Some More Thoughts...

…from Facebook. I linked to Kurt Schlichter's article on Townhall:

So what have we learned about ourselves? Maybe that many of us are snobs. There's a lot of class warfare going on here, a lot of backroom snark, with a lot of conservatives who want to believe that the only people who could ever support Donald Trump are knuckle-dragging morons who can't cut it when it comes to anything besides digging ditches. Too many of us choose cultural solidarity with the liberals we live among over political solidarity with the people we expected to vote with us. 

“Gosh,” we tell ourselves. “These people can’t even see what’s in their own best interest.” Except maybe they don’t like what they see. Maybe it’s because they decided we aren’t worth listening to. Maybe they don’t like us conservatives. And maybe we better figure out how to fix that instead of whining.

Read the whole thing.

I think this is a brilliant analysis. I like to think I've been on both ends of the "conservative" spectrum. I've lived in New York City among the elites -- the elite of the elite, the media (or so we thought). I witnessed firsthand the contempt with which they, and I'm embarrasses to say, I, viewed Flyover Country, the place I'd come from and, as I would eventually learn, the place I belonged.

The irony was that my friends went through amazing conniptions to separate the "good peckerheads" from the "hillbilly trash." Texas, especially Austin, was declared Occupied Territory, the home of cool people rather than…Texans. Nashville was, well, embarrassing…I mean, those rhinestone suits! Those big boat-like Lincoln Continentals...

Then one morning I woke up, looked around at my very successful celebrity journalism career — as my friend Hank Williams Jr. said, "I have seen my name at the top of the page" — and I left. Collapsed my career pretty much, but I figured if I'd built it up once, I could build it up again.

Moved to Florida, worked like a dog and took up something called "combat shooting." I'd always been a shooter; that's the way it works when you grow up in Tennessee. Shotgun at 6 years old; handgun at 12; whitetail hunting ASAP. But I'd left it behind when I moved to the City. Ironically, I missed it more than I thought I would. I applied for a permit to keep a handgun in my apartment in NYC and was ultimately turned down because I refused to pony up the $500 "unofficial cash tax, and we don't give no receipts neither!" to the cop in the basement of One Police Plaza.

When I moved out to Long Island to finish 2 book projects away from the clubs and the nightlife of Manhattan, I discovered a shooting range, where I began shooting bullseye with borrowed guns. Bought a small truck, finished the books, and started driving South. My favorite comment was fron a photograher friend of mine, himself from North Carolina, "You can't leave! You've adjusted so well!" Apparently not well enough...

I moved South, then West, to increasingly smaller towns. Shooting and competition became a bigger and bigger part of my life. More importantly, I figured out who "my people" were, and, of course, they were the same ones I started with. I am a son of Tennessee, unashamedly what some would call "white trash;" I have worked 40 hour weeks in factories and done hard manual labor in the blistering sun. I am not afraid or ashamed of work: I have called men and women of all colors, religions and gender identities my friends, but I don't give a tinker's damn about "diversiity;" I've worked side by side with illegals…nothing aginst them, but if I'm forced to play by the rules, and so should they. That's not a political statement; that is the heartfelt truth.

I'm sorry your ancestors had the misfortune to be slaves. So did mine, and it no doubt sucked as much for them and it did for your ancestors. And while I honor their struggle, they are dust and have no more to do with my life than the brainless talking heads of television news. I am a little tired of being the only racial/ethnic group that it's safe to slur, to discriminate against, to spit on. You should probably consider that before your next big BLM rally.

I admire John Wayne and Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and Ronald Reagan. I wouldn't piss on Al Sharpton if he was on fire. I despise the Democratic Party for pretending they are not the Socialist Workers Party of America, and I despise the Republicans for their gutlessness and their willingness to throw us all under the bus to protect their dacha by the lake.

I carry a gun every day, and God help you if you try and take it away from me.

You should have listened to me, and the rest of us hillbilly white trash snake-handling deer-hunting funny talking clingers.

And we're not done talking. Think about it.