Wonder why progressive/liberal folks don’t “get” how many of us deplorables are abroad in the land? Perhaps it is because they read and believe the legacy media which, as conservatives know, caters to progressives, reports from their point of view and about their activities.
On the other hand, in spite of our best efforts we cannot escape the legacy media so we always know what they're thinking. I suspect most of them have no idea what we're thinking, as they've no routine way to be exposed to it.
They tune out our talking heads in Congress the way we tune out theirs ... that's a wash. We can't stand Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, they don't like Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy.
We've sought out the few outlets for conservative thought, if we're interested. I'd bet dollars to doughnuts they have not made that effort.
So imagine their surprise in November of 2016 when Trump won the presidency. You can hear them asking, "From what caves did all those troglodytes emerge? Half the country deplorable? Scary."
Their media tells them we're all klansmen, white nationalists, gun nuts and haters of everyone not white and straight. That is no more true than that all progressives are communists, abortionists, pacifists and race-baiting America-haters.
Each party inevitably attracts the votes of extremists on its wing of the political spectrum. In a de facto two party system, it happens. The naughty secret: each bemoans the radicalism of the other's bedfellows, while secretly welcoming the help of their own extremists.
Progressives tend to underestimate us because we don't get much positive media coverage. We tend to overestimate them because we can't avoid seeing so much positive coverage of their activities.
This information imbalance actually works to our advantage, so long as we're aware of it. The Republican advantage, which was old news when my Southern Democrat father ruefully shared it with me many decades ago: those darned Republicans all vote.
