Washington Post columnist Max Boot echoed President Biden's charge against supporters of former President Trump and claimed that the country is leaving them behind.
Boot proclaimed that he has been spending his summer "in some of the most liberal enclaves in America" and "even took my step-kids to a drag show." He noted, "It is easy in such environs to imagine that you’re not in the ‘real America’" and went on to quote a friend saying he was "happy to be in a place where drag queens are considered normal and Trumpkins are not."
Boot pushed back on the idea that Trump supporters are the true Americans, claiming that far-left areas are not only just as validly American, but in many ways better represent America’s future.
"But you know what? Provincetown is the real America. So is Martha’s Vineyard. These communities are undoubtedly on the left and prone to excesses of political correctness that make for easy punch lines," he wrote. "But, in many ways, they might be more representative of 2022 America than the Rust Belt diners where reporters love to take the pulse of Trumplandia."
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He commented on the general assumption that MAGA Republican Americans retain an exclusive hold on representing American values.
"There is an implicit assumption, shared by many Republicans and Democrats, that ‘real’ Americans are White, rural, conservative, Christian and poorly educated," he noted. "Ultra-MAGA Republicans assume that their policy preferences — anti-immigration, anti-gun control, anti-abortion, anti-‘woke’ — are the only legitimate views that can be held by ‘real’ Americans, and that anyone who disagrees is a pointy-headed elitist or ‘globalist’ who is out of touch with reality."
Boot theorized that MAGA Republicans’ anxiety about their America being replaced by the march of time is radicalizing them further.
"Yet it is White, Christian, rural, conservative voters who are now in the minority. Indeed, much of the reason that MAGA Republicans sound so hysterical so much of the time is that they know that the tides of economic and demographic change are leaving them behind," he warned. "The White share of the population has declined from 80 percent in 1980 to just 60.1 percent in 2019. By the 2040s, America is projected to become ‘majority minority.’"
He also echoed Biden’s "semi-fascist" label for pro-Trump Republicans, suggesting that the blue state Democrat majority is eclipsing them as what represents actual American values.
"The whole country might not be nearly as progressive as Provincetown or Martha’s Vineyard, but those blue havens are closer to an increasingly liberal mainstream than the MAGA redoubts where pickup trucks sport ‘Let’s Go, Brandon!’ bumper stickers," he suggested. "There is a good reason so many MAGA Republicans are embracing ‘semi-fascism’: Their views are too unpopular to command majority support anymore. They certainly don’t speak for the ‘real’ America — to the extent that such a thing even exists."
Boot shared his column on Twitter, declaring Provincetown and Martha's Vineyard are the "real America."
