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[Toxi]

Yeah, but the Tankies will nonetheless insist it's all just a matter of promising them single payer and free college.

Several years in the future, we're gonna be seeing the next wave of Harry and Louise-style ads.

Hopefully they'll be less effective this time.

 

[Glass Shark]

Yeah, but the Tankies will nonetheless insist it's all just a matter of promising them single payer and free college.

Exactly. You're not going to sell them on ideas like these the only thing that scares Republicans more than brown people is socialism.

 

[El_Tiguere]

"we gotta get more racist"

yeah great winning strategy

Why would you ever think addressing economic anxiety means "we gotta get more racist"? The slogan that works for all is "we gotta get better jobs", not "we gotta get better jobs for white people only" (I'm sure GAF would wrongly think the latter is what worked).

I assume you have the data to back this up, which will also throw out the data that contradicts this, correct?

You also didn't answer his question: Why was it only white people, particularly males with less education? also, where do you live that makes you think you can even anecdotally support your assertion? Why is the economy suddenly in great shape to his supporters now that he won, if they're clearly not getting anything he promised?

Which data in particular would you like? the fact that Americans were not happy with the status quo? the fact that economic issues (including immigration) was #1 in voters minds heading into the polls? the fact that Trump was viewed as the outsider change candidate? the fact that reducing welfare waste was not a talking point for Trump as much as bringing jobs back, killing unfair trade deals, and cleaning corruption in DC (all laughable coming from him, I agree) were? These are all facts.

Again, you can easily bait ignorant working-class white males with xenophobia if they are hopeless about their future, and are looking for someone to blame. Fox News, the GOP, and Trump took care of the rest in identifying immigration as the problem for their economic (and social) woes. It has been a looong con by most right-wing parties across the world, and it is catching on across the world because the entire world is mired in a crushing economic inequality that started ballooning since the 1980's.

The best outcome for the nation is that we reach out to those folks so that they can blame the TRUE assholes that got them into their mess: the oligarchs who run our economy and our government for their own benefit. We can all unite with that common enemy (along with riling up Democrats based on our identities), which is an existential crisis for the entire Western civilization.

Last thing, don't confuse economic optimism (what we saw surge after Trump), with the economy doing better for those folks. The economic fundamentals have deteriorated since December, but people will vote based on their latest emotions about the whole thing. We will have an amazing opportunity in 2018 and 2020 as Democrats to remind the working class how Trump did not do SHIT for them.

 

[pigeon]

Will some think that way? Sure. Does that mean we need to stop doing anything to help communities that are losing jobs and have a worse future? I don't think so.

You are acting like all Trump voters are one block of people with exactly the same thoughts, actions and ideas. And that we should treat them as such. I don't agree with that.

The progressive agenda is one of investing in people, providing education, providing opportunities for all. No, that will not work out for all, and I'm sure it is a lost cause in some cases, maybe in a lot of cases. But does that mean we should just drop it all and say: fuck these people?

Nobody is arguing we shouldn't pass policies that help working-class white people. Just that we should stop imagining that they will support those policies or that doing so will end racism.

 

[Nepenthe]

You still haven't answered my question. You think minorities feel particularly hopeful that the system is surmountable and that they'll be in Rainbow Land during their lifetimes? So why don't more minorities vote Republican then if all this election came down to was hopelessness with the status quo?

 

[El_Tiguere]

You still haven't answered my question. You think minorities feel particularly hopeful that the system is surmountable and that they'll be in Rainbow Land during their lifetimes? So why don't more minorities vote Republican then if all this election came down to was hopelessness with the status quo?

Some minorities DO vote Republican, especially if they blame government handouts on our shit economic state of affairs. The key is to show them the proportion of handouts to the top 10% (trillions upon trillions) versus the scraps that minorities get. The point is that we should all stop attacking each other over scraps, when the fat cats are having a feast on our dime at the table none of us are invited to.

Since you are digging in particular for this, YES, the Republican party is the home of the racist fringe in this country, while the Democrats stands as the only party that wants to move forward on social/racial issues. The choice is clear for minorities, but you will still have black Republicans saying that we all now have the same opportunities to pull ourselves from our bootstraps if we so chose to (regardless of race). I don't agree with that sentiment, but it is prevalent when talking about race and gender.

