Twitter Responds to NY Times on Overlooked (White) Conservative Voters in Northern California: "Rural Whites Are the Only Folks Who Matter"

Conservative voters in the northernmost reaches of California feel alienated by the state's liberal urban majority https://t.co/N1McsLwq2x pic.twitter.com/bKSuLnFy8N

— NYT Politics (@nytpolitics) July 3, 2017

My Twitter feed in the last few days has offered a number of incisive responses to the article New York Times published on 3 July (see the tweet above) about how conservative voters in northern California feel alienated from the state's liberal urban enclaves. As a number of respondents have noted, we've seen an endless stream of such articles in the mainstream media since the 2016 elections — the overlooked white working-class voter, the ignored white working-class unemployed miner in West Virginia, the maligned white working-class gay man for Trump: on and on and on ad nauseam.

What we never see the mainstream media featuring are articles commenting on all the other people in the country who have no voice at all due to voting restrictions targeting minorities and gerrymandering of districts to assure Republican control of government bodies when Republicans represent the minority of voters. What we never hear is the voice of the many working-class voters, many of them non-white, who did not vote for Donald Trump.

This kind of journalism is a facet of the broader argument that the Democrats have failed because they have placed too much emphasis on identity politics, political correctness, human rights. Ditch the African-American community, women, LGBTQ folks, poor folks, Muslims and immigrants, atheists and secularists, and you'll start soaring at the polls again, Democrats. Because you'll finally be representing real Americans, white middle- and working-class ones, who are more real than anyone else in the country . . . . Especially when they live in parts of the country that count more than other parts of the country, the rustbelt states and the Northeast . . . .

Here are some of the good responses to the Times article I've noticed in my Twitter feed in the past day or so:

"Rural whites are the only folks who matter" has long been subtext to a lot of coverage but wild to see how fast it's become the text. https://t.co/xnSBDdY2MX

— Jamelle Bouie (@jbouie) July 4, 2017

Why doesn't the @NYTimes interview liberal residents of Milwaukee or Detroit whose right to vote was stolen from them by the @GOP? https://t.co/bzm9EayJI9

— Pé Resists (@4everNeverTrump) July 3, 2017

Strange that you don't see many articles taking this angle on the large, black, liberal populations of red states. https://t.co/KTwDCmDp4U

— Mazel Tov Cocktail (@AdamSerwer) July 3, 2017

So let me get this straight: they got the president they wanted and receive the bulk of federal/state aid but they feel disempowered? https://t.co/TQosjRlIU5

— Joy Reid (@JoyAnnReid) July 4, 2017

Have I got a story for you! There are millions of Democratic voters in Texas who are represented by republicans due to gerrymandering.

— Texas Blue Dot (@tx_blue_dot) July 3, 2017