

1) They are middle/lower upper class spending beyond their means (because they have or can get credit). They couldn't actually afford the F250 with lift kit and all the bells and whistles or the jet skis or the 5 Apple iPhones that the whole family has and the 8 streaming services (and the mortgage on a house that is probably more house than they need).

Displaying the proper status with the proper toys costs big time.

2) The motive to riot stems with general dissatisfaction with the world they find themselves in. They are "unappreciated." They are being displaced/replaced by a combination of those Other People and machines/software. Stuff is changing faster than they like and the weather is (for some reason) getting strange. Everyone is shitting on them (so they feel).

3) Today's nativists usually are yesterday's despised immigrants who finally made good (and whose good is being threatened by the next group of Others).

I got mine, now fuck off.

Expand full comment
Jeff Zajac's avatar

You just described most of my second and third generation Cuban neighbors here in Miami

Expand full comment
Mary Brownell's avatar

I was just going to say something like this, Liberal C. If you watched any of Trump's rallies in 2016 and 2020, you saw a whole lot of white men in the audience who looked like they were pretty well off. I think it's a myth that Trump's base is composed solely of the forgotten man of the working class.

Expand full comment
Shane Gericke's avatar

Yes. The "forgotten man of the working class" is too busy working three jobs and a side hustle to pay any attention to Agent Orange, let alone take time off work to attend a rally.

Expand full comment
Sko Hayes's avatar

I read before the 2020 election that the average income of a Trump supporter was $75,000, while the average income of Democratic voters was closer to $50,000.

Expand full comment
Travis's avatar

^This. Most of the people who stormed the capitol on J6th were middle and upper middle class, not working class.

Expand full comment
Fake American's avatar

Only cause they could afford to get there. I'm quite sure there were a ton of working class Republicans who were jealous they couldn't make it. Head on out to good old West By God VA some time or south western VA. They're the ones with the guns and zip ties eager to get CW2.0 started so the south can rise again (it baffles me that so many WVA people I've known have that attitude).

Expand full comment
Linda Mannino's avatar

And very little understanding of the facts surrounding the Civil War! Maybe no understanding of what a war would be like, also.

Expand full comment
Alondra's avatar

Yep. Remember the Texas woman, in real estate I think, who flew in to participate in 1/6 on a private jet?

Expand full comment
Travis's avatar

She's a great example of JVL's point that decadence drives this kind of political culture war on the right. If people were more worried about their economic struggles they wouldn't have so much time to delve into QAnon conspiracy theories or drag queen story hour anger-clicks.

Expand full comment
R Mercer's avatar

I always find time to delve into extraneous stuff, but I am the poster child of decadence.

My life IS extraneous stuff

Expand full comment
Travis's avatar

The difference is that you're not delving into QAnon and drag queen story hour :-)

Expand full comment
R Mercer's avatar

I am too busy looking for the best bard build for Baldur's Gate 3 to waste my time on that shit ;)

Or watching animal voice-over videos on Youtube :D

Expand full comment
TW Falcon's avatar

I'm a big games fan, too... Pong, Space Invaders, Tetris... Pretty much all of them.

:)

Expand full comment
Travis's avatar

See, and I had you figured for a Starfield guy rather than a Baldur's Gate 3 guy haha

Expand full comment
R Mercer's avatar

Oh, I am playing Starfield too. I am currently L 30 and flying around in a half-million credit battleship.

But I played DnD back before it was actually DnD (it was a little thing called Chainmail) and I DM'd at a number of conventions (including GenCon). I was always more of a DM than a player.

Expand full comment
Travis's avatar

I'm still doing Halo Infinite until the new CoD MW3 drops in November. I'm a long time FPS gamer. I liked Fallout and have heard great things about Starfield, but with CoD MW3 dropping so soon I don't wanna get balls deep into another game for a month or two before MW3 comes out so I've left Starfield alone. Glad to hear you're enjoying it though.

Expand full comment
Jeff the Original's avatar

Ginni Thomas is a poster child for this...

Expand full comment
Shane Gericke's avatar

Ginni's also a poster child for a drone strike . . .

Uh, I mean, sincere but polite disagreement with her politics.

Expand full comment
BlueOntario's avatar

The one who complained about needing time off from the court to do whatever she wanted?

Expand full comment
Christine's avatar

Another ridiculous take by the persistently misguided Texeira.

Expand full comment
Jody Sherman's avatar

And he omits the Democratic politicians like Sen. Chris Murphy who called out the naysayers and expressed support for the class sentiments in the song. Honestly, does Texeira keep up with the Dems these days?

Expand full comment
Mark P's avatar

I think Gov. Murphy had a good take on it: as a pro-working class party, Democrats have to reach out to groups of people in this country with whom they may disagree with on some social issues. However, the reason Murphy felt compelled to speak up about the song in the first place is because so many on the left reflexively dismissed it as a song performed by a rural white southerner, (i.e., racist MAGA type), which kind of reinforces Texeira's point.

Expand full comment
User's avatar
Comment removed
Sep 15, 2023
Comment removed
Expand full comment
Kevin C.'s avatar

See: Andrew Sullivan.

Expand full comment
steve robertshaw's avatar

Isn't reporting something written in an obscure publication just an example of the chattering class chattering with each other?

Expand full comment
Linda Oliver's avatar

Being unwelcoming is a function of the current GOP. I’m working class, having never made it up to $15 an hour after 35 years as a CNA, and I live in a small southern town. It’s not a matter of class but of Party. I, too, would not have the nerve to put a Biden bumper sticker on my car.

Expand full comment
ErrorError