 

[Nepenthe]

Some minorities DO vote Republican, especially if they blame government handouts on our shit economic state of affairs. The key is to show them the proportion of handouts to the top 10% (trillions upon trillions) versus the scraps that minorities get. The point is that we should all stop attacking each other over scraps, when the fat cats are having a feast on our dime at the table none of us are invited to.

Since you are digging in particular for this, YES, the Republican party is the home of the racist fringe in this country, while the Democrats stands as the only party that wants to move forward on social/racial issues. The choice is clear for minorities, but you will still have black Republicans saying that we all now have the same opportunities to pull ourselves from our bootstraps if we so chose to (regardless of race). I don't agree with that sentiment, but it is prevalent when talking about race and gender.

No one is saying that voting patterns are mutually exclusive to certain demographics, so pointing out black Republicans is a non-starter. The point is, there are "weird" splits in voting trends that cannot be explained by appealing to universal human causes, because if such were the case, the splits wouldn't exist.

People keep citing "real Americans'" (aka white people's) economic anxieties as if they are the only ones who felt let down by government, the only ones who were actively pissed off at the government, the only ones who had shitty job prospects, the only ones who were living paycheck to paycheck, the only ones whose money was getting stretched thinner and thinner year after year, the only ones wondering how their children's education would fair, the only ones worrying about paying for high-cost medical care, the only ones pissed that CEOs were getting paid exponentially more than the rest of us for doing a shittier job.

None of this is exclusive to white people to warrant it being poised as an easy explanation of the election result. But Republicans, their sympathizers, and centrists keep acting like it was, and they keep trying to appeal to this presumed exclusivity of economic anxiety to tell black people like me that I should be more understanding of their vote for a Grand Wizard in business clothing, when the fact is that couldn't be the whole reason because no other demographic affected by these same concerns- or worse (because I bet you a shitload of these white people who claim that no one cares about them at least have clean drinking water unlike the poor black folks in Flint)- followed their asses into the fire.

And yes. We should be working together towards the common goal of forcefully taking back the equity and standards of living we're being denied by the upper class fatcat shitlords. But that level of mutual cooperation would actually require white people recognize and set aside white privilege. They have been offered a seat at the table of commonality for centuries but they refuse to take it, because when push comes to shove, they'll be damned if they're seen on an even socioeconomic keel as a black person.

 

[thiscoldblack]

As an observer, I'm not sure how anyone would vote for Trump, or even Hillary. They're both terrible candidates. I'm guessing the vote for Hillary was "well, it's not Trump", which is a big positive nonetheless.

As for the topic, I don't think it is appropriate to label Trump supporters "Nazi". This has a complete different connotation and does a disservice to the victims of Nazi Germany. To me, these supporters lie in the spectrum of a) out-of-their-mind morons or b) ignorant lazy folks. For the latter, and possibly a lot of your family members, they were very irresponsible not to research on their candidate.

Honestly, it would be great if the electronic voting polls had a quick test like the one from isidewith.com before being able to vote. Although, I can see this being tampered to favor other candidates.

 

[tuxfool]

For the latter, and possibly a lot of your family members, they were very irresponsible not to research on their candidate.

This still doesn't fly. Why do people keep saying this nonsense?

They would have to research to find whatever threadbare policies he was pushing on that day. Otherwise racism and xenophobia was center stage and couldn't be missed if they tried.

 

[El_Tiguere]

People keep citing "real Americans'" (aka white people's) economic anxieties as if they are the only ones who felt let down by government, the only ones who were actively pissed off at the government, the only ones who had shitty job prospects, the only ones who were living paycheck to paycheck, the only ones whose money was getting stretched thinner and thinner year after year, the only ones wondering how their children's education would fair, the only ones worrying about paying for high-cost medical care, the only ones pissed that CEOs were getting paid exponentially more than the rest of us for doing a shittier job.

While I agree with the sentiment of your post, I would argue that people like Bernie Sanders keeps talking about "real Americans" purely on the basis of whoever is not represented by the elites in DC (the 90% who are real Americans, outside of the echo chambers in DC and other wealthy liberal metros). The minute you clarify who belongs in the tent of "real Americans" (the disenfranchised lower classes), you can dispel the notion that you party is either/or when it comes to race. To someone like Bernie, working-class Americans don't have a race. What does in fact happen, is that your demographic of "real Americans" is going to look different across the districts Democrats need to win. Some working class areas will be 80/20 white, and some will be 80/20 black, or some 60/40 Latino, etc.

