The World Beyond BetterMost > The Culture Tent
In the New Yorker...
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: Front-Ranger on July 24, 2017, 12:06:15 pm ---Are you saying that rich people are more liberal???? I did not know that. (That's what I say to my children/grandchildren when they tell me something off the wall.)
--- End quote ---
Good point, and taken. The Koch brothers certainly aren't. I should have been more specific. I was thinking of the Hollywood gliterati types about whom I've read they frequently use Aspen as their playgrond. Of course, I suppose it's possible there might be a difference between the rich and the very rich or super rich who presumably want to hold on to every penny.
--- Quote ---Yes, I agree that Aspen is an anomaly. Telluride too, but not for its film festival (actually Telluride has many film festivals, music festivals, and every other kind of festival). Colorado is full of anomalies, towns famous for their eccentricities. Denver and Grand Junction are probably the most homogenous, though, the one on the right and the other on the left (figuratively, and literally if you look at them from the North Pole).
--- End quote ---
Interesting about Telluride. I have a friend who worked a September film festival for a couple of years some time ago. That was the only one I knew about.
--- Quote ---But Denver is a fairly large city and can't be lumped in with Boulder. Colorado elected a Republican Senator last year and we are grappling with the brown noser Cory Gardner who is largely responsible for getting that seat-stealer Neal Gorsuch into the Supreme Court. Colorado is a purple state and Denver is a purple town. There are many baskets of Ds all around and they aren't all in the boondocks.
--- End quote ---
Hessler does. See page 21.
I don't think Hessler is an outsider. I'm sure I remember reading something quite some time ago about him settling somewhere in the Western Slope after years of living in China. (Of course, perhaps that does make him an outsider after all.)
Incidentally, "I did not know that" might work for your grandchildren, but I would be wary of using that to another adult outside your immediately family. It might be perceived as condescending and even insulting. Just sayin'.
serious crayons:
The average Trump voter's annual income was $72,000. Not rich, but not poor. Presumably many went to college. Rich people voted for Trump because they assumed, apparently correctly, that he would act in their interest (see: attempts to pass Republican health care bill to benefit rich people and screw over everybody else) and fill the government with people who acted in their interest. Poorer people voted for Trump believed, incorrectly, that he would "drain the swamp," restore failing industries like coal mining so they could get jobs, etc. They were people who believed the fake news items about Hillary Clinton committing murders. They were people who didn't hear about, ignored or excused a lot of Trump's behavior. He wore a baseball cap and talked like a regular Joe and seemed like one of them except that he'd built a fortune so he must be smart about money (never mind six bankruptcies and a rich dad who bailed him out) and who would side with them against the "elites."
Lee, I can't explain where your daughter fits into that picture, but that's my understanding of the two most common Trump supporters. Some people are just regular conservatives, I guess. In a way, it's kind of cool that she's become such a media superstar! If only it were for a different reason.
I don't know about Denver, but most big cities are blue-ish and you are obviously much more of an expert than I am but Denver has always struck me that way. Aspen and Telluride are anomalies. It would be like saying Texas can't be conservative because Austin. Or Oregon is totally liberal because Portland. Minneapolis and St. Paul are very blue, suburbs purple, rural areas red (which is new -- outstate MN used to be more blue). But because the cities are so much bigger than everything else, MN always goes for Democrats.
I'm partway through the scary Colorado article but what has struck me so far is the stuff about the crime rate in rural cities (if that's not too much of an oxymoron). I thought Trump's depiction of the cities as cauldrons of violent crime seemed crazy -- violent crime is waaayyyyyyy down. Chicago -- infamous for violent crime! -- had 762 murders in 2016. That's about twice as many murders annually as New Orleans had when I lived there (when the city averaged about one a day), but Chicago is about six times bigger.
So Trump's claims seemed wildly absurd. But if people in Grand Junction and places like that are seeing homicides soar, I can see why that argument would seem valid to them.
I talked to someone from Colorado on Facebook about economics. Lee, maybe she was even a friend of yours! I told her there were actual job shortages in many industries and the recovery economy actually looks pretty good (nationally, wages have stayed flat, but even they're beginning to rise slightly, and corporate profits have of course soared). She argued, saying the exact opposite is true in CO. I didn't understand it at the time, but the article addresses that pretty clearly, so now I get what she was talking about.
serious crayons:
The Personal History essay by the woman whose 15-year-old cousin went to prison is devastating.
You were right about this issue having lots of good articles, Jeff.
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: serious crayons on July 24, 2017, 05:49:52 pm ---The Personal History essay by the woman whose 15-year-old cousin went to prison is devastating.
--- End quote ---
I'm reading that one now. Sad. :(
Jeff Wrangler:
I am currently enjoying the George Strait profile (July 24). For one thing, I now understand all the (expensive) George Strait clothes I've seen in stores in the Denver area, including shirts with button-down collars (George Strait wears shirts with button-down collars).
When Strait was younger, he participated in team roping (I guess he could afford a ropin' horse).
The article quotes the opening stanza of one of his songs, which the writer calls "one of the most memorable in country music."
Amarillo by morning
Up from San Antone
Everything that I got
Is just what I've got on.
The writer describes this song as "the stoic lament of a travelling rodeo pro."
Sound like anybody we know?
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