“When Mary Lou Retton, the decorated Olympic gymnast, accrued medical debt from a lengthy hospital stay, her family did what countless Americans have done before them: turned to crowdfunding to cover the bills.
On Tuesday, Ms. Retton’s daughter started a fund-raising campaign on social media for her mother, who she said was hospitalized with a rare pneumonia.
“We ask that if you could help in any way, that 1) you PRAY! and 2) if you could help us with finances for the hospital bill,” McKenna Kelley, Ms. Retton’s daughter wrote in a post on Spotfund, a crowdfunding platform similar to GoFundMe.
The public swiftly responded, with thousands donating $350,000 in less than two days, shattering the goal of $50,000.”
Another daughter did not reply when asked why her mother, with a net worth of “just $2 million”, did not have medical insurance.
I’m sure the $350,000 was the exclusive work of soft-hearted and headed liberals. Republicans are far too consistent on the whole negative consequences, tough love, and personal accountability thing to have enabled the Retton family.
A hypothesis. The 2020 Presidential election isn’t going to be decided on policy differences. As always, both candidates will make lots of promises, some partly fleshed out, others not. It isn’t even going to be decided on “kitchen table economics”, or tax proposals, or other manifestos for further weakening or strengthening our frayed social safety net.
It’s going to be decided on emotions, how the candidates make people feel about themselves, even more than how they feel about the country.
Remember Bruni’s description of how Trump makes his followers feel like victims:
“He has turned himself into a symbol of Americans’ victimization, telling frustrated voters who crave easy answers that they’re being pushed around by foreigners and duped by the condescending custodians of a dysfunctional system.”
The Demo candidate should rebut Trump victimization head on, repeatedly saying, “We are not victims. Your neighbors and you control your destiny. Together we can strengthen labor unions, create jobs that pay a livable wage, preserve our natural environment, and take care of the most vulnerable among us. Immigrants and foreigners are not our foes, our only foe is unfounded fear of the other.”
Trump also plays brilliantly on his followers sense that they’re being pushed around by the mainstream media, “coastal elites”, and anti-religious liberals whose common thread is a sense of superiority.
That’s why television segments like this (start at 2:33) are a serious problem for anyone who wants to defeat Trump in November. Like Hillary Clinton’s infamous “deplorable” slur, the single worst thing anyone who wants to defeat Trump can do is laugh at people susceptible to his victimization bullshit because it plays right into their belief that liberals are arrogant; that Democrats, whether they know it or not, whether they accept responsibility for it or not, can be counted on to convey a sense of superiority.
The larger context of this clip, Pompeo’s unconscionable treatment of a female reporter doesn’t matter. The fact that geography is not Trump’s strong suit doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is how their laughing makes those susceptible to his victimization push feel because perception is reality.
For Democrats to win, they can’t let their animus for the Trump Administration spill over into disrespect for the dignity of moderates, independents, and “still undecideds” in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio, and elsewhere.
Pressing Pause 