Republicans Hate The Voters They Need

Krugman riffs on Stephen Moore — between his staggering incompetence and revolting misogyny, truly the ultimate Trump nominee — saying the quiet parts loud:

Conservative contempt, by contrast, is real. Moore’s “armpit” line evidently didn’t shock his audience, probably because disparaging views about middle America are widespread among right-wing intellectuals and, more discreetly, right-wing politicians.

Let’s be clear: There is a real economic and social crisis in what one recent analysis calls the “Eastern Heartland.” This region suffers from persistently low employment among working-age men and has seen a surge in mortality from alcohol, suicide and opioids — “deaths of despair,” in the phrase of Anne Case and Angus Deaton.

What lies behind this crisis? The view of most liberals, as far as I can tell, is that it reflects declining economic opportunity, changes in the economy that have favored metropolitan areas over rural communities. On this view, declining opportunity has led to social disruption, in the same way that the disappearance of urban industryundermined inner-city communities a half century ago.

Many conservatives, however, blame the victims. They attribute the heartland’s woes to a mysterious collapse in morality and family values that somehow hasn’t affected coastal cities. Moral collapse is the theme of books like Charles Murray’s “Coming Apart: The State of White America,” and of innumerable articles. One widely read essay in National Review went so far as to label the troubled Eastern Heartland “the white ghetto,” whose people are too indolent to move to where the jobs are.

And don’t forget boorishly-mannered Yalie and hedge fund grifter J.D. Vance, coming to a Netflix near you!

It should also be noted that the “Democrats hate the white rural poor and don’t want to do anything to help them” theme — which some precincts on the “left” have echoed — has persisted despite the most important social welfare policy to be enacted in decades was particularly critical for the rural poor:

More important, think about what will happen to troubled parts of America if Republicans manage to do what they tried to do in 2017, and impose savage cuts on Medicaid and other safety net programs.

I always think about West Virginia, where Medicaid covers almost a third of the nonelderly population. And it’s not just about receiving care, it’s also about jobs. More than 16 percent of West Virginians are employed in health care and social assistance, compared with less than 3 percent in mining. Hospitals are the biggest employers in many parts of rural America. What do you think will happen to those jobs if Medicaid is hollowed out?

Democrats want to help the rural poor. Republican legislators (and Supreme Court justices) are fine if they suffer and die and want more of it. It’s that simple.

UPDATE: this was overdetemined.