E Pluribus Unum

Matt Labash profiles Dave "Mudcat" Saunders in the Weekly Standard. Along the way he has a conversation with Saunders' partner, Steve Jarding who says this, about Southerners who vote Republican:

...."If you say to them, 'You're voting against your own economic interest,' is that true? Damn right, it's true. But it sounds belittling. It sounds like you're saying, 'You're an idiot.' No, Democrats, you're the idiots. They're voting on their values. They're voting on something out there, because the other side gave them something to vote on. You've given them nothing, and while you're doing that, suicide rates are up. Unemployment rates are up. Wages are down — it's a terrible mess in rural America."

Kevin Drum takes it one step further, asking just what exactly constitutes one's "economic interests?" If you vote for Democrats and their argument that you're voting for your own economic interest, just what exactly are you getting?

A higher minimum wage? Maybe, but even in the rural South most people already make more than the minimum wage.

Medicare and Social Security? They already exist.

Money for roads? Republicans do that too.

More labor friendly laws? That doesn't resonate much in the South, and in any case they probably don't believe that Dems can deliver on that anyway.

So exactly what economic interests are they voting against? Forget ...arguments about regressive taxes or rising income inequality. They may be true, but they're way too abstract.

If you want to convince these guys that their economic interests lie with Democrats, we need to offer them something real: local clinics, free healthcare, tax rebates, something. Right now, I don't think these voters believe that Democrats are actually promising anything that would make a genuine difference in their lives.

In other words, it's not that [cultural] values have drowned out the economic arguments, it's that no one's even making the economic arguments in language that means anything to these guys.

Until we start, we'll never really know for sure whether or not [cultural] values trump economics, will we?

OK, altogether now: "Medicare for all."