A Los Angeles Times opinion column is firing up the Internet after Virginia Heffernan wrote about her anguish in not knowing how to respond to neighbors cleared the snow on her driveway. They problem is that they also voted for former President Donald Trump. The column entitled “What can you do about the Trumpites next door?” explores her struggle with how to respond while comparing all Trump supporters to Nazis and Hezbollah. It is unfortunately hardly surprising to see such unhinged hateful comparisons in today’s age of rage. What was surprising is need to publish such a column containing gratuitous attacks on over 70 million voters as comparable to genocidal murders or terrorists.
While most of us would find a thank you as natural and immediate, Heffernan explores her struggle in decision how to respond: “Of course, on some level, I realize I owe them thanks — and, man, it really looks like the guy back-dragged the driveway like a pro — but how much thanks? These neighbors are staunch partisans of blue lives, and there aren’t a lot of anything other than white lives in the neighborhood.” She notes that Hezbollah “also gives things away for free” but “The favors Hezbollah does for people in the cities Tyre and Sidon probably don’t involve snowplows, but, like other mafias, Hezbollah tends to its own — the Shiite sick, elderly and hungry.”
Under the guise of working through these issues, the column seems more of a vehicle for suggesting Trump voters are little better than terrorists and murderers. It matter-of-factly treats such references as obvious or plausible comparisons. There is less evidence of honest internal debate as much as satisfaction in being able to demean and marginalize almost half of the electorate.
While many members and newspapers have heralded the Biden election as a chance for healing, there is little evidence of a real desire for many to bring the country together, even at the modest cost of gracefully accepting a nice gesture in the form of a snow shoveling. The fact is that people are addicted to rage. Many continue to use Trump as a license to hate, even portraying such hate as virtuous. It is so consuming that even kindness from a neighbor is treated as a moral dilemma.
The LA Times article writer perplexes over in-group altruism. White people give things to each other …. FOR FREE!
Louis Farrakhan…. IS MAGNANIMOUS TO HIS COMMUNITY!
Hizb’allah… RUNS HOSPITALS!
This is all no mystery. It is the natural, benevolent human instinct of ethnocentrism
It is only an American society gone mad… or perhaps simply ignorant…. that this is a mystery!~
As if no other ethnic or racial groups were kind to each other, more so than outside the group!~ To think!
The reality is people with common sense understand this, but the “Elites’ of this country ensconced in CA and NYC and DC ,,,, JUST CANT IMAGINE~!
Life is better among the people, than with these overly rich and privileged fools
Saloth Sar
It is surprising that she is so conflicted. The natural reaction of the the anti-Trump fanatic would be to sue the goodhearted neighbors for trespassing.
Turley, please have one of your workers or students read to you what your Trump supporters write everyday, talk about bizarre. You reinforce their alternative reality.
The only people in an alternate reality are people like you and the lady who wrote the opinion piece. You people have gone insane with hate.
I am not seeing a way to demonize half the electorate as much as seeing how a portion of them think. The idea of trying to fathom how much to say thanks for a kindness says more about her mind frame than it does her neighbors. Not everything needs to be seen through political lenses and the fact Heffernan cannot do so shows her failures. I wonder if her neighbors did everyone but her, would she see that as a slight due to her brand of politics. If her neighbors sent her condolences for a death of a loved one, would that be seen with a jaundiced eye?
I do suggest to Heffernan this response for the driveway plowing:
thank you, I really appreciate the help.
Virginia appears to be suffering from an advanced case of TDS. Her capacity for reasoning is badly impaired.
This is the Democratic Party.
Yup. I understand that the Prof is a busy man, but this is not ‘bizarre’ any longer, it is de rigueur, and it is absolutely unacceptable.
There are single-issue voters (guns, abortion, immigration) in both parties, so we can’t stereotype all Republicans or all Democrats. These voters will not vote for any politician on the opposing side of that single issue, even if they dislike the politician they are voting for.
So most Trump voters aren’t Nazis and most Democrats aren’t Communists, it might be a single issue they support or oppose. Example: Democrat Joe Manchin supports gun rights and is fairly conservative on most issues. Republican Richard Nixon supported Universal Healthcare. So we shouldn’t stereotype a voter on every issue.
Virginia is a victim of climate change perpetuated by evil capitalistic corporations who have raped the environment so they can reap a few more dollars in profits.
Virginia believes that shoveling snow is the responsibility of the government, and should not be left to individual initiative and effort. A bill is now before the US Senate to tax the rich who can afford to shovel their own driveways and make them pay to shovel the driveways of people who have been and are marginalized and oppressed by 400 years of a white, patriarchy society. LOL!
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.
