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[Earthstrike]

I can only imagine the responses here if it was Sanders supporters talking about black voters lol.

People have different preferences.

If sanders supporters talked about black voters voting against their own interests they would get anally reamed. I know this, because it has actually happened. You are wrong.

Edit: Didn't mean to quote from page 1 when we are on page 4. Opened it earlier and forget.

 

[sphagnum]

The liberalism you're thinking of and "neoliberalism" aren't related. Also, neoliberal is just a dogwhistle for capitalist.

They're both forms of liberalism, stemming from the same sort of Enlightenment ideals about individualism and the role of a limited state, etc. It's just that left liberalism/social democracy progressed due to it being pushed to innovate by socialists, adopting some elements of socialist policies to prop up the otherwise faltering capitalist system, while neoliberalism is a return to form.

 

[Autumn Wind]

Manufacturing in the USA matters but people voted for those who were against that and now have to sleep in the bed they made. I try and aggressively check labels but there is only so much I can do as one person to help the economy and that is not much.

 

[Cotton McKnight]

Sadly, reading this thread makes me think that the left are hateful people (but GAF is but a small cross section). BTW I lie directly in the middle, both sides can make good points, but often it is a waste of time.

I started on the left, my whole family is on the left.

But they came from nothing, they were the poor Russian Jews, the poor Irish that were trying to make it to America for a better life. So they have love for immigrants, for the down-trodden (regardless of race, since we're all immigrants, just generations removed).

Everyone needs help, and I have personally gone into situations of service to help those that need help, and there are some that accept the help and then rise up to better themselves, but the majority, well they just flounder and hold their hand out. All races I have gone to help have both of those scenarios, so forgive me for going against the norm, yet again, but for shame on any of us that denigrate other people. How many of us are actually successful? I believe I could be, and I'll work towards. But I won't forget how to be a human regardless of if I reach what I define as successful.

Maybe some of you are barely above the people you are looking down on, maybe some of you are the top of the country, but come on now, get outside of yourselves and look at how we're all just the problem here.

 

[Tristam]

I don't think there's much more when can do when it comes to making laws to combat racism. We were already on the right track. In my experience, this stuff bloomed when all the jobs dried up. Republicans told whites that it was the fault of minorities, and Dems told minorities it was because of whites. When really, both of our problems are because of Republicans and Democrats. Both parties throw their little social bones which don't effect their lives or the lives of their donors to give them something juicy to campaign about.

I don't know where we're going to get those jobs from. Dark times ahead.

In your experience? Did you experience racism in the post-war economic boom of the 1950s? Was racism less prevalent during said boom?

 

[ScatheZombie]

I mean, you do think they're stupid. You just think it's not their fault.

I feel like this kind of intellectual condescension is the stuff the article is literally about. Poor dumb white people! Brainwashed by Fox News!

I give them more credit than that. They're not dumb. They have as much capability as anybody else to learn things. People found ways to not be racist before the internet. If anything else, they can change the channel.

They chose not to, for themselves and for their children. I'm not going to take away their agency. At any given moment you can choose to challenge your perception of the world. They didn't.

Ignorance and stupidity are not synonyms. One is the lack of intelligence, the other is a lack of information. There's a clear distinction between the two.

Intelligent people can still be brainwashed to believe absolutely asinine things - just look at any recent discussion about vaccination or GMOs. People on the 'wrong' side of those issues aren't stupid, nor are they intentionally being assholes. They're simply ignorant. And their ignorance stems from being inside an echo chamber of bad information. Rural America is an echo chamber of bad information.

And they absolutely do not have the same opportunity for learning as everyone else. They can change the channel, but why would they know to do that? Who tells them Fox News and the like are wrong? That's where the ignorance lies. They don't know they are being fed bullshit because they have never been fed anything but bullshit. When that's your world, you don't even know you can challenge it, let alone that you should.

 

[orthodoxy1095]

"Change the channel" is a weird way to approach talking about extremely insular communities.

