Top Dogs
We apologize for the language in advance, but this has been on our mind a long time, and there’s really no other way to get the point across.
It’s a story we first heard in the Eighties, but it must stretch back generations, perhaps forever. It’s a story of Poor White Trash seemingly happy with their miserable lot, fundamentally resistant to attempts to help them. Why? Why settle for that shack, when life can be so much better?
And the profane response, which explains for us America’s Original Sin as much as anything:
“At least we’re not niggers.”
There are so many ways of getting at this. Racism. Nationalism. “Populism”. Religion. And none of them are wrong, really, they’re just incomplete, insufficient. They don’t get at the rawness of that attitude, the profound, fundamental nature of it. They don’t get at how deep it runs, how enduring it is — and how easy it is to pretend it’s something else.
At least we’re not them.
There’s a related story. This one goes back to LBJ, we think, to the Great Society, to the resistance against social programs then, and the continuing resistance now. It’s not that we couldn’t use the help, we white folk in Your Godforsaken Region of Choice. But if it’s going to help them too, we don’t want it. We’re better than that.
It must have been third grade when we first heard any version of the story. We were trick-or-treating for UNICEF, in the very neighborhood where we spent our early childhood. A dime here, a quarter there.
Knock-knock-knock. Door opens. Young dude, probably in his twenties. We announce our presence and purpose. “I’m not giving you anything,” he says, “and I’ll tell you why: That money goes to communist children.”
He didn’t mean Russia.
He meant “Third World” countries, as we called it at the time. He meant them. The dark kids with the bloated bellies on TV.
We were stunned. We’ve remained stunned for fifty years.
The hatred of it. The depth of that hatred.
The hatred in his soul.
You need to understand this. You need to understand what we’re dealing with here. You need to understand why 73,890,295 Americans would vote for Donald Trump, despite everything, despite the risk to their own lives, why they’ll happily throw democracy in the trash just to keep him in power.
You need to understand dogs.
Or Trump’s idea of dogs, anyway.
This has been observed for a long time now, Trump’s use of dogs as metaphor. No Man’s Best Friend in his world. No loving companions, love itself being an emotion that’s alien to him. Dogs, like everything else in his life, are creatures that exist to serve his whims, have no purpose beyond that, and should be casually discarded when no longer needed.
He said it again just last week. “If you were a Republican poll watcher,” he told his Gettysburg audience over the phone, “you were treated like a dog.”
Like a dog. Like them. Like the people you’re not, no matter how sorry your situation.
73 million Americans, desperate not to be treated like dogs, desperate not to be lumped in with those they consider beneath them.
73 million Americans who must treat their own dogs like that.
And expect slavish devotion in return.
A Nation of Karens.
We don’t see a solution to this. Trump himself may exit the stage, but those 73 million Americans were there before him, and they’ll be with us long after, clinging to every scrap of power they can get, desperate in their lives not to be seen as no better than the rest of us. Their souls are poisoned with their superiority, and the only thing that makes their miserable lives worth it is our submission.
They cannot be accommodated. They can only be defeated. But problem is, there are so doggone many of them.
As a teen in the South, I read an anecdote that really takes the cake in describing why poor white people are rabidly hostile to any efforts to improve their lives, and why Southern racists never suffer any consequences at the ballot box no matter grotesquely corrupt, incompetent, or destructive they are. I think it was a remark by an LBJ-era Dixiecrat: “Give a white man a tight pussy, cold beer, and a warm place to shit, and he’ll empty his pockets for you as long as he feels superior to any negro.” I can’t find the exact quote, however nothing sums up our disordered national ordeal over the last three centuries better.
Unfortunately, the only solution is demographics. It’s not like previous generations of racist white people woke up one day, realized they’re horrible assholes, and vowed to make amends–no, they died off. Not to be indelicate, but ~8 million far white Silent Gen & Baby Boomers are going to their final Klan rally in hell between now and Election Day 2024. As of 2020, some 50% of America’s youth that will replace them are people of color who will not become insane screaming MAGAts.
We’ve chopped off the Tr666p cult leader’s head, and now we just have to watch as the GOPnazi corpse spazzes out.