I don’t have words for such a despicable human being. I have even less words for the paper that thought it was a good idea to run it. We used to have padded rooms for people so devoid of sanity. Thankfully she was savaged on internet media to the point that she isolated her account, what courage! Let it be noted that she is yet another example of the fifty-ish, white, privileged beyond belief progressive that seems to think everyone beneath her is a cute pet that needs to be taught to sit and not piss on the living room carpet. What in the holy hell is wrong with these women? Seriously. The ‘matriarchy’ looks an awful lot like the Fourth Reich. Were it not centered around *microscopically* personal grievances and exhibitions of personal narcissism, it might be worth entertaining for half a second. Air drop them all into the heart of Cambodia and see how well they do with their virtuous ‘journalism’. This isn’t even a bad joke anymore. Eventually people WILL have had enough.
From this line in the article “How am I going to resist demands for unity in the face of this act of aggressive niceness?”, I did not get the impression that she is at all interested in Biden’s (and Bruce Springsteen) so-called desire for unity. A program I was listening to the other day said it’s not unity, it is conformity they want.
To paraphrase the wise, woke and all-knowing Bruce Springsteen: “The only way to unify the country is to think like I do and accept my ideals. Anything less is sedition, treason and insurrection.” “Trumpites” must conform for the good of the country
Brucifer is a piece of work.
What do you expect? She’s a Progressive.
Such people should improve the planet and terminate themselves.
Next time they should blow the snow onto her drive
Seems like a common act of kindness won’t please these people. That’s why I don’t give it. I am polite and nothing else. Kind of like trying to placate blacks. For the most part they still hate us even after all of the affirmative action, set asides, lowered standards and participation in BLM marches. Yes, and that includes you white liberals. Sorry to have to mention that.
So in the event that BLM and/or the Brave Masked Wonderful Warriors of Antifa ™ pay a visit to my leftist neighbors and their “good liberal” card is of no help, they are on their own. I have other means for my safety, they likely do not.
antonio
I hear you Antonio, but I still do. I do it for ME. I will not let a single one of these people deny me my most basic human decency, never mind the reciprocations. The fact that she got paid for this – good grief. California is way, waaay beyond a hot mess and needs to burn. Oh, wait. . . .
In my cliques, I am generous. I am blessed to be a white American man. I am also blessed to be a Catholic though a poor one. I am also blessed with Chinese guanxi and many friends among the Mexicans.
I am fair to strangers. But not really generous.
This is normal. Only fools think it is abnormal. Only fools give to all comers, promiscuously.
But for people with no roots, no cliques, no family, no friends, those who are faceless, rootless, atomized invididuals– we are all “Equal”
In my thinking, each person is not the same– and what is not the same, cannot be equal.
Sal Sar
TDS at its finest.
If she’s so upset with living in a white neighborhood, she can move to a more diverse area. She should even make money on the deal.
My thoughts exactly. I don’t care what color my neighbors are — I want good neighbors. Honestly, she doesn’t sound like a neighbor who I’d trust or want to stand with me on neighborhood-related issues.
@ti317
When it comes to mating and migratory habits, white leftists are no different than the KKK. Don’t go by what they say but what they actually do. I wish they had to live under the same conditions and send their kids to the same schools they subject working class people to.
I have ZERO sympathy when their “pets” turn around and bite them.
antonio
That would involve knowing *actual* black people in real life (or fill that in with any of their other favorite victim classes that they are clearly superior to), and that is just too much for someone like her. It’s why people like Candace Owens terrify them so. Black, female, smart, strong, conscious, independently minded? That is heresy, and it exposes their own deficiencies, even after they spent all that money. Heaven help you if you are of the caucasian persuasion and exhibit those traits.
Where did this happen? I don’t think it snows in L.A.
Yes, more of CA’s idiocy. They cast a very wide net to find like-minded fools among their hate-mongering minority. The average Joe or Jane doesn’t bother with such trifling details – it came from ‘the news’, so it is true.
She was at her “pandemic getaway”
Insane hate like this is common on the Left. It is meat and drink to them. They wallow in it. They praise each other for oozing such hatred.
I wonder how she will react if her neighbor plows her driveway again?
Projection much, Douche nozzle?
Projection is the Democrat way. But nice try, Bernie.
@young
It is called “virtue signaling”, not to be confused with actual virtue. They are all trying to outdo one another in an attempt to show who is the purist and most devoted to the leftist cause.
antonio
True
And they have to do so. The one who signals the least is attacked by the mob. Or, more accurately, the one NEARBY who signals the least is attacked by the mob. That’s why their victims are so often fellow travelers.
Ms Heffernan appears to be a remarkably stupid and self centered woman.