Feel free to disagree with me. Sometimes I disagree with my own self, but let’s consider the narrative that is being pushed out by mainstream media and the oligarchs standing in the wings, shall we? For days on end now, pundits have taken to the airwaves to bash Democrats for their failure to reach out to the “common man” often referred to in media circles as “the blue collar workers.”

Headlines blast out “Democrats abandon blue collar workers” and “Democrats keep forgetting the blue collar workers” or “Democrats are out of touch with the working class.” All of this is a result, of course, of the huge shift among voters to near blind loyalty to Donald Trump, granting him centralized control over the US government, the very thing this felon has been lusting after like a dog in heat.

I’ll concede that yes, it is shocking how many people went to the polls and marked in that circle for Donald J. Trump with the full knowledge and awareness that they were voting for a rapist and a convicted felon. Exit polls show that 60% of white men voted for Trump while 53% of white women voted to put the sex abuser into the highest office in the land whereas only 7% of black women gave him the go ahead to grab them by their crotch. Fifty-five percent of Latino men, who apparently have an affinity for crotch-grabbers, voted for Trump. Trump was loved best by the uneducated voters, who voted at a whopping 56% for him. Trump always said he loved the “poorly educated people best.”

The pundits claim there is one primary reason why all these folks rushed out to the polls and voted for the man who called his opponent “a bitch” and implied she was “a hoe” who had “slept her way to the top.” Even his running mate, Mr. Vance, who unlike Kamala Harris has never passed his bar exam, stood before a rally crowd and declared that VP Harris was “trash.” The reason these “blue collar workers” voted for Trump, even though he promised to get rid of their healthcare and make cuts to their Social Security, is because Trump, a man who has grifted millions from the US government, understands their “pocketbook economy”. It was the price of cereal and eggs and gasoline that drove these “blue collar workers” to vote for Trump.

Or so Elon Musk and Trump and FoxNews declare. Obviously nobody understands the struggle of the blue collar worker better than two fellows born into riches and have managed to thieve their way to more riches. I mean you couldn’t possible expect a teacher like Tim Walz or a girl like Harris whose mother was the family’s sole provider to understand anything about the struggles of a blue collar worker, right? Never mind that Harris presented a whole slew of policies that would have helped lower and middle class wage earners while Trump made promises that would render them less financially stable. According to the news media Trump was able to woo voters because Trump understands the struggles of financial hardship. They buy a lot of eggs there at that country-club by the ocean after all.

You will have to forgive me but what kind of corporate media fuckery is that narrative?

I concede that the Republican Party (the party of White Supremacy) has been able to woo away a lot of voters who previously supported Democrats but I don’t believe for a second that it was due to the economy.

There was only one party in this race that made it okay to refer to a black woman as a hoe, as trash, as a bitch.

There was only one party in this race that made it okay to mock a teenager with special needs.

There was only one party in this race that made it okay to call Mexicans rapists, to say that Haitians are eating the cats and dogs, to declare they are going to round up migrants and put them in internment camps before deporting them.

There was only one party in this race that bragged about sexually assaulting women.

There was only one party in this race who stood before a cheering audience of blue collar workers and mimicked a sex act on a microphone.

There was only one party in this race that threatened violence against the other party, only one party that has carried out violence against the other party.

There was only one party in this race that said black people like him better because he has a mugshot. It’s the same party whose leader refers to Chris Christie as “fat” and to Kamala Harris as “stupid.”

Behind closed doors Trump refers to blacks as n***ers. He is, after all, the very same man who called for the execution of five black youths for a crime they didn’t commit, the Exonerated Five.

So, forgive me if I call bullshit on those spouting that the reason the Democratic party is losing blue collar workers has to do with their pocketbook. It has nothing to do with money.

The Democratic Party is losing blue collar workers because there is only one party lending a vile and vulgar voice to racism, misogyny, patriarchy and bigotry. That grating and whiney ass voice of convicted felon Donald J. Trump.

The reason the Democrats are losing blue collar workers is because they demand a certain level of decorum and respect for each other.

While the Democrat tent is big is does not give space to white supremacists, the way the Republican party does. The Democratic party is tolerant but not tolerant of men who want to nudge each other and talk about grabbing a woman by the pussy. Democrats call that sexual assault. Republicans call it boys being boys.

The Democratic party is a welcoming place but not to those who want to break up families, put people in cages, put American-born children in internment camps, or shoot at people trying to cross a river to a hoped for life.

The Democratic party does not provide refugee to those intent on practicing cruelty or those who feel emboldened to beat cops with steel pipes, defecate in our capitol buildings, build a tower to lynch people. For that sort of refugee a criminal has to turn to the Republican Party.

If you are a blue collar worker who likes to nudge your buddy at work and deride the lesbian woman walking past you, then the Republican party is your home.

If you are the blue collar worker who thinks being Trans is a sin and that all trans folks should be killed or beaten to a pulp, then go ahead, march your ass over to that Republican tent. You will always find a welcome there.

If you are a blue collar worker who thinks God saved Trump to lead this nation while that same god let a pregnant girl raped by her father die of sepsis, then yes, you belong with the Republican party.

There is plenty of room in the Democrats party but not for those intent on cheering on cruelty to others. And if you need any more proof of just how vile and vulgar the Republican Party has become you only have to consider the text message that was sent out to Blacks around the nation 24-hours after Trump was elected welcoming them to the plantation and urging them to get ready to pick cotton.

Or you could head over to the video Nick Fuentes (a friend of Trump’s) released telling girls that he now owns their bodies.

Yes, it’s true Democrats have not welcomed vile and vulgar people to join up with them. Democrats still naively believe that Americans ought to be a shining light to the world. Something Republicans are doing their best to extinguish forever.

Karen Spears Zacharias is author of No Perfect Mothers (Mercer Univ. Press).