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May 4, 2022Liked by Oliver Willis

"To a lot of national reporters, this means that their (almost exclusively white) relatives who vote Republican are perfectly fine with this. It means their kindly grandmother and jokester uncle are just okay with calling countries with large black populations “shit holes.”

But the journalism class hates to contemplate this reality, so in their reporting they are compensating for this by speculating on a pivot from Trump that never comes."

Ding, ding, ding. I'm white and a former reporter and this is all true. And it's true of white "moderates" who aren't reporters too. None of them want to contemplate how deep white supremacy runs, even in "decent" well-educated people like themselves---because that means they, we, have to deal with our complicity.

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Yes. I live in a small PA town that seems to smolder with white hate. It is "endemic." There is no meeting ground with someone whose garage wall features a huge confederate flag or whose truck flies the F*** Biden flag. This is America now. Just like in 2016 - the media doesn't know how to process it anymore than I do.

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Think about what so many people said when asked why they liked Trump: He says what I’m thinking. Concrete example: My wife and I have known a lady through our church for many years. She’s the sweetest old lady you’d ever meet, and there isn’t anything she wouldn’t do for you. My wife and I are both visually impaired so we don’t drive, and she was always happy to drive us to doctor’s appointments, and she was my grocery store buddy until Shipt and Instacart came along. But there was no doubt she was a full-on Trumper. My wife and I both saw flashes of it at times, and we all agreed that we would never speak of politics. But it felt for all the world like a split personality. The former guy gave people permission to unleash their inner worst selves, and more people embraced it than I ever imagined. At least our friend was able to rein it in. We haven’t seen her in 2 years thanks to Covid, but I’m sure she’s exactly the same. Oh, and many of my wife’s extended family, Republicans all, will still tell off-color ethnic jokes amongst themselves. It makes my skin crawl.

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