Smug progressive transplants help to explain Trump’s victory in rural Wisconsin

[Valin]

Hot Air:

John Sexton

Jan. 22 2017

 

Politico magazine has an interesting piece up today titled “What Do You Do if a Red State Moves to You?” That title is actually close to being the opposite of what the piece describes. It’s not about red staters moving into the cities. It’s about blue staters deciding, for one reason or another, to colonize a small county in rural Wisconsin and then being horrified to find not everyone who lives there shares their political outlook. The author suggests the cultural smugness of these progressive transplants is one reason some people in this rural county voted for Donald Trump.

 

The piece opens with the dismay of Andrea Myklebust, a left-leaning sculptor who moved to Pepin county from the twin cities because she liked the look of it:

 

 

he described the history-twisting election of 2016 in stark, before-and-after terms, unable to fathom how anybody could have voted for Trump, much less three-fifths of the people with whom she shares her adopted home in Pepin County. “There is sort of a baseline assumption of common sense and decency that’s been thrown into question in a way I never expected it to be,” she said. “And it’s a struggle. You have to continue to interact with people, and you have to wonder: Do you really have hate in your heart in this way? Really? At the core, I didn’t believe this about us.”

 

 

(Snip)

 

The piece offers as an example John Andrews, a former sheriff who was also the head of the Democratic Party in Pepin county. Now he’s a Republican:

 

 

“When the people came in—and the things that they were trying to push on the rest of us—that’s why I left,” Andrews added. “I didn’t want to deal with these people. I didn’t want to be a part of what they were a part of. You’re talking about people from the Cities who are very progressive. I call them tree-huggers, a bunch of tree-huggers. They referred to us, meaning the people who’ve lived here and worked here all our lives, as a bunch of hicks. They just think they’re a little bit better than everybody else, and that we’re not as smart.”

 

 

(Snip)

 

No doubt there are other factors involved, but author Michael Kruse makes a convincing case that the smug cultural superiority of progressives has a lot to do with Trump’s unexpected win in rural Wisconsin.