 

[not psycho]

It doesn't say they're all voting Trump:

Those Americans are, by and large, not voting at all, as I’m often reminded when reporting in places like Appalachia, where turnout rates are the lowest in the country. People voting for Trump are mostly a notch higher on the economic ladder—in a position to feel exactly the resentment that Williamson himself feels toward the shiftless needy.

Race and class are both huge, intersecting issues. Using them against each other is a classic tactic. "OK, fine, I'll admit that class issues exist... but only if you agree that racial issues don't exist, so I can still feel superior to minorities. OK, fine, I'll admit that racial issues exist... but only if you agree that class issues don't exist, so I can still feel superior to poor White people."

 

[Version 3.0]

Ignorance and stupidity are not synonyms. One is the lack of intelligence, the other is a lack of information. There's a clear distinction between the two.

Intelligent people can still be brainwashed to believe absolutely asinine things - just look at any recent discussion about vaccination or GMOs. People on the 'wrong' side of those issues aren't stupid, nor are they intentionally being assholes. They're simply ignorant. And their ignorance stems from being inside an echo chamber of bad information. Rural America is an echo chamber of bad information.

And they absolutely do not have the same opportunity for learning as everyone else. They can change the channel, but why would they know to do that? Who tells them Fox News and the like are wrong? That's where the ignorance lies. They don't know they are being fed bullshit because they have never been fed anything but bullshit. When that's your world, you don't even know you can challenge it, let alone that you should.

Are you sure they can't use a computer? Are we not talking about the people in the comments section of every site that allows comments?

Also, even if all they have is a TV, Fox News is not the only news program. There are others. Why do they gravitate to that cesspool? Even lacking any other information other than broadcast television news, one would hope that an intelligent person could defy ignorance and spot contradictions, hate speech and selective content in contrast to the other stations.

 

[ZealousD]

The bolded is your error, and why you are having a hard time seeing this.

I am making no errors. I know that automation will be potentially disruptive in the coming decades. The most "popular" occupation is probably Truck Driver, and self driving cars are a huge threat to that business.

You are ignoring the context in which I am making my statements, which were in response to the poster on the first page who suggested that working should be a voluntary thing, where people always work for pleasure and don't make their living off of it. This is an absurd idea until robots start doing literally every unpleasant job. Until then, we need somebody to scrub the toilets.

 

[ScatheZombie]

Are you sure they can't use a computer? Are we not talking about the people in the comments section of every site that allows comments?

Also, even if all they have is a TV, Fox News is not the only news program. There are others. Why do they gravitate to that cesspool? Even lacking any other information other than broadcast television news, one would hope that an intelligent person could defy ignorance and spot contradictions, hate speech and selective content in contrast to the other stations.

You are missing the point that within insular communities - even Neogaf suffers from this - any opinion or statement that runs directly contrary to the common wisdom is met with extreme resistance and expunged.

Why? Because they exist in an environment that discourages contrarian opinions, discourages critical thinking, and reinforces stereotypical beliefs due to a lack of information and experience. There's a disconnect that people who haven't lived in rural America don't understand. There's an assumption people make that everywhere else is just like where they live right now. How can anyone possibly not live, think, and interact in exactly the way I do? And that isn't unique to any location; the difference is that people from cities are constantly surrounded by culture, interactions, education, opinions, options, and environments that rural Americans simply don't have. And it dramatically affects your world views, your perceptions, and your available information.

To say that they aren't ignorant, that they have the exact same opportunities, education, available information, and agency as everyone else; that they have all the same circumstances and environment as anyone else and there's absolutely no outside impacting factors - is basically saying they choose to racist, they choose to be bigoted, they choose to be on the 'wrong' side of social progress and science despite knowing they are wrong.

At that point, you are basically arguing that everyone in rural areas is inherently evil. And that's fucking asinine to say the least.

 

[Version 3.0]

You are missing the point that within insular communities - even Neogaf suffers from this - any opinion or statement that runs directly contrary to the common wisdom is met with extreme resistance and expunged.