/the Onion/
Alternate Price Of Book In Canadian Dollars Gives Man Little Window Into What Life Would Be Like If He Were Canadian
DETROIT—”Offering the U.S. citizen a brief opportunity to vicariously experience a different nationality, the Canadian price printed on the back cover of a book gave local man Peter Brown a little window into what life might be like if he were Canadian, sources confirmed Wednesday. “Wait a second, so in a world where I’m Canadian, I’d be paying $22.99 for this paperback instead of $16.99?” said Brown, wondering aloud if the Canadian version of himself would be upset upon seeing that the number for him was higher than it was for Americans. “That’s amazing. It’s pretty interesting that they call them ‘dollars’ over there, too, even though their money looks totally different. Just imagine, if I’d been born in Canada, my wallet would have queens and prime ministers in it instead of a bunch of presidents. It really makes you stop and think.” The Detroit resident later confirmed his intention to apply for a passport so he could one day cross the border and discover all the new and fascinating cultural experiences awaiting him in Windsor, Ontario.”
@¡Andrew!: Census estimates a white-plurality nation by 2043. Not sure when white voting plurality kicks in. Either way we have at least one long decade ahead of us, and it’s not like other shit ain’t going down fast.
@¡Andrew!:
Obama gave them healthcare!
Unintended consequences… etc.
@ nojo, it’s not the overall racial proportions of society, it’s generational tendencies to vote Republinazi. As early as 2024, the Millennials will be the largest generation by far, with Gen Z coming up fast. Gen X is split 50/50 at worst. The eldest Millennials turned 40 this year, and collectively they own a whopping ~4.6% of the nation’s wealth–they’re absolutely screwed, and that’s before Tr666p’s Second Great Depression. If they stop Instafacing and Faceb666king long enough to realize how ruthlessly they’ve been fucked over by the Boomer GOPnazis, Plantation America’s rulers are finished.
Millennials Control Just 4.2 Percent of US Wealth, 4 Times Poorer Than Baby Boomers Were At Age 34
“Millennials, who are the median age of 32 today, control just 4.6 percent of U.S. wealth, far behind the 21 percent Boomers had at about that same age a generation before. These working young adults will need to quadruple their bank accounts in the next two years in order to match the financial share controlled by their parents during the late 1980s, when the median Boomer was 34 years old… the richest 50 American individuals have as much money as half of the United States, or 165 million people.”
Earl Butz the Ag Secretary refered to blacks wanting tight pussy, loose shoes and warm place to shit.
@ DElurker,
Interesting. I heard it the other way around, but it’s possible that I’m misremembering some ancient 90s snark. Still works though : )
Looks like Twitter just banned 99% of its users. “While we encourage people to express themselves freely on Twitter, abuse, harassment and hateful conduct continue to have no place on our service,” a blog post from the Twitter safety team said. “Today, we are further expanding our hateful conduct policy to prohibit language that dehumanizes people on the basis of race, ethnicity, or national origin.”https://www.rawstory.com/2020/12/twitter-bans-content-which-dehumanizes-based-on-race-ethnicity/
This really starts in the late 50s and early 60s – draw a straight line thru Goldwater to Nixon to Reagan t0 HW to W through to Trump. It’s the same ideology, it’s the same game plan.
Only twenty 9/11s every day until Christmas!
Thanks, Tr666p!
@¡Andrew!: And our healthcare system is on the verge of catastrophic failure. Everything he touches turns to lead.
@¡Andrew!: Here’s the actual LBJ quote, “If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket.” Which pretty much explains the vote of every white guy making an hourly wage voting for the GQP.
NOJO • A Kind of Hash @nojo: Never been to a big-league game, so saw the Yankees with friends last night. Grand slam was…
NOJO • A Kind of Hash @¡Andrew!: Not yet, but I’m sure I can borrow one from a neighbor on the…
¡ANDREW! • A Kind of Hash @nojo: Oh wow! Congratulations on the move. Hope it's going well. I assume that you now have a…
MANCHUCANDIDATE • A Kind of Hash For the Ex-Mo contingent... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1W0pDpDBqE
NOJO • A Kind of Hash @¡Andrew!: Never made it, and too late now — I’ve been in Brooklyn since May.
¡ANDREW! • A Kind of Hash @nojo: So, have you dined at Casa Bonita yet? It seems to be the primary cause of mass insanity in…
¡ANDREW! • A Kind of Hash I hope Taylor Swift figured out a way to unleash her flying monkeys/army of lawyers against Tr666p…
MANCHUCANDIDATE • A Kind of Hash Team Kamala/Walz/Swifty
NOJO • A Kind of Hash Nothing in my life goes to waste.
FLYINGCHAINSAW • Harris-Kelly ’24 HARRIS QUOTES TOWER OF POWER IN DEBATE: TURN THE PAGE !