TRUMP

APPENDIX 311
So far, centrist Democrats have been miserably bad at generating that
kind of meaningful alternative (possibly because they are, themselves,
largely the beneficiaries of inequality). In fact, by dismissing the
concerns of working-class voters, and gushing about the Obama
administration’s wonderful policy achievements, liberals almost
seem to be mocking and taunting their working-class constituents.
(Clinton’s missteps, like telling coal country voters that she would
put miners out of business, have also been unhelpful.) As Emmett
Rensin has written, elite liberalism has become characterized by a
“smug style” that simply shouts “idiots!” at the “stupid hicks” who are
getting “conned by right-wingers.” 122 Rensin says that liberalism has
come to believe in “the politics of smart people in command of Good
Facts,” which has “no moral convictions, only charts.”
One could see that after Trump’s speech. The most common response
to Trump among liberal commentators seems to be the relentless factchecking
of his statements, rather than any attempt to articulate a
comprehensive alternate political worldview. Barack Obama himself,
in addition to adopting the “America is already great” mantra, 123 has
decided that the best way to defend his health care policy to the public
is through writing a heavily-footnoted academic article for a scholarly
journal. 124
Clinton supporters can often seem stunningly oblivious. Pundit
Andrew Sullivan (who believes that the rise of Trump proves that
people are too stupid to be entrusted with democratic decisionmaking
125 ) responded to Trump’s criticism of Obamacare by saying
that “I’m on Obamacare and I picked my own doctor.” 126 Well, bully
for Andrew Sullivan. But not everybody shares in his good fortune, 127
and it’s both arrogant and useless to explain why Democratic policies
look great from where you’re sitting. Such people fundamentally do
not seem to understand what it feels like to live outside of the coastal
elite bubble. Prominent liberal writers like Ezra Klein, who help shape
policy priorities and set agendas, are totally uninterested in the way