Seems to me that questioning your parents' beliefs is part of growing up. Also, you assume I didn't grow up in rural America. But you don't know that. I don't know if where I grew up "counts" (small town in western Colorado), but my father was literally a coal miner (only for a year), amongst other such manual labor and construction jobs. And my grandfather was racist as hell. My father was better, but still complained about "Mexicans" and "immigrants". I can identify. And yet I did question and learn. I'll admit I wasn't exposed to an extreme echo chamber like exists today.

At that point, you are basically arguing that everyone in rural areas is inherently evil. And that's fucking asinine to say the least.

Wow, you sure took nothing I said and ran with it. Where did you get "inherently evil"? Geez. I said nothing of the sort, nor anything that insinuates it. My point was simply that in this time, even poor people are not 100% insulated from outside opinions, nor are they incapable of thinking for themselves.

 

[ScatheZombie]

Wow, you sure took nothing I said and ran with it. Where did you get "inherently evil"? Geez. I said nothing of the sort, nor anything that insinuates it. My point was simply that in this time, even poor people are not 100% insulated from outside opinions, nor are they incapable of thinking for themselves.

Because that's the logical conclusion of that argument. When people make terrible decisions or say terrible things, but they aren't either plainly stupid or unfortunately ignorant, then they are making terrible decisions and saying terrible things purposefully.

That's pretty much the definition of evil.

 

[iamblades]

You are missing the point that within insular communities - even Neogaf suffers from this - any opinion or statement that runs directly contrary to the common wisdom is met with extreme resistance and expunged.

Why? Because they exist in an environment that discourages contrarian opinions, discourages critical thinking, and reinforces stereotypical beliefs due to a lack of information and experience. There's a disconnect that people who haven't lived in rural America don't understand. There's an assumption people make that everywhere else is just like where they live right now. How can anyone possibly not live, think, and interact in exactly the way I do? And that isn't unique to any location; the difference is that people from cities are constantly surrounded by culture, interactions, education, opinions, options, and environments that rural Americans simply don't have. And it dramatically affects your world views, your perceptions, and your available information.

To say that they aren't ignorant, that they have the exact same opportunities, education, available information, and agency as everyone else; that they have all the same circumstances and environment as anyone else and there's absolutely no outside impacting factors - is basically saying they choose to racist, they choose to be bigoted, they choose to be on the 'wrong' side of social progress and science despite knowing they are wrong.

At that point, you are basically arguing that everyone in rural areas is inherently evil. And that's fucking asinine to say the least.

I've talked about something similar on here before. It's the danger of utopianism, if you believe you are fighting to make a world a better place then anyone who disagrees with you is not just wrong, but they are evil.

This is ruining politics on both sides in this country. No one even entertains that the other side might have a valid point about something once in a great while, speaking as someone who agrees with at most 1/3rd of any major party politician says.

 

[pigeon]

Because that's the logical conclusion of that argument. When people make terrible decisions or say terrible things, but they aren't either plainly stupid or unfortunately ignorant, then they are making terrible decisions and saying terrible things purposefully.

That's pretty much the definition of evil.

Then I don't really see why you would consider it asinine. They are clearly doing terrible things purposefully all the time. They've been doing it for two hundred years and more. They fought a whole war! This was, you know, kind of a while before Fox News.

Notice that nobody else is arguing that that makes them intrinsically evil (or at least any more intrinsically evil than any other humans). If you believe that these people must be fundamentally evil if they are choosing to be racist than it makes sense that you are desperate to find an explanation that takes their agency away so that they can't be evil.

I am more comfortable assuming that they are humans like everybody else, they exist in a community that has trained them to do evil to people of color, and that, like all other humans including those that were born in the deep South and managed to not turn out racist, they have the choice to be evil or not. That is how people really work.

I've talked about something similar on here before. It's the danger of utopianism, if you believe you are fighting to make a world a better place then anyone who disagrees with you is not just wrong, but they are evil.

