So the Washington Post has come up with a new type of newspaper article. It's not really "news," it's not an op/ed, it's just bullshit.
Post Politics
West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice isn’t the only Democrat Trump won over
Okay, first of all, are we really going to pretend that WV Governor Jim Justice was "won over" by Il Douche? Justice was a Republican up until 2015. He refused to endorse Hillary Clinton. He was a goddamm coal company executive before entering into politics. How persuasive would Cheeto Mussolinin have had to be to "win him over?"
HUNTINGTON, W. Va. — While it is highly unusual for a sitting governor to change political parties while in office — as West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice (D) announced he would do during a rally with President Trump on Thursday night — the process of crossing over was familiar to many in the crowd that night.
Kimberly Barrington, a 46-year-old stay-at-home mother of two from Virginia’s rural Wise County, voted for Democrats for years, including former president Barack Obama ahead of his first term — but as she watched him and the Democratic Party drift away from her values and priorities, she decided to vote in 2012 for Republican nominee Mitt Romney and then for Trump in 2016.
See, now a statement like that needs some examples. If you're going to say that the Democrats have "drifted away" from some set of values, you need to follow that up with at least one f'rinstance. You need to say " For instance, they used to support this position, but now they support that one instead." But of course zero examples are offered, because it's just considered a given that since the GOP has flung itself headlong into the pit of far-right insanity, the Democrats must conversely have moved towards the far left because how else to explain the gap between the two parties? It certainly can't be the result of the Republicans having fully embraced the extremist wing of their party, because that would mean that our "both sides" conventional wisdom might be incorrect!
Marty Ramsey, a 49-year-old from Kenova who maintains trains, became an independent several years ago after watching Democrats allow the government to become heavily involved in health care, implement Common Core education standards that he thinks are too liberal, reduce access to firearms and narrow the freedoms of Americans. After not voting in the 2008 and 2012 elections, Ramsey voted for Trump last year.
Okay, the correct version of this paragraph would read ". . . became an independent several years ago after being convinced by the FOX/Limbaugh/Breitbart cabal that Democrats were reducing access to firearms and narrowing the freedoms of Americans, even though neither of those claims is remotely true." Like seriously, name one piece of gun-control legislation signed by Barack Obama. Name one way in which Americans' freedoms have been "narrowed" in the last 8 years. And don't say the freedom to have a shitty catastrophic healthcare plan that doesn't cover anything, or the freedom to be denied health insurance at all because of pre-existing conditions.
You know when your freedoms got narrowed? When a Republican House, a Republican Senate and George W. Bush created the PATRIOT Act. And sure, the Dems did a lousy job of being an opposition party, but is that any reason to vote for an orange-skinned baboon with diminishing cognitive skills?
“I think it’s a sign of the times,” said Jose Gonzalez, a 37-year-old project manager at a local steel plant and former Democrat who lives across the river in Kentucky and voted for Trump after his first pick for president, Bernie Sanders, lost the Democratic primary. “On paper, I had to register as a Republican. But I have to say, I’m somewhere in the middle ... The Democratic Party used to look out for the downtrodden, but more and more working people are going for Republicans.”
And at this point, one might feel obligated to point out that, while the Democrats - especially "blue dog" Dems like West Virginia's Joe Manchin - have done a pretty poor job of looking out for the downtrodden, switching loyalty to a party made up of the down- trodders is not likely to be helpful. I mean, sure the Dems have been reluctant to fight for a liveable minimum wage (with some notable exceptions), but the Republicans argue over whether to reduce it or eliminate it all together. And yes, Obamacare is fairly weak sauce compared to the Canadian-style single payer system we should have by now, but how is it better top vote for the party that wants to throw millions off of insurance so that they can give tax cuts to millionaires? Some analysis along these lines might improve your story more than just printing pull-quotes from people who were stupid enough to be conned by the two-bit charlatan in the bad combover.
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