Anthony Bourdain 'Nauseated' by Privileged Liberal Contempt for Red State America

"I've spent a lot of time in gun-country, God-fearing America. There are a hell of a lot of nice people out there."

12.29.2016 

 

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 Mark Tapson 

 

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In an interview with Reason, reality TV chef/host Anthony Bourdain surprisingly confessed that he is "nauseated" by the contempt with which "privileged Eastern liberals such as myself" hold their fellow red state Americans.

Newsbusters reports that Bourdain expressed disgust with the way that liberal elites smeared the decent Americans in flyover country:

The utter contempt with which privileged Eastern liberals such as myself discuss red-state, gun-country, working-class America as ridiculous and morons and rubes is largely responsible for the upswell of rage and contempt and desire to pull down the temple that we're seeing now.

I've spent a lot of time in gun-country, God-fearing America. There are a hell of a lot of nice people out there, who are doing what everyone else in this world is trying to do: the best they can to get by, and take care of themselves and the people they love. When we deny them their basic humanity and legitimacy of their views, however different they may be than ours, when we mock them at every turn, and treat them with contempt, we do no one any good. Nothing nauseates me more than preaching to the converted. The self-congratulatory tone of the privileged left—just repeating and repeating and repeating the outrages of the opposition.

“This does not win hearts and minds,” he said. “We should be breaking bread with each other and finding common ground whenever possible. I fear that is not at all what we’ve done,” he lamented.

As for his thoughts on HBO host Bill Maher, Bourdain appeared on Maher's show Real Time a few years ago and it didn't leave a favorable impression:

[Maher is] insufferably smug. Really the worst of the smug, self-congratulatory left. I have a low opinion of him. I did not have an enjoyable experience on his show. Not a show I plan to do again. He's a classic example of the smirking, contemptuous, privileged guy who lives in a bubble. And he is in no way looking to reach outside, or even look outside, of that bubble, in an empathetic way.

Bravo to Bourdain for reaching outside that bubble.

 

 

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