Credit: Sara D. Davis/Getty Images
Richard Ojeda is standing for election in the heartland of Donald Trump terrain, a poverty-scarred slice of West Virginia filled with coal mines, timber farms and dollar stores. As a Democrat, this should be a Quixotic quest since he is fighting for votes in the reddest slice of the second reddest state in 2016, an area filled with the sort of struggling white families that formed the bedrock of the reality television star’s triumphant assault on the White House.
Almost three in four voters in this district backed Trump. They included Ojeda, who like others was lured by the tycoon’s vocal support for industry, his visits to the state and his rival’s dismal lack of appeal to working-class voters. But now standing in a Congressional contest that will help shape the future of a divided nation, he condemns the administration in Washington as “a friggin’ circus”. And with polls indicating he might just recover an area once fertile for Democrats by pulling off an unlikely victory, some see this bullish character as a model for fighting back against a president disrupting traditional politics.
Shortly before I drove deep into Trumpland to talk with his supporters and enemies, the president spoke at a rally in the state. His ratings may be falling and legal problems mounting, but he stuck to his usual script with trademark attacks on ‘fake news’ and the ‘Russian witch hunt’. And away from the scorn of Washington I found many voters in West Virginia and Virginia who like how Trump is defying political norms, admire his leadership and appreciate a thriving economy. The key question as campaigning starts in earnest for critical mid-term votes in November is whether enough will stay loyal to the Republicans – or if Democrats can defeat a man they despise so deeply. At stake is not just control of Congress but possible impeachment of the 45th president.
The Democrats are still shell-shocked by Trump and his Twitterstorm style of politics, largely rudderless and struggling to find an effective riposte despite a slew of generic polls giving them a double-figure lead. Ojeda stands in fascinating contrast to both the new urban liberals and the gltizy property baron, sharing the president’s brashness but not his background – he is the grandson of a Mexican migrant who came to work in the mines. “When I graduated it was dig coal, sell dope or join the army,” he said. “And 30 years later nothing has changed.”
He joined the paratroopers – and now, aged 47, campaigns in army fatigues with a sharp buzzcut and body filled with tattoos, including some paying tribute to fallen comrades. He ticks some standard party boxes, such as backing medical cannabis. But he is defiantly pro-gun, pro-coal and, above all, a passionate advocate for the working-class whose fury over cuts, and fiery speech delivered in the state senate telling energy firms to pay more taxes to support teachers, helped spark the region’s first classroom strike in history. “No offence to New York and California but there are 48 other states in our country. What about all those Middle Americans who just want to be able to work and feed their families?”
This is populism with an Appalachian twang – and it once led to a beating with brass knuckledusters he believes was politically motivated when he first took on his local party establishment by running for the local senate. He has said lobbyists in Washington should wear body cameras and focuses hard on mainstream labour issues. “Everyone seems to have forgotten what being a Democrat is all about,’ he told me. ‘To them it is all about money. They can’t relate to ordinary people and that’s why we’ve lost power.”
He admires Bernie Sanders, the veteran leftist who so rattled Hillary Clinton, but insists he is not a socialist but a Democrat, instantly replying “JFK” when I ask for his political hero. “No-one owes us anything but we deserve opportunities. Why is it that two miles from my home you will bleed to death in a car crash because there’s no mobile connectivity? Why do kids here have to do homework in McDonalds because there is no broadband? I want to take care of the elderly, protect medicare, stop people putting their hands in the cookie jar for social security. We should help those who want a hand up, not a handout.”
To British ears this sounds almost like Tony Blair, apart from his fondness for unions. But Ojeda says he had no desire to be a politician and – despite being a decorated army officer who served in Afghanistan and Iraq – does not claim any mantle of greatness like Trump. “There are many people better than me, many more educated, but if they will not step up to the plate than I will. We need to fight for our own people.”
This is bold talk – and he remains a long shot to win. Republican strategists told me they think conservatives will be alienated by his pro-union stance when the serious political fighting and cash kicks in before voting. Regardless, he offers a fascinating alternative voice on the Democrat path back to power.