I'm comfortable with the assertion that people who are racist are actually evil, although again, nobody was actually making that assertion before the person you responded to raised it as a logical endpoint of understanding that lots of people are racist.

 

[Shogmaster]

You reap what you sow. Keep voting in those Republicans for regressive conservative social issues and let them fuck you in the pockets. Poor white people allowed this fate on themselves through nearly 40 years of poor choosing of their representatives who used those regressive social issues to hide their oligarchic economic agenda.

 

[OrangeGrayBlue]

You reap what you sow. Keep voting in those Republicans for regressive conservative social issues and let them fuck you in the pockets. Poor white people allowed this fate on themselves through nearly 40 years of poor choosing of their representatives who used those regressive social issues to hide their oligarchic economic agenda.

http://www.270towin.com/states/West_Virginia


This also ignores that not everyone stuck in red states is a republican, anyway, and that voting in democrats didn't do much to help their lot, either. If our sympathy only extends as far as our political party, we're not doing much better than the Fox News crowd we love to shit on around here.

 

[iamblades]

Then I don't really see why you would consider it asinine. They are clearly doing terrible things purposefully all the time. They've been doing it for two hundred years and more. They fought a whole war! This was, you know, kind of a while before Fox News.

Notice that nobody else is arguing that that makes them intrinsically evil (or at least any more intrinsically evil than any other humans). If you believe that these people must be fundamentally evil if they are choosing to be racist than it makes sense that you are desperate to find an explanation that takes their agency away so that they can't be evil.

I am more comfortable assuming that they are humans like everybody else, they exist in a community that has trained them to do evil to people of color, and that, like all other humans including those that were born in the deep South and managed to not turn out racist, they have the choice to be evil or not. That is how people really work.

You are assuming they are choosing to be racist(or anti-poor, or whatever) first, and generalizing the entire group as such.

What if they honestly do not believe that democratic policies do anything to help the situation. I mean I dunno why they would think such a thing with such racism and poverty free democratic utopias as Baltimore and Chicago? Oh wait..

Not even saying a certain significant percentage of republican voters aren't racist, just saying that they certainly aren't all voting against welfare programs because some money may go to black people. Maybe they legitimately believe it won't work. Maybe they believe that even if it works it is not morally justifiable. Maybe they are just legitimately uneducated on the issues.

Point is, if you right them off and say they are just voting that way because of racism, you cease to even try to convince them that your ideas are correct. If you aren't trying to convince people your ideas are correct and you just label everyone who disagrees as racist or X or Y pejorative, why should anyone believe what you say? That straight ad hominem argument isn't the most effective way to get your point across. Even if the person fits the ad hominem, it's not likely to convince third parties.

Just look at Trump. All the attacks from the left labeling him a racist or the next Hitler or whatever did absolutely no damage to him in the polls. But he opened his stupid mouth and some stupid shit came out and instantly tanked his poll numbers more than any attack from the Democrats could have ever done.

 

[Cobra84]

There is some nasty anti-white racism and "I don't are about all of you because some of you vote differently" crap in here.

Why are democrats the answer here? West Virginia was very blue very recently and it didn't help them. Poor urban blacks have voted democrat for a long time, what has it gotten them besides one party rule cities loaded with corruption and being even worse off than rural whites?

http://www.270towin.com/states/West_Virginia


This also ignores that not everyone stuck in red states is a republican, anyway, and that voting in democrats didn't do much to help their lot, either. If our sympathy only extends as far as our political party, we're not doing much better than the Fox News crowd we love to shit on around here.

Yep, 22 years ago West Virginia was so blue Dukkas won there. It was still a dump.

 

[pigeon]

You are assuming they are choosing to be racist(or anti-poor, or whatever) first, and generalizing the entire group as such.

I'm not assuming it, actually. I responded to somebody who asserted that that was the case. Then you responded to me and apparently made assumptions about why I did that!

I don't necessarily think that all poor white people are racist. Clearly many aren't. Any that are willing to vote for Donald Trump clearly are, though.

