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It is useful to think of this election, in its simplest terms, as a conflict between two different ways of seeing the world. It’s simple, but important.
The other day I was reminded of a line from a winning congressional candidate:
Get the word out across the district that what we say is true: we stand for people who push the grocery cart and worry about food prices, we stand for people who care about the future of this country and their children. Every American, no matter how young or old, male or female, black, white, yellow, every American has the right to vote in Washington, and that voice is right in the Constitution, in the House of Congress. representatives.
It was from 35-year-old Newt Gingrich in 1978, and I thank Steve Kornacki’s podcast for reminding me of it.
The grocery cart is back in America in a big way. But if it doesn’t matter that much to you, it’s because other things take precedence.
Think of it as the difference between people who go to the kitchen table with their screens still in hand and people who turn them off.
Many people today don’t have kitchen tables, at least in the popular imagination – where normal, hard-working moms and dads look at bills, sweat the rent, and figure out the next day’s schedule all at the same time. a place where children are fed.
Things are different for those who turn on their screens and keep their tablets open morning, noon and night. Eating on your phone, constantly refreshing, takes all the ups and downs of social media into a space once ruled by work. Everywhere you go, the same people gain access to your mind and continue a passionate, endless, wake-up call where climate change, pronouns, and threats to democracy are a constant.
Despite what you might think, the vast majority of American families still turn off their screens when they sit down to dinner. There are even internet product advertising campaigns built around parental controls, turning off WiFi to keep families together.
A kitchen tablet is not as overwhelming as you might think. If you’re not on it, you think what people say on it matters more.
President Biden’s speech last night is very hard to understand unless you’re a wealthy Democrat who wakes up worrying about a kitchen tablet. The average working American can easily ask: why is he talking about these issues like this, and what’s the point? Why doesn’t he try to justify his actions? What is he talking about and who is he trying to convince in the final stages of this election?
Are you worried about the state of the economy? The tablet represents a greater concern for the climate. Are you concerned about the rise in local crime? The tablet tells you to worry more about January 6th. Worried that school closings and massive spending from Washington to “keep teachers safe” have ruined the education of a generation of children? Yes, the pandemic has been hard on everyone. It’s time for amnesty, says the tablet.
It’s reasonable to think that abortion will be a crucial issue in 2022 for those who use kitchen tablets. But those in the kitchen know that since Joe Biden took office, the price of diapers has risen more than 180 percent.
A kitchen tablet does the job. The kitchen table, the worries on it, the people around it fade away. The tablet takes you somewhere else and keeps you there. So you lose touch with what’s important to those pushing the grocery cart.
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