When I left Washington to drive past the mountains of West Virginia into Ojeda’s southern district, where one-third of families live in poverty, the scale of the challenge for Democrats became rapidly clear. They may win the senate race, thanks to the popularity of their folksy and unusually consensual former governor Joe Manchin – but the president still has many fans on the ground, with far higher popularity and job approval in the state than nationally. Six in ten state residents think Trump is doing a decent job, compared with fewer than four in ten in the rest of the nation.
Arriving in the pretty town of Lewisburg, the first person I saw, rather unexpectedly, was a woman in a hijab – and she enthused about life there, unlike in her previous home on the other side of the state where she was often abused. Imaan Benmerzouga, 32, an assistant professor in osteopathic medicine, admitted she was no fan of the president but called his election “a reality check” for the United States. “In a way it is good for us to see our weaknesses, our divisions and to talk about our differences.”
She told me the town was a blue oasis in a red state. But the next six people I met were all Trump enthusiasts. “I like him and a lot of my customers like him,” said petrol station owner George Simms, 58. “They like what he is saying on immigration and pretty much everything else.” One middle-aged woman manager blamed Barack Obama for her rising health insurance costs, a second praised the president for tax cuts that had given her a $2,000 annual boost and a third said he was running the country like a business. “He’s giving Ordinary Joe hope of life again,” said Kathy Hunter, director of a local media group.
There was one exception. I walked into Frank’s Guns, Ammo & Pawn store expecting to find a fire-breathing redneck and asked the elderly owner what he thought of Trump? “He’s an immoral, lying asshole,” replied Frank Godby, 79, to my surprise. “I dislike him intensely because he lies and he’s a braggart. He does not represent Christian values. Also I’m a coal miner’s son and the Republican party does nothing for working people. They want you to be very rich and despise you if you are poor.”
Godby added that gun sales had crashed 40% since Trump took office after people had stocked up on weapons whenever Obama or the Democrats talked of controls. But while the beltway obsesses over Trump’s lies, provocations and spats, it is the bread-and-butter issues keeping many voters content. And this is the key problem for his opponents when jobs are being created and stocks surging on a record bull run, since even under a crass, populist and protectionist president it is the economy that tends to shape elections.
Some wished he would stay off social media, of course – yet rather more of his supporters told me they liked how he was stirring up Washington and reacting to events in their kind of language. It was the same story after driving 50 miles to Fayetteville, another largely white small town in the same Congressional district. “I like the fact he says what he thinks instead of being a pussy,” said Holly Hiatt, who runs a tree surgery firm with her husband. “It may piss off a few people but it’s better this way and gets things done.”
Brooke Jones, 27, who sells clothes online, also respected the president’s bluntness. “It’s refreshing to have someone in politics who says what they think. And I like him being on Twitter because he is talking to the public so you feel it is straight from the horse’s mouth.” So what about his excesses? “He is only human so there are times I think he should bite his tongue, but we all say things we’d like to take back,” she replied. Like others, Jones also agreed with his immigration stance, even if her outlook did seem heavily informed by Fox News. “In England you have issues with terrorists from Syria and I feel he is trying to keep that from happening here. He is doing his best to protect the country.”
Later I drove through fierce thunderstorms to Virginia, a swing state often said to reflect the nation’s divisions. Yet here I was relieved to see the limits to Trump’s disruptive brand of politics. One of his more amazing aspects is how he survived sex scandals and furores on race that would have destroyed traditional politicians, yet they seemed to scarcely dent his approval ratings until a recent slide below 40%. The reason is simple, according to one Republican analyst: this president is a seasoned performer who understands communication with ordinary Americans after years on reality television and the celebrity circuit. But this does not mean the same style works for others.
Take Corey Stewart, whom I met at a baseball match in Lynchburg and who is fighting a key senate seat against Clinton’s running mate Tim Kaine. “Don’t underestimate Corey, a major chance of winning!” tweeted the president when Stewart won the nod after running against the Republican establishment. This is a man who brags of being “Trump before Trump” and boasted to me of deporting “more than 8,000” illegal migrants as chair of the Prince William County Board of Supervisors. Stewart has also wrapped himself in the Confederate flag, compared the removal of historic statues to the actions of Islamic State and appeared alongside the far-right figure behind deadly protests in Charlottesville. Recent polls put him an average of 19 points behind in his race.