Point is, if you right them off and say they are just voting that way because of racism, you cease to even try to convince them that your ideas are correct. If you aren't trying to convince people your ideas are correct and you just label everyone who disagrees as racist or X or Y pejorative, why should anyone believe what you say? That straight ad hominem argument isn't the most effective way to get your point across. Even if the person fits the ad hominem, it's not likely to convince third parties.

I've taken a lot of trips on this merry-go-round in the last two weeks as people started to realize that their friends and family members were racist.

The goal isn't to convince lifelong racists to stop being racists. They clearly won't. The goal is to make clear that being racist is socially unacceptable.

Just look at Trump. All the attacks from the left labeling him a racist or the next Hitler or whatever did absolutely no damage to him in the polls. But he opened his stupid mouth and some stupid shit came out and instantly tanked his poll numbers more than any attack from the Democrats could have ever done.

This is mostly inaccurate.

 

[Foffy]

I am making no errors. I know that automation will be potentially disruptive in the coming decades. The most "popular" occupation is probably Truck Driver, and self driving cars are a huge threat to that business.

You are ignoring the context in which I am making my statements, which were in response to the poster on the first page who suggested that working should be a voluntary thing, where people always work for pleasure and don't make their living off of it. This is an absurd idea until robots start doing literally every unpleasant job. Until then, we need somebody to scrub the toilets.

Fair enough, apologies for overlooking that. I assumed work as want didn't mean for pleasure and fun times alone. I think want should be to do things of value, to be of service to others, to help your community, etc. It would entail wanting to get out of bed and engage the world, not feel like you're handcuffed to do so, as most Americans probably are in a way. One might feel willing to be a person to clean toilets, but that goes back to conditioning and empowering people that work of all kinds can be significant in and of itself. It may mean we have to make everybody a Zen monk, but it's true.

I do think work as need is a problem. The need then becomes the money from the job, not the work itself. A work of want actually would allow people to escape that issue. There are things we find important that we desire to be done, and the problem of work as need is that some of these fall into the gaps, which not only creates the issue of "real" and "fake" jobs, but worthy and unworthy efforts of people. We can say being a mother is hard, important work, but from a socioeconomic perspective, it's just hemorrhaging. If a caretaker was paid to do the same thing, we might consider it more "valid", specifically because of the money. I think that may be what the other user was talking about in a larger aspect of the matter.

Unless we have a resource based economy or something of the kind, people should be both compensated for their labor and assured a floor as well. Linking the assured floor to labor is why people fall into voids. Can we agree to this?

 

[OrangeGrayBlue]

I gotta say, I'm genuinely surprised at how overwhelming the "I'll start caring when they start voting for democrats" sentiment has been. They need a reason to vote for democrats first. Not much worth in voting for worker's rights and labor unions when the bulk of remaining jobs are as waiters and cashiers. There's not much "self-interest" to vote in favor of when the democratic party acknowledges immigration reform, black lives matter, gay rights, transgender issues and so on but nothing specifically aimed at Appalachia. I think the depressing truth is that there's no political need for their votes, and thus no concern for their problems. It's like North Korea: sure, millions of people are suffering there, but who wants to take on the burden of reintroducing millions of unskilled, malnourished people to modern society when we could just ignore them? Why should the democratic party make appeals to Kentucky and West Virginia when that's just wasted time that could be spent trying to flip Florida?

 

[commedieu]

You are assuming they are choosing to be racist(or anti-poor, or whatever) first, and generalizing the entire group as such.

What if they honestly do not believe that democratic policies do anything to help the situation. I mean I dunno why they would think such a thing with such racism and poverty free democratic utopias as Baltimore and Chicago? Oh wait..

Not even saying a certain significant percentage of republican voters aren't racist, just saying that they certainly aren't all voting against welfare programs because some money may go to black people. Maybe they legitimately believe it won't work. Maybe they believe that even if it works it is not morally justifiable. Maybe they are just legitimately uneducated on the issues.

