A Washington Post analyst said Thursday he's had it with calls for MAGA voter empathy following the Jan. 6 Capitol riots, the first criminal conviction of a former president and promises of "dictatorship" to come.
Political columnist Matt Bai professed himself fed up with calls from top Democrats and thinkers' pleas to fellow liberals to pity the plight of the avid supporter of Donald Trump this year.
"If we’re talking about treating Trump voters with basic respect, I’m all in," wrote Bai. "But empathizing with them, after all we’ve seen? I’m afraid, even for me, that moment has passed."
Bai argued calls to find common MAGA ground from former President Barack Obama and columnist Nicholas Kristof read as condescending considering the plethora of information available to voters about Trump.
The ignorance argument tracked in 2016, Bai argued, when political newcomer Trump promised to lift up the voiceless and drain the swamp, but not so much after four criminal court cases were filed against him on charges of fraud, election interference and violations of the Espionage Act.
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"To say that Trump’s voters aren’t aware of these things, or don’t fully comprehend them, or are firmly in the grip of misinformation, is to say that they’re simply fools," Bai wrote. "And I’ve met way too many rural Americans to believe that. If they’re ignorant, then their ignorance, at this point, is willful."
Bai argued extreme MAGA voters are not confused about Trump, they simply enjoy making condescending liberal elites feel the way condescending liberal elites make extreme MAGA voters feel: powerless.
"These voters don’t support Trump because they labor under some illusion that he’s going to rescue their communities — not anymore," Bai wrote. "They support him because he’s willing to blow up the country if it means teaching insufferable intellectuals a lesson."
Bai instead urged Democrats not to conflate rural voters with Trump ones.
"There are countless Americans like the ones Kristof describes, people whose communities have been devastated by job loss and substance abuse, who still manage to keep their faith in moral leadership and the Constitution, and who want nothing to do with Trump’s brand of vengeance," Bai concluded.
"If anyone deserves empathy, it’s them."