Clearly there are two key groups turned off by Trump. The first, unsurprisingly, are the ethnic minorities he trampled on to reach the White House by fighting culture wars and playing on the fears of older white voters – and who will form a majority of the US population within three decades. Among those I met in Lynchburg while talking to a Democrat woman standing for Congress was Tevin Allen, a 24-year-old social worker who came over to ask for a bumper sticker and yet seemed friendly with several of Stewart’s team. “I used to like Trump. I was all for him,” he explained. “But then came Charlottesville, when he did not condemn racism and white supremacists. Until then I had an open mind but I could not see how as a black American I could support him.”
Now Allen despaired of the Republicans on race relations, complained of “scary” cult-like support for the president and was backing their Democrat rivals. Indeed, many of the African-Americans I met were still emotionally upset by Trump’s victory, especially coming straight after the election of their nation’s first black president. “I always watch the television news but for ten days I had to turn it off after he won,” said one elderly woman in Lewisburg, her eyes filling with tears. “I was grieving so hard for my country. He just bullied his way to the presidency.” Her husband nodded beside her on the bench. “He’s a total embarrassment, turning us into laughing stock of the world,” he added.
Then there are the suburban voters, where antipathy towards Trump has torn up the old Republican coalition and left the party’s candidates unsure whether to fight with him or against him. As in Britain these places are becoming better educated and more diverse – so more likely to be turned off by a nationalist firebrand appealing to old voters in rustbelt or rural regions. To test the water I went to Virginia’s Tenth District, where Republican Barbara Comstock is facing a fierce fight to hold her seat in an area filled with commuters from Washington and where almost half the voters intensely disapprove of their president.
The first person I met in the prosperous suburban town of McLean, a place stuffed with diplomats and government officials that was once home to Robert F Kennedy, was a 47-year-old former lawyer and mother-of-three called Julie Cox. I asked what she thought of Trump? “He is a spiteful little man who cares about no-one but himself, abusing people’s concerns and fears for the future by blaming others such as immigrants,” she replied with legal precision. “I will vote against Comstock because he needs to have less power.”
I presumed she was a diehard Democrat, yet as we talked it turned out Cox had voted for both Trump and Comstock. “I was a Republican until I lost the faith under him,” she said. And her parents and in-laws remained firmly in the president’s camp. “I think it’s cultural change – fear of the browning of America,” she said. “We can’t talk about politics any more.” As we stood beside a nice coffee shop in a suburban mall, the sun shining down on a car park filled with costly vehicles, she offered a perfect snapshot of Trump’s America: divided communities, destroyed political certainties and the disruption of all political predictability.
Ian Birrell is an award-winning foreign reporter and columnist. He is also the founder, with Damon Albarn, of Africa Express.
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SubscribeSo now they’re coming for Pinker, who is about as ‘progressive’ as you can get.
Progressive,yes. Woke, emphatically not.
Not really coming for Pinker, but sending a message to more junior, less established, less secure academics.
Pinker has a rather charitable interpretation of (or excuse for) the tactics of woke’ism, identity politics and political correctness, and so forth. These are pure bigotry — ruthless application of stereotypes to individuals regardless of any inappropriateness or gross inaccuracy/inapplicability, requiring either malign intent or absolute ignorance or brainwashing (by professors or the press or activists) with a false narrative combined with an overriding tendency and ability to engage in confirmation bias (to continue to support the narrative in one’s imagination).
I consider the culture-war activist and campus nonsense to be pure fraud by self-interested parties who are some combination of Leninist/Marxist and fascist, more or less. I believe that the leaders of these loosely defined and organized “movements” know exactly what they are pushing, and have no utopian notions whatsoever, but well understand that they can utilize the ignorance of many to lure with utopian appeal.
There appears to be a tremendous instinctive appeal of the utopian promise of socialism/communism/fascism (all variants of the same basic theme) that is built into human nature. It requires some historical knowledge to disabuse one of the idea that the utopia is even remotely possible, and to recognize that certain types of people will always be attracted to the kind of authoritarian or totalitarian power necessitated by real-life attempts to implement these ideologies. These would be Stalin-like characters at best — nothing about them is good for societies, especially relatively free and prosperous ones.