Point is, if you right them off and say they are just voting that way because of racism, you cease to even try to convince them that your ideas are correct. If you aren't trying to convince people your ideas are correct and you just label everyone who disagrees as racist or X or Y pejorative, why should anyone believe what you say? That straight ad hominem argument isn't the most effective way to get your point across. Even if the person fits the ad hominem, it's not likely to convince third parties.

Just look at Trump. All the attacks from the left labeling him a racist or the next Hitler or whatever did absolutely no damage to him in the polls. But he opened his stupid mouth and some stupid shit came out and instantly tanked his poll numbers more than any attack from the Democrats could have ever done.

Yes yes, not all __________.


However, a healthy amount and their voted representation. The problem with poor whites, in general, is that they drank the Fox kool-aid, which literally is demonizing a religion along with other completely bigoted and racist rhetoric.

Trump is one man, every other person behind him on the lead up to the nomination had dog whistled the same attitudes. Trump stood to gain from putting it down. He's insulted troops. You never do that. But people didn't draw a line in the sand when he said build a wall for those raping mexicans and make them pay. Or 100000000000 other things he said. He crossed a line while the entirety of the world saw it as crossed day 1.

Thats on them. Whenever they are ready to give up on hate, and blaming everything besides the actual target (government is fucking you over, not mexicans) people will be better off. Until then, poor whites keep screwing themselves thinking they aren't included in things they are trained to vote against. This bullshit change of mind hardly matters. As the rest of the candidates were just as vile.


The gop made a mistake going after and feeding the ignorant. They've got to learn from their mistakes, and stop looking for exits of responsibility. A lot of republicans believed the messages on fox. They need to realize it's lies and bullshit then move forward, not pretend that they didn't know that blacks weren't ruining their healthcare/jobs/life.

It's a course correction. Desperately needed. The gop is broken and it's on its members to mend it. A lot of people looked the other way, and just pretended it was okay because they just don't want more taxes! It was never ok to treat other citizens how they wanted them to be treated. And I fully well guarantee that if these policies over the past really did just affect the minorities, and some how benefitted them, they wouldn't have some moral epiphany and reconsider themselves.

 

[Shogmaster]

http://www.270towin.com/states/West_Virginia


This also ignores that not everyone stuck in red states is a republican, anyway, and that voting in democrats didn't do much to help their lot, either. If our sympathy only extends as far as our political party, we're not doing much better than the Fox News crowd we love to shit on around here.

Hard to be sympathetic to those who are prone to regressive ideals. It's not about falling into party lines. But it's not an accident that GOP is the party of the regressives.

 

[pigeon]

I gotta say, I'm genuinely surprised at how overwhelming the "I'll start caring when they start voting for democrats" sentiment has been. They need a reason to vote for democrats first. Not much worth in voting for worker's rights and labor unions when the bulk of remaining jobs are as waiters and cashiers. There's not much "self-interest" to vote in favor of when the democratic party acknowledges immigration reform, black lives matter, gay rights, transgender issues and so on but nothing specifically aimed at Appalachia. I think the depressing truth is that there's no political need for their votes, and thus no concern for their problems. It's like North Korea: sure, millions of people are suffering there, but who wants to take on the burden of reintroducing millions of unskilled, malnourished people to modern society when we could just ignore them? Why should the democratic party make appeals to Kentucky and West Virginia when that's just wasted time that could be spent trying to flip Florida?

I mean, I'll post it again: https://www.hillaryclinton.com/brie.../clinton-plan-to-revitalize-coal-communities/

Here's Hillary Clinton's plan to revitalize coal communities, bring jobs back to Appalachia, and help build small businesses while expanding programs meant to help coal miners who many have lost their jobs. She knows that she won't win West Virginia, but she'll still have to preside over it and help those people.

Saying that there's no concern for their problems isn't quite accurate. There is clearly not much concern for their problems among urbanites -- that's the whole point of the article, right? So it doesn't really surprise me that people feel that way. Lots of people live in the cities because they fled the country because they hated it, and lots of others have difficulty feeling sympathy for a part of the country they probably can't visit safely (including me).

