The fascination of liberal-leaning outlets with a fringe character like Richard Spencer is a cowardly attack on Trump voters. Liberal journalists focus on Spencer not because they want to understand why people voted for Trump but to marginalize and stigmatize people who did vote for him by associating them with a white nationalist they had never heard of.
Let’s look at the key swing state of Pennsylvania. In 2008, Obama won Elk County with 51 percent of the vote. In 2012, Romney won Elk County with 57 percent of the vote (though with lower turnout.) In 2016, Trump won Elks Country with 70 percent of the vote and with a larger turnout than 2in 012.
From the numbers, it looks like quite a few 2008 Obama voters stayed home in 2012 and that a large number of one-time and two-time Obama voters switched to Trump in 2016. How to explain the behavior of these former Obama supporters? The obvious answer is to ask some fool who goes around giving heil-Trump salutes. Who better, right?
Imagine you were trying to understand the appeal of Bernie Sanders to the young. You could interview an African-American 19-year-old who voted for Bernie while her parents voted for Clinton, or you could interview some freak from the fringe Workers World Party who is ranting about North Korea’s resistance to global capital. Which interview would be more representative of Bernie’s appeal?
If the liberal media treated Sanders voters the way they treat Trump voters, we would be seeing profiles of Leninists as the coming thing in Democratic-party politics. It’s all socialism, right?
The attempt by liberal journalists to elevate Spencer (with his cooperation, of course) is a smarmy and passive-aggressive attempt to slur Trump voters under the guise of trying to understand them.