I Don’t Want To Bring You More Bad News, But . . . 

In a New York Times column I read last evening, Nicholas Kristoff said he was wondering why “so many millions of Americans watched Trump for four years, suffered the pain of his bungling of Covid-19, listened to his stream of lies, observed his attacks on American institutions — and then voted for him in greater numbers than before?” 

 I’ve been puzzling over this too. In Tom Friedman’s column in the same newspaper, Friedman quoted Harvard Law School professor Michael Sandel, who gave this answer: “Democrats need to address the sense of humiliation felt by working people who feel the economy has left them behind and that credentialed elites look down on them.”

Ironically, it’s been mostly Republican politicians, including Trump, who have “left them behind.” If Democrats controlled both houses of Congress and the presidency, they could address grievances of this nature with constructive legislation and change perceptions of millions of voters, but it’s almost certain that Republicans will control the senate and block any legislative initiatives that might reflect favorably on Democrats. This ugly dynamic is likely to endure for the foreseeable future.