Trumpeloven

The Republicans of the Upper Midwest have made their distaste for Trump pretty obvious.  The Donald lost Minnesota and Iowa bright and early, and went on to tank in Wisconsin and, over the weekend, North Dakota.

I won’t say I predicted it in as many words – but this bit summarizes what I’d hoped and believed; Trump’s braggadocio doesn’t resonate with quiet, modest, stoic, passive aggressive Minnesotans.

Most of us have heard of “Minnesota Nice” — the friendly, reserved, play-by-the-rules behavior favored by that state’s residents. But Wisconsin has a similar Scandinavian (though more German) culture, as do North and South Dakota. When the Upper Midwest of Europe relocated to the Upper Midwest of the United States, they brought their politeness, understatement, and emotional restraint with them.

All of these characteristics are diametrically opposed to the Trump ethos of baseless braggadocio, histrionic complaint, and conflict as first resort. Critics of Minnesota Nice cast it as barely masked passive-aggressiveness, but active-aggressiveness is considered not only unseemly, but unmanly.

Scandis find virtue in stoicism. When you’re shoveling a sidewalk buried in three feet of snow, your neighbor doesn’t want to hear your complaints — especially since she’s 68, has a bum leg, and cleared her driveway before the sun rose. Just do what needs to be done, and would it kill you to put a smile on your face?

Invoking “Minnesota Nice” is lazy – but it’s not wrong, either.

19 thoughts on “Trumpeloven

  1. Sorry, Mitch, but like WI, but based on the last census, our state has a higher population of Germans than Scandanavians.

    I wonder if that left wing idiocy came from over there, too. After all, many things that the Dems are doing or attempting to do, are precisely the actions of certain narcissistic dictators. Well, minus the mass killings and incarcerations, at least for the time being.

  2. Well, Emery, not that I’m a Trump guy, but intelligence doesn’t equate to common sense. If it did, Bernie would have burned here.

  3. What is it they say about youth? They’re young. I would hope they will re-access their priorities when they start paying taxes.

  4. If you look at the polls millenials like the idea of socialism, until they realize how much they’d have to pay for it. I’d call it irony but while ‘from each according to his ability to each according to his need’ is enforced by government edict they start to have second thoughts. There might be some hope after all.

  5. Boss,

    Sorry, Mitch, but like WI, but based on the last census, our state has a higher population of Germans than Scandanavians.

    True, but Germans are followers.

    As to your question? Scando society is very communitarian. It’s not necessarily “leftist” – but leftism exploits communitarianism pretty effectively.

  6. Minnesota Nice is how you’re supposed to behave while committing larceny.

  7. You are claiming ethnic qualities that arguably don’t exist, particularly given how many people – like yourself – are a mixture.

    Germans are followers? Really? So THAT is why Angela Merkel is nicknamed the Chancellor of Europe? And that is why good old SOCIALIST pro-labor success Germany is largely calling the shots in the EU?

    What a load of hooey. The bottom line is you have no good candidates on the right, and they use the same dirty trick politics on each other they use on the left candidates. Damn bunch of election tampering voter suppressors.

    Just a guess, but very few of those 300,000 plus otherwise eligible voters would have voted conservative if they were able to get the voter ID to do so? Few if any.

    How does WI stay a red state to the extent it does? CHEATING.
    http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/federal-judges-leave-open-challenge-to-state-restricting-b99636447z1-362866231.html

    Drumpf is a shit candidate. So is Cruz. So is Ryan – he can’t carry his own state either, like the Florida candidates, like the Louisiana candidate, like the NJ candidate. To know them is to reject them.

  8. jdege; at a former job, I named the NMR cart (cart for noncomforming materials, the stuff you don’t want to sell or use) the “paska-auto”. Yashure, I worked with some Finnlanders who also taught me how to properly (mostly) pronounce “loyly” and “sauna”.

  9. You are claiming ethnic qualities that arguably don’t exist, particularly given how many people – like yourself – are a mixture.

    DG, now you’re just arguing to hear yourself talk.

    What on earth does that sentence mean?

    Germans are followers? Really? So THAT is why Angela Merkel is nicknamed the Chancellor of Europe?

    Non-sequitur.

    And that is why good old SOCIALIST pro-labor success Germany is largely calling the shots in the EU?

    Another non-sequitur.

    Question for you, DG: Why are so many “SOCIALIST pro-labor success”-story countries, like Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands, locked in demographic death spirals?

  10. Someone from the party of Richard Daley is talking about vote fraud? Seriously?

    And regarding Wisconsin, note that the article DG notes points out that the measures of disparity have been high a long time, which could mean that either Democrats also pulled the same game (and this is payback), or that liberals in Wisconsin tend to cluster in places like Madison. I looked at the maps and the districts are not terribly misshapen, so I’m leaning towards the latter. More or less, the GOP has done a good job designing them.

    And Merkel? Keep in mind that her time as Kanzler followed a period of SPD rule, so as we’ve noted before, her position represents a retreat from big government there. They are, as your host notes, seeing some big issues with an oncoming demographic disaster for the nation.

  11. I’m afraid it’s going to be more of the same. American voters elected Obama TWICE. Trump might be better or not – God knows. But Cruz and Ryan have already shown us who they are – most of us have already said we don’t like them.
    And the GOP doesn’t care one bit. And they are the “opposition” to Sanders and Clinton.
    I wonder if it isn’t too late already to bring the country even close to together. We’re too fragmented. The sides who oppose each other due to politics, race, religion, etc. – we’re just so far apart that we can’t even find a common vocabulary. The leftists who have disrupted events so far are lucky that the right-wingers have so far (mostly) been quiet. When they decide to stop being quiet (I would say “if”, but at this point I don’t think it’s an “if”) – things are going to get real.

  12. Damn bunch of election tampering voter suppressors.

    Really, DG, you want to go there in Wisconsin? I know, I know, facts are horrible things that you do your best to avoid, but turnout in Wisconsin went up 90% from the last Presidential primary and almost 50% from 2008. And do you even begin to question the order of magnitude of the numbers you quote? 300K people would be 7% of the voting age population of Wisconsin, and more than 100% of the state residents over 16 who don’t have a driver’s license.

  13. nerdbert wrote:
    “I know, I know, facts are horrible things that you do your best to avoid”
    You ever go to Lefty web sites and blogs? The voter suppression thing is something that they constantly tell each other. It is an article of faith to them. They’ve crammed their little pointy heads with it. Lefty intellectuals tell them that voter ID laws are a tricksy way that the right steals elections from the Left (in a country with more self-identified conservatives than liberals). It’s like the ‘Nixon southern strategy’ thing. They just bounce it back and forth to one another like a beach ball. Reality, in the form of actually talking to conservatives about the topic, takes no part. Their epistemology is closed, intellect is fragile, it can’t take testing.

  14. Their epistemology is closed, intellect is fragile, it can’t take testing.

    This.

  15. Drumpf is a shit candidate. So is Cruz. So is Ryan

    I missed the part where Ryan is a candidate….

    Drumpf is a shit candidate. So is Cruz. So is Ryan

    This coming from the woman who will either vote for a geriatric nutbag communist or a criminal tyrant communist.

  16. Bill C, if Sanders looks like he might get the nomination, the mainstream, leftist media may notice that he is as much of a nutbag as Trump. Elevator don’t go all the way to the top floor. A deuce or two shy of a full deck. One Volvo in a two-car garage.

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