The raw disdain that journalists in the media have for roughly half of the country’s voters is best seen in their repeated notion that Republican voters (i.e. Trump supporters) are animated exclusively by an unjustified and angry “grievance.”
And it’s said as if to be angry about the way money and power are distributed in the United States is somehow beneath the dignity of what it means to be an American.
Ben Smith of the New York Times wrote over the weekend that “if you watch Fox News, you see every day how the Republican Party defines itself as a party driven by grievance more than any specific policy.” This was in a piece meant to explain that journalists “are not your friends,” something that apparently needed to be stated up front for a healthy portion of New York Times readers.
Are Republicans, at least in some healthy portion, motivated by grievance? Probably. But let’s not pretend that the Democratic Party isn’t.
No, in fact, it’s Democrats who have created, cultivated, and elevated an entire political culture that worships grievance and victimhood above anything else.
The energy of the modern Democratic Party is mostly concentrated in the Black Lives Matter movement, a faction that is nothing if not a mass of people linked by grievance. And their anger is tied to something that’s two centuries old! But it’s the same for every other special-interest group cobbled together to make up the party’s base, such as the transgender rights lobby, the #MeToo feminists, and on and on.
Why, then, is it considered a noble and moral crusade for Democratic voters to pursue remedies for their grievances, but Republicans, and Trump supporters, can’t?
You’ll never even see the words “grievance” and “Black Lives Matter” linked in the same sentence when reading a news report.
Sure, Republicans have grievances, and they likely serve as serious reasons that cause them to vote. The only thing separating that from Democrats is that Democrats have been doing it this way for a lot longer.