And yes. We should be working together towards the common goal of forcefully taking back the equity and standards of living we're being denied by the upper class fatcat shitlords. But that level of mutual cooperation would actually require white people recognize and set aside white privilege. They have been offered a seat at the table of commonality for centuries but they refuse to take it, because when push comes to shove, they'll be damned if they're seen on an even socioeconomic keel as a black person.

Instead of a racial undertone (which I would never deny exists), left-wing vs right-wing will always be a tug of war between the government being a provider for the people, versus government getting out of the way of individuals. The tale goes back to our founding, where individuals and municipalities were thought to be sovereign, with minimal meddling from a national centralized power. This dynamic is at the forefront of the battle between free market capitalism (the individual is best to make economic decisions) versus socialism at the other end of the spectrum (the state is the best to handle economic decisions).

I propose that even though the more ignorant white rural people are afraid of the unknown (minorities and their culture), and want to cling on their traditions/way of life, deep down they simply hate "free-loaders" in this mythical great land of opportunity that is the US. They especially hate it if the government is being fiscally irresponsible to help those "free-loaders". The racist ignorant undertone may be that they don't empathize with the LACK of opportunities and the undeniably systemic racism that STILL exists in the US, so they attribute laziness or a victim complex (instead of systemic oppression) to those that don't pull themselves by the bootstraps. It is hard to get the to empathize, because it is indeed their white privilege that prevents them from living the realities of most minorities (and women).

This quote below by Lyndon B. Johnson was no accident, as it has been the modus operandi of the right for a loooong time. Our job in 2017, to win those districts, is to make them take notice how the Republicans have been picking their pockets by the TRILLIONS all this time. That they have been conned by corrupt assholes on their side. If we can work against the xenophobic propaganda push from the right-wing below, we can make lots of headway:

"If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."- Lyndon B. Johnson

 

[Buddy Mcpuddy]

Without having met your family OP I'd like to give them the benefit of the doubt. They're probably just morons.

 

[HStallion]

Drag them kicking and screaming into the future we always do.

 

[Snowman Prophet of Doom]

You still haven't answered my question. You think minorities feel particularly hopeful that the system is surmountable and that they'll be in Rainbow Land during their lifetimes? So why don't more minorities vote Republican then if all this election came down to was hopelessness with the status quo?

I would argue it has something to do with the structure of the kinds of communities rural whites live in. There is a disjointedness, there, and while they are not, statistically, benefiting less from government programs than minorities, they are less aware of how "big government" benefits their communities, not to mention the increased religiosity and remoteness of such communities means more wealth redistribution is often handled by private, often religious, charities, rather than formal, government-financed or -subsidized programs. What they see is "their money" being taxed away from them, money that is substantially less than what it seems like it should be relative to the kinds of living standards and expectations enjoyed by their parents and grandparents, and they are thus receptive to the notion that "big government" benefits mostly those unlike themselves, because that sure is how it seems.

 

[ClosingADoor]

I don't think people want to stop helping these people. We just don't want to appeal to their racism/sexism to win elections. We can take them kicking and screaming into the future, like he have always had to do

Sure, but there has to be a balance there otherwise those people will just dig in. It's partly how you approach the subject. Paint them as the enemy, and they will act like the enemy. At least listening to the people who can be reasoned with and have a message that shows you are also there for them will work. Or at least, I think so.

Why is it that only white people tend to vote Republican in significant numbers when they're economically anxious, but minorities regardless of their economic situation tend to vote Democrat?

In other words, why are white people the outlier? I would really like an answer to this question because I've been asking it since November and haven't gotten an answer.

Because minorities know Republicans will fuck them over, while being white, you are safe from that.

Nobody is arguing we shouldn't pass policies that help working-class white people. Just that we should stop imagining that they will support those policies or that doing so will end racism.

Oh, it won't end racism, I'm under no illusions of that. And it is very hard to stop having these people vote against their own interest. Maybe the US does not a populist left wing candidate in the end and see how it goes.

 

[GrizzleBoy]

People keep citing "real Americans'" (aka white people's) economic anxieties as if they are the only ones who felt let down by government, the only ones who were actively pissed off at the government, the only ones who had shitty job prospects, the only ones who were living paycheck to paycheck, the only ones whose money was getting stretched thinner and thinner year after year, the only ones wondering how their children's education would fair, the only ones worrying about paying for high-cost medical care, the only ones pissed that CEOs were getting paid exponentially more than the rest of us for doing a shittier job.

