Liberal blogger admits how 'city folks' really feel about rural working class

A liberal blogger is openly admitting that the left "tends to sneer" at rural working-class Americans after a New York Times columnist suggested just the opposite.

Left-wing Times writer Paul Krugman, in a piece published Friday, wrote that he's "never heard" of someone on the left looking down upon their fellow, more conservative Americans.

Do the liberals sneer at the Joe Sixpacks? Actually, I’ve never heard it — the people I hang out with do understand that living the way they do takes a lot more money and time than hard-pressed Americans have, and aren’t especially judgmental about lifestyles. But it’s easy to see how the sense that liberals look down on regular folks might arise, and be fanned by right-wing media.

Krugman's piece prompted a response from fellow liberal Mother Jones blogger Kevin Drum, who challenged the assertion:

I'm not here to get into a fight with Krugman, but come on. Sure, the right-wing media fans the flames of this stuff, but is there really any question that liberal city folks tend to sneer at rural working-class folks?

Drum added that coastal liberals don't just thumb their noses at middle America because of its more traditional beliefs on abortion, guns and gay marriage. The ever-widening divide, he argued, extends even to fast food.

"Working-class folks like fast food, which explains why Donald Trump liked to show pictures of himself eating McDonald's or KFC. It's a sign that he's one of them," Drum wrote, adding that liberals "sneer" at much of rural America:

We sneer at their holy-roller megachurches. (But not at black churches; never that.) We sneer at their favorite TV shows. We sneer at their reading habits. We sneer at their guns. We sneer at their double-wides. We sneer at the tchotchkes that litter their houses. We sneer at their supermarket tabloids. We sneer at their music. We sneer at their leisure activities. We sneer at their blunt patriotism

Drum said that, though the sneering occurs on both sides, liberals' sneering at conservatives has a more serious effect on the country and its political system.

"We educated city folks are, on average, far richer and more powerful than ruralish working-class folks. Our sneering has a power component that theirs doesn't," Drum wrote. "I confess that it's fun, and I enjoy my share of sneering in private, but I also accept that this attitude has political costs."

(H/T: Newsbusters)