There has been a frightening additional growth of (self) entitlement, infantilization and expectation of a paternalistic environment that has increased in prevalence with each successive generation since the end of WWII in Euro/American societies (at least). Appeal to this has enhanced the ability of the malcontent ideology to convince, false and phony as it is.
IMO these jerks should be ridiculed and ignored. But the press is almost totally part of the “movement”, and so there is a sort of Catch-22 problem. Too many lazy intellects will listen to a narrative or look at a “painting” and buy in, rather than developing and implementing a skepticism with the skills needed to gather valid info and separate this from all of the disinfo and misinfo — e.g. skeptical reading skills.
The pandemic has just been a microscopic example of the same social phenomena, aided by the near universality of social media now. Even most well-educated people, I find, have no idea how to draw accurate conclusions from the epidemiological data which is freely available to anyone everywhere now, at least in Euro-American countries.
Thank you Freddie for this fascinating interview with Steven Pinker. Although insightful in itself, within it are several references to the extremely important open letter published in Harper’s magazine calling for the end of cancel culture with 150+ signatories from across the political spectrum. Hopefully one of the excellent Unherd team is penning a commentary on this extremely important event in the free speech debate as we speak. I would hate to think that purely because many of the signatories are left-leaning and one line in the letter casts aspersions on President Trump that it is not deemed of sufficient interest to the Unherd readership to merit a slot within the big four daily stories on our site.
Some good discussion in here along with the meat of discussion about free speech (on which Pinker’s stand is genuinely inspiring).
1. Sayers challenges Pinker on whether the Enlightenment might be partly responsible for the Woke, gesturing at their shared attitude that the world can be re-engineered if given enough effort. Pinker responds that he views the Woke as one form of counter-Enlightenment, which I think is fair enough and true, but also it seems like he missed Sayers’ point a little, and didn’t address the similarity.
I think there is a grain of truth when you contrast this element against its (almost definitional) absence in conservative thinking, but ultimately Wokism is not special for drawing on this Enlightenment idea and using it for other purposes, and many of the radical ideological failures of the 20th century — on the left and the right — could lay equal claim to such inspiration.
2. Sayers wonders whether the Enlightenment’s relative lack of focus on subjective value and ‘nourishing the soul’ fosters populist backlash. Pinker doesn’t really seem convinced that the current moment in Anglosphere politics demonstrates that. I think I would agree with Pinker’s doubt that it clearly points to a trend of decreasing happiness. The idea is worth considering, but it also seems like it could be the function of some other element of society compatible with Enlightenment values to nourish the soul.
No Pinker was on the money with that I think.
Wokism came out of the Enlightenment only in as far as it came out of movements long after and would therefore logically have some tenuous roots in it. But even that is stretching it.
The woke are actively, explicitly and vocally rejecting the Enlightenment across the board, because for them it is seen as the root cause of most prejudice and is too white and western for their liking.
Yes, what a splendidly
acerbic, spiteful, debate that was, and the Woke “never forgive and never forget”.
However I don’t have much sympathy for Pinker, he has always “run with the hare and hunted with the hounds”.
“ªPinker states that the right populists are a bigger threat than the left ‘because they are in power’ extraordinary !! So after 4 years of Trump what has actually happened that threatens our freedom?? Meanwhile the woke establishment has been enacting and fermenting profound and deeply corrosive societal change while being kept OUT of office -that is surely a great deal more threatening ?
Things that threaten our freedom under trump:
A deeply corrupt, vindictive DOJ.
A new Postmaster General who directs local facilities to “slow down” delivery of first-class mail, meaning many people near the end of routes don’t receive any mail, or not on a regular basis. To connect the dots, this threatens our free and fair elections.
A terribly mismanaged pandemic that has made it risky to leave our homes, or to walk around unencumbered with a face mask; and has closed nearly the entire world to a US passport.
A threat to “postpone” the election, which he clarified the same day he made it was NOT meant as a joke.
I could go on.
He also strangely makes no reference to woke social media enterprises and their unaccountable control and manipulation of the public square which is beyond the reach of the democratically elected ‘populist’ politicians
I think perhaps the “I’m all right” is actually a healthy contempt.
It bothers you that a free press is able to publish freely, and you would prefer they be within the reach of your preferred politicians? That violates the first amendment.