None of this is exclusive to white people to warrant it being poised as an easy explanation of the election result. But Republicans, their sympathizers, and centrists keep acting like it was, and they keep trying to appeal to this presumed exclusivity of economic anxiety to tell black people like me that I should be more understanding of their vote for a Grand Wizard in business clothing, when the fact is that couldn't be the whole reason because no other demographic affected by these same concerns- or worse (because I bet you a shitload of these white people who claim that no one cares about them at least have clean drinking water unlike the poor black folks in Flint)- followed their asses into the fire.

This.

It's not a coincidence that while minorities usually suffer economic anxiety as a higher percentage of population, the vast majority won't vote for a candidate with such a blatant white supremacist platform as Trump.

Caucasians on the other hand, suffering the same or similar economic anxiety, will in huge numbers, vote in a white supremacist.

There must be a reason why that is. But we can't talk about that.

One of the biggest inequality and systemic racism enabler mindsets, we need to never talk about that.

Because apparently, tackling or even discussing lack of empathy towards some grpups will give us four more years of Trump.

Hitting back against white supremacy is bad politics. We need to get our priorities in order.


It's kind of funny though, when people ask "how could you vote for a man like Trump?", the answer seems to be "I don't feel like people realise or care about issues that affect me".

Which with amazing irony, roughly translates into "I would never normally vote for this sack of shit of a human, but he said he's gonna give me a huge tax cut and give me my old job back."

It's funny. But it also isn't.

Huge swathes of people disregarding any moral compass they had, if they ever had any, for the promise of obviously unrealistic favours is kind of troubling.

Trump is already flip flopping on large amounts of campaign trail promises or policy positions his voters believed he had, but it's still all good and dandy because the huge tax cuts are coming aaaaall day now.


Meh.

 

[danm999]

Good thing none of those goes against what I said.

Also in case it isn't obvious education is not the same as schools, things like trials help to educate the public, both in alerting them on what occurred, and that the actions perpetrated by certain individuals are not ok, even the leaflets can be considered a form of educating enemy soldiers to the fact that there is an alternative and an escape from the path they are on.

Simple name calling on the other hand generally does very little but to foster hatred on both sides.
The idea that education does not play a significant part in curbing hatred for the other is madness to me, does anyone actually think that the levels of acceptance for things like homosexuality we have today in relation to the past really comes down to genetics or shaming homophobes?

Again, you're completely ignorant of post-war Germany and how it led to modern Germany.

They did name call the German people as Nazi's. They ran psychological campaigns on the German public to make them feel ashamed and guilty of actions many of them actually didn't participate in. They broke new ground in holding rank and file soldiers responsible for following orders. They did tell them they were collectively responsible for the Holocaust and the atrocities of the Third Reich. They did burn their books and ban the iconography of the Nazi Party. They had to tear fascism out of that society root and stem.

They had to do exactly what you're saying they didn't.

And yes shaming homophobes as backwards thinking bigots culturally is also a reason why homophobia has declined in the West.

Education can always play a role, but you don't educate fascist movements out of existence.

But hey if you think that is all that was needed to curb Nazi sentiments in Germany, you should really get up with the white house and inform them that the reason why there is still problems in the middle east is because they didn't invade it hard enough, didn't bomb it hard enough, and didn't control them hard enough.

The problems in the Middle East, which is a region not a nation, are quite different to the problems with Nazi Germany. Besides being an almost unmanageable large area to invade, Western interventionism over the past few centuries is the reason that place is a mess.

 

[Snowman Prophet of Doom]

Neither Trump nor Trump supporters have done anything that you can shame on that mass of a scale. If Trumpists start a war of imperialism against the Middle East and put Muslims in death camps, punch Nazis to your heart's content and then blanket the country in propaganda, but prior to that point, simply detailing what happened in post-war Nazi Germany to destroy fascism has little comparative value.

 

[mAcOdIn]

Neither Trump nor Trump supporters have done anything that you can shame on that mass of a scale. If Trumpists start a war of imperialism against the Middle East and put Muslims in death camps, punch Nazis to your heart's content and then blanket the country in propaganda, but prior to that point, simply detailing what happened in post-war Nazi Germany to destroy fascism has little comparative value.

I believe otherwise.

I don't know if Trump, Bannon and company really are fascists or Nazis. I don't really care. I don't believe that the ideology and the method he delivered it can be allowed to persist past his presidency, even if what we see today will be the full extent of Donald Trump's power over his term, no-one "more-effective" can be allowed to come after him and pick up from "Mexicans are rapists" and "Muslims should be banned" and move forward with those ideas.

