Roy Exum
During my morning reading on New Year’s Day it seemed that everywhere I looked there were three stories that have gone viral. Anything that goes viral interests me because it is a wonderful way to judge what people want to read, what makes a story popular, and why the major search engines gobble this stuff up.
I want to warn my liberal friends, most Democrats, and those who voted for Hillary Clinton to pass this one by. I don’t reprint these to make any one mad, nor any winner gloat, but if you want to follow the pulse of our country, here’s a strong feeling as we head into the New Year:
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THE BLUE-STATE DEPRESSION
The following is an excerpt that appeared in the Washington Times (12-4-2016) and was written Stephen Moore, who is an economist with Freedom Works and a senior economic adviser to the Trump campaign.
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“People are leaving the Hillary-supporting states in droves.
“When I say the blue states are in a depression, I don’t mean the collective funk they are in because they lost the election to Donald Trump.
“I’m talking about an economic depression in the blue states that went for Hillary. Here is an amazing statistic. Of the 10 blue states that Hillary Clinton won by the largest percentage margins — California, Massachusetts, Vermont, Hawaii, Maryland, New York, Illinois, Rhode Island, New Jersey, and Connecticut — every single one of them lost domestic migration (excluding immigration) over the last 10 years (2004-14). Nearly 2.75 million more Americans left California and New York than entered these states.
“They are the loser states. They are all progressive. High taxes rates. High welfare benefits. Heavy regulation. Environmental extremism. Super minimum wages. Most outlaw energy drilling. The whole left-wing playbook is on display in the Hillary states. And people are leaving in droves. Day after day, they are being bled to death. So much for liberalism creating a worker’s paradise.
“Now let’s look at the 10 states that had the largest percentage vote for Donald Trump. Every one of them — Wyoming, West Virginia, Oklahoma, North Dakota, Kentucky, Tennessee, South Dakota, and Idaho — was a net population gainer.
“This is part and parcel of one of the greatest internal migration waves in American history as blue states, especially in the northeast, are getting clobbered by their low tax, smaller government rivals in the south, southeast and mountain regions.”
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‘WE SHOULD BE BREAKING BREAD … ‘
Celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain has an idea of who to blame for Donald Trump's presidential victory: people exactly like him.
"The utter contempt with which privileged Eastern liberals such as myself discuss red-state, gun-country, working-class America as ridiculous and morons and rubes is largely responsible for the upswell of rage and contempt and desire to pull down the temple that we're seeing now," he said in a candid interview with Reason.com.
He said he's met a "hell of a lot of nice people ... in gun-country, God-fearing America," and found that they're on the same path as everyone else: doing "the best they can to get by, and take care of themselves and the people they love. And so when we brand their views as illegitimate, when we mock them at every turn, and treat them with contempt, we do no one any good."
"The self-congratulatory tone of the privileged left—just repeating and repeating and repeating the outrages of the opposition—this does not win hearts and minds. It doesn't change anyone's opinions. It only solidifies them, and makes things worse for all of us. We should be breaking bread with each other, and finding common ground whenever possible. I fear that is not at all what we've done."
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YOU CREATED "US"
Nobody is certain who authored “You Created ‘Us’” but it is going viral so fast the speed can hardly be recorded. Among the by-lines are Paul Genova (Internet), or “Peggy,” (NorCal blog) or Johnny Cowart (in the Jacksonville Times Union), or Lee Martin (Twitter) and many others.
“I'm noticing that a lot of you aren't graciously accepting the fact that your candidate lost. In fact you seem to be posting even more hateful things about those of us who voted for Trump. Some of you are apparently "triggered" because you are posting how "sick" you feel about the results.
“How did this happen, you ask?
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You created "us" when you attacked our freedom of speech.
You created "us" when you attacked our right to bear arms.
You created "us" when you attacked our Christian beliefs.
You created "us" when you constantly referred to us as racists.
You created "us" when you constantly called us xenophobic.
You created "us" when you told us to get on board or get out of the way.
You created "us" when you forced us to buy health care and then financially penalized us for not participating.
You created "us" when you lied and said we could keep our insurance plans and our doctors.
You created "us" when you allowed our jobs to continue to leave our country.
You created "us" when you attacked our flag.
You created "us" when you took God out of our schools.
You created "us" when you confused women's rights with feminism.
You created "us" when you began to emasculate men.
You created "us" when you decided to make our children soft.
You created “us” when you decided to rewrite school history books and remove the truth about our founders.
You created "us" when you decided to vote for progressive ideals.
You created "us" when you attacked our way of life.
You created "us" when you decided to let our government get out of control.
You created "us" the silent majority.
You created "us" when you began murdering innocent law enforcement officers.
You created "us" when you took a knee, or stayed seated, or didn't remove your hat, during our National Anthem.
And we became fed up and we pushed back and spoke up. And we did it with ballots, not bullets. With ballots, not riots. With ballots, not looting. With ballots, not blocking traffic. With ballots, not fires… except the one you started inside of "us".
"YOU" created "US".
It really is just that simple.
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Now, can’t we just all respect one another and move forward?
royexum@aol.com