Nothing strange about it. Nationalist/Populist movements invariably devolve into authoritarian dictatorships. A few modern places one can see this process as it happens: the Philippines, Turkey, Hungary, Russia, and Brazil. Everybody wants a strong Daddy to keep them safe and make sure everyone else behaves. Some of us are more conscious of it and able to remove it from our politics than others.
I’m assuming by “woke rebellion,” you refer to people having a modern view of older institutions and mores.
“Woke” refers to things like people taking a critical look at accepted truisms, such as “Christianity is a force for good in the world,” or “Black people have as much chance as anybody else of making it in America,” or “If Black people would only obey the (always courteous and lawful) police, no one would get beaten or killed.” In evaluating current events, “woke” refers to a preference for secular humanism and compassion, a sort of “do no harm” ethos, along with a focus on reform of unfair practices. “Understanding that terms like ‘Kung flu’ and ‘China virus’ drive bigoted behavior towards Asians, we resolve not to use them” is one current example.
We seem to be between the devil and the deep blue sea – between an arid materialistic scientism and a ‘popular’ movement that seeks to impose the primacy of raw unreflected emotion on all discourse and every aspect of society.
I guess, if by “Left orthodoxy” you mean findings derived from careful studies of child development, including the powerful “twins separated at birth” studies that amuse us by pointing out, “They both like blue-checked shirts!” and “They’re both in church choirs!” and “Look how similar their bedspreads are!” I’m a developmental psychologist who’s naturally given a lot of thought and study to the question of nature/nurture. I, like my colleagues in that field — not linguistics — have certainly not concluded that only nature is formative.
I don’t believe developmental psychologists have an interest in “cancelling” Pinker. We accept that he’s talking through his hat and ignore him, similar to how we don’t take our dirty car to a shoe shine to be cleaned.
I continue to marvel that things as apolitical on their surface as cloth face masks, to what traits are heritable and which more refined by peers and parenting, have become “left” and “right,” with “left” ideas being based on swell-designed, replicated studies, and “right” meaning “I don’t like leftists and I don’t like this idea, therefore this idea is ‘left’.”
But who the hell are these “people”
They don’t represent the majority….does democratic majority no longer have credence?
I am stunned to constantly hear that “everyone is outraged” when in fact very few give a toss and the “outraged” are dangerous minority nut jobs!
Free speech runs both ways!
You seem kind of upset. Outraged, even.
How far we can go or how deep we can search in the deepest realm of our minds depends on how much we dare release ourselves and embrace new assumptions that might lead us into a better human condition. I must say that Socrates might have been wrong but by getting him to have the hemlock he became a victim of injustice. Let’s remember that truth is not necessesarily a democratic experience.
First they came for Katie Hopkins…
He makes a good point that if certain ideas are not allowed to be scrutinised then they run the risk of gaining currency. That is something everyone on all sides of an issue would do well to ponder. Cancel ideas and the very argument you so despise is allowed to live on!
The canaille have always been there and social media is simply another street corner. What has changed is the integrity of people who have entered contracts with targets of the mob. I believe it should be possible for anyone who loses any job as a result of such mob screeching to sue the nuts off the person firing them and get exemplary damages.
Let’s play this one out. Suppose an employee is caught on tape screaming, “America is a cesspool and I hope someone bombs US back to the Dark Ages!!” It gets posted online and everyone has an opinion about this guy, many of them negative.
The online mob does their “research.” They find out who the loudmouth is. They find their employer, and deluge them with video and strong opinions. Freaked out, the employer decides he doesn’t want his business associated with this kind of speech. They’re pretty sure keeping them on will cause some customers to forsake him, and their profits will drop. This has turned into an existential threat to their business.
Is it not the employer’s right to hire and fire whomever they please?
Die Gedachten sind Frei. But open speech is not free, and it’s getting more and more costly as the Jacobins look for that handy guillotine.
Off with their heads!
My own alma mater shelters one Noam Chomsky, who also happens to be an academic linguist like Pinker. I doubt very many have read even one work by Chomsky in the field of linguistics, but of course he spouts off incessantly and ridiculously about topics he knows absolutely nothing of. The fact that a clown like Chomsky can do so as successfully as he has is also a good reflection of the susceptibility and ignorance of the society at large.