 

[Snowman Prophet of Doom]

I believe otherwise.

I don't know if Trump, Bannon and company really are fascists or Nazis. I don't really care. I don't believe that the ideology and the method he delivered it can be allowed to persist past his presidency, even if what we see today will be the full extent of Donald Trump's power over his term, no-one "more-effective" can be allowed to come after him and pick up from "Mexicans are rapists" and "Muslims should be banned" and move forward with those ideas.

I agree the man is despicable and loathsome on every level, but do you really think America is at the point where violence and forcible reeducation are the answers? I don't.

 

[IrishNinja]

what distinction's made for nazi here? looking at the white house alone, there's numerous bigots (especially islamaphobia) but i thought bannon & that hungarian or whatever clown were the only over nazis. that's not to say guys like sessions aren't hugely white supremacists, i just thought you had to mix that in with some anti-semitism (which god knows dude could possess as well, he's a tremendous shitheel)

Voting for trump at minimum means you are ok with racism, homophobia, misogyny and being willfully ignorant. They might be your friends and family, but lets call a spade a spade

but yeah, this is entirely true of the supporters

 

[mAcOdIn]

I agree the man is despicable and loathsome on every level, but do you really think America is at the point where violence and forcible reeducation are the answers? I don't.

That's a hard question honestly and I imagine my answer would differ depending on what my life circumstances were. From my own life I'd say no, we're not at the level of violence yet but I find it hard to fault someone who felt otherwise.

But I do think this logic should be shunned, shamed and ridiculed to hell and back for starters. If things get worse it may be time to revisit your question.

 

[Vicetrailia]

These same people want infrastructure now when they could have had it under Obama, a much better plan in fact (Clinton too). So much more not "liking Democrat policies".

 

[BajiBoxer]

what distinction's made for nazi here? looking at the white house alone, there's numerous bigots (especially islamaphobia) but i thought bannon & that hungarian or whatever clown were the only over nazis. that's not to say guys like sessions aren't hugely white supremacists, i just thought you had to mix that in with some anti-semitism (which god knows dude could possess as well, he's a tremendous shitheel)



but yeah, this is entirely true of the supporters

I never thoought there would be a day where "but there's only two Nazis in the White House" would be an argument against anything.

 

[IrishNinja]

I never thoought there would be a day where "but there's only two Nazis in the White House" would be an argument against anything.

2017, man

 

[Jimothy]

Trump is the counterrevolution to Obama's black presidency. Trump's historical role is to erase the first black president's political legacy off the face of the earth. He is disgusting and so is anyone who voted for him. Fuck them.

 

[pigeon]

what distinction's made for nazi here? looking at the white house alone, there's numerous bigots (especially islamaphobia) but i thought bannon & that hungarian or whatever clown were the only over nazis. that's not to say guys like sessions aren't hugely white supremacists, i just thought you had to mix that in with some anti-semitism (which god knows dude could possess as well, he's a tremendous shitheel)

I just don't feel super motivated to distinguish between different flavors of white supremacist tbh. They all seem to get along with each other fine!

 

[Sgt.Pepper]

LOL come on dude. Even people from other countries knew voting for him was voting for a goddamn racist. It is like that south park episode where people thought he was just joking or something when he ranted about Mexicans being rapists and stealing jobs from the poor white people.

Here comes that Fisher Price punditry again. Gotta start finding a way to make money every time someone says this anti-intellectual tripe.

Aint no one losing any elections calling spades a spade.

OFF-TOPIC: Why clicking that quote sends me to to a Pokemon thread..?

 

[IrishNinja]

I just don't feel super motivated to distinguish between different flavors of white supremacist tbh. They all seem to get along with each other fine!

you're not wrong here - i guess it's just, in my mind i tend to put miller, bannon etc in a separate category from, say, giulliani/etc. they're all trash, mind.

 

[Effect]

Yeah I'm guessing this is exactly how most Trump voters feel. They're not all racist, they're just looking out for #1...which is actually how a lot of people vote.

About that. If that were the case they would have gone for any of the other republican options. They were drawn to and went for the most over racist, sexist, ignorant and bigoted one that campaigned on wanting to hurt the "other". That moves past just looking out for number 1 and into wanting to actively hurt the other and blame everyone else non-white for their woes. Trump voters moved passed voting for themselves and into the area of voting to hurt other people.