Article by Rod Dreher in The American Conservative
Design Mom, Bourgeois Totalitarian
Gabrielle Blair is a very popular women’s lifestyle blogger who writes at Design Mom. She has 122,000 Instagram followers. She is the mother of six, and now lives in France; she’s so well-known that her family’s arrival in France was covered by French media. She also hates Trump supporters, and believe that they should be driven to the margins of society. A reader sent me this absolutely unhinged rant by Blair. Excerpts:
The other day I saw a tweet where a person described that when they find out someone they know personally supports Trump, they lose all respect for them instantly. I liked the tweet and retweeted it, but stopped short of sharing it on Instagram.
Why?
I suppose it’s because, like the author of the tweet, I also know Trump supporters in real life. They already know I think Trump is gross, and they know that I frequently criticize Trump supporters as a group. But I’ve hesitated to tell them directly that I’ve lost respect for them individually.
But I woke up this morning, read reports of the final night of the Republican National Convention — an event where hundreds of federal employees broke many laws — grew deeply angry, and now my hesitation is gone.
Boy is it. She invites Trump supporters to get the hell off her blog:
It makes me sick to my stomach that you, a Trump supporter, ever read or watch or listen to anything I’ve created. This is true even if I know you in real life.
I see what you are trying to do. You want me to treat you like a decent human being. But you are not behaving like a decent human being.
A decent person doesn’t align themself with people who are proudly racist and who insist America doesn’t have a racism problem.
A decent person doesn’t align themself with people who believe viral right-wing stories on Facebook over trained journalists, who think Q is real, who think the pandemic is fake, who think the earth is flat.
A decent person doesn’t align themself with people who weep and faint over celebrity-child-trafficking-rings that don’t exist, but support the ICE family separations at the border that actually lead to child trafficking.
A decent person knows what it feels like to do a job and not get paid, and recognizes that Trump is first and foremost a con-man, liar, and thief.
A decent person knows and acknowledges that Trump only looks out for himself.
A decent person knows Trump raped a 13-year-old, has read her description of the rape, has read all the other accounts of Trump sexually assaulting girls and women, and never forgets Trump is a rapist who has never had to face consequences for his assaults.
I see you. Especially my fellow white women. You want to read what interesting people are reading, you want to see good movies, you want to know what the designers and artists are creating.
But you don’t want anyone to know you are voting for Trump.
You don’t like when people you follow talk politics. You say it’s because you want to “focus on the positive.” But really, it’s because it reminds you of your Trump shame.
You want to vote for Trump and experience no negative consequences.
But that’s not an option.
She goes on. And on:
Some of you will tell me you support Trump because of the stock market.
Well, that is certainly something a selfish a**hole would do.
A whopping 90% of Americans have no stake in the stock market. I’m one of them.
Gabrielle Blair has done so well at her labors, and her husband works online too, so she and her family can afford to live in Normandy, and take trips all over Europe, which she documents on her blog! But she’s a woman of the people, you know. Money doesn’t matter to her, she would have you know. I mean, good for them — I would love to live in France, and heaven knows I’m the last person in the world who has the right to criticize anybody for documenting online the fun places they go. But it’s awfully rich telling other Americans that they’re a bunch of money-grubbing haters because they’re voting in their perceived economic interests.
Here’s more:
Another consequence of your actions? I have a deep desire to withhold my community and my creations from you.
Instagram has data that could tell me exactly which of you support Trump. I wish they would give me that data. I would block every single one of you.
My Instagram followers request access to my life daily. You’re voting for Trump and you want to know the source for my daughter’s dress? My answer is: No. You want to know the paint color we chose for the attic renovation? No. You want to participate in a parenting discussion on Design Mom? No.
I want to shun you from my community.
If gatherings were safely happening, I want you to be shunned from all events hosted by decent people. No wedding invitations. No conference tickets. No backyard barbecues.
I want decent event hosts to send you a card, explaining you are not invited because you are a Trump supporter.
I wish stores like Ikea and Target wouldn’t let you buy their products.
I wish your internet provider (who for sure knows you’ll be voting for Trump), would cut you off as a customer.
I want to see you shunned by every person and organization that doesn’t support Trump. No more access to their books, movies, products, music, events, artists & influencers — till you are left with nothing but Smashmouth concerts, and Ben Shapiro talking about his sex life.
Read it all, if you can bear to. What an appalling, sanctimonious person. This Blair woman curates her international design lifestyle, yet if you are a woman back in America who lives in a trailer park, votes Trump, but also likes to read Design Mom, well, she thinks you can go to hell. She thinks you should not be permitted to participate in the economy, and shunned by society. She doesn’t want you to look at her pictures of her life in France. She probably wants to poke your eyes out with a salad fork to make sure you can’t.
Design Mom thinks you Trump voters should be unpersonned. And there are people who still don’t understand what I mean by soft totalitarianism as a real possibility for America. Bougie women like Gabrielle Blair would be very happy to be commissars.
I don’t like Trump either, but this is unhinged malice. Honestly, it is becoming so clear that this political season is class warfare, disguised as culture war. The reader who sent me the Design Mom link comments:
Her blog used to focus mainly on design and family life, but over the years, her blog has turned into her soapbox for woke politics. I stopped following years ago, but occasionally check in to see what’s going on. … The level of vitriol for anyone who doesn’t agree with her narrative is disturbing and if that’s how people on the left feel, I don’t know how we recover.
An academic friend told me today that he knows professors who are lying to their colleagues about who they’re going to vote for, because they believe their livelihoods will be at risk if it were known that they are Trump supporters. This is America.
UPDATE: Turns out that the comments under Design Mom’s blog are pure hathos! They would turn any of us into a Cosimanian Orthodox. For example:
The bravest thing! To call Donald Trump’s supporters turds on the Internet. Give that mommy blogger a Victoria’s Cross.
More:
“Honey, Mia says we can’t come over to her barbecue this weekend, because we voted for Trump.”
“Oh, thank God!”
More:
“Thank you for venting unshirted rage, and thereby being the voice of reason” — uh, whut?
Oh law, now I’m going to have to go read Design Mom’s Irresponsible Ejaculation post. O Fortuna! It’s showtime at the Prytania!
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/design-mom-bourgeois-totalitarian-gabrielle-blair/