But among people who worry about policy and good government, there's definitely a desire to find a way to address these issues. Luckily we're about to elect one.

 

[OrangeGrayBlue]

Hard to be sympathetic to those who are prone to regressive ideals. It's not about falling into party lines. But it's not an accident that GOP is the party of the regressives.

A lot of people in African countries still believe in witchcraft. Do you think these people are just prone to regressive ideals, or rather devoid of resources to better educate themselves as well as devoid of the relative comfort to leisurely gain knowledge?

 

[OrangeGrayBlue]

I mean, I'll post it again: https://www.hillaryclinton.com/brie.../clinton-plan-to-revitalize-coal-communities/

Here's Hillary Clinton's plan to revitalize coal communities, bring jobs back to Appalachia, and help build small businesses while expanding programs meant to help coal miners who many have lost their jobs. She knows that she won't win West Virginia, but she'll still have to preside over it and help those people.

Saying that there's no concern for their problems isn't quite accurate. There is clearly not much concern for their problems among urbanites -- that's the whole point of the article, right? So it doesn't really surprise me that people feel that way. Lots of people live in the cities because they fled the country because they hated it, and lots of others have difficulty feeling sympathy for a part of the country they probably can't visit safely (including me).

But among people who worry about policy and good government, there's definitely a desire to find a way to address these issues. Luckily we're about to elect one.

I'm glad Hillary has plans about this. It would be nice if she and other prominent democrats were willing to vocalize it every now and then, though. Correct me if I'm wrong, but was any amount of time spent addressing this part of her platform at the DNC? I don't recall any.

 

[pigeon]

I'm glad Hillary has plans about this. It would be nice if she and other prominent democrats were willing to vocalize it every now and then, though. Correct me if I'm wrong, but was any amount of time spent addressing this part of her platform at the DNC? I don't recall any.

It made an appearance in Tim Kaine's speech. He specifically mentioned that Hillary went to campaign in West Virginia and that when she wins she's coming back to help those people. Plus, I mean, she says "let's build good jobs at good wages" like every thirty seconds.

Sure, it could probably be more prominent. I'm sure when she goes to visit the area she'll make the argument.

 

[LegendofJoe]

I gotta say, I'm genuinely surprised at how overwhelming the "I'll start caring when they start voting for democrats" sentiment has been. They need a reason to vote for democrats first. Not much worth in voting for worker's rights and labor unions when the bulk of remaining jobs are as waiters and cashiers. There's not much "self-interest" to vote in favor of when the democratic party acknowledges immigration reform, black lives matter, gay rights, transgender issues and so on but nothing specifically aimed at Appalachia. I think the depressing truth is that there's no political need for their votes, and thus no concern for their problems. It's like North Korea: sure, millions of people are suffering there, but who wants to take on the burden of reintroducing millions of unskilled, malnourished people to modern society when we could just ignore them? Why should the democratic party make appeals to Kentucky and West Virginia when that's just wasted time that could be spent trying to flip Florida?

The Democratic party should focus on attracting impoverished, rural whites because it would break the Republican party. As currently constructed they would no longer be able to exist as an ideological force. Think big, Florida by itself is nothing.

Rescuing rural America should be the siren call for progressives. The sooner it happens the sooner we'll be able to meaningfully address the huge problems bearing down on us.

 

[electrotonus]

Globalism levels the income and wealth inequalities among the nations in the long term but that comes to the price of rising wealth and income inequalities in the nations of the world.

In the past the big corporations of America actually produced goods and they produced them in the USA. Now, most of those companies either are defunct, switched production to a poorer country, basically stopped making goods and instead started offering services, substituted their resident employees with poor immigrants that have no other choice than to work for pennies or substituted them with robots. Either way, the USA (as most other Western countries) lost high paying and steady industry jobs and got low paying and unsteady service jobs in return.

When confronted with sinking working salaries Americans found some ways to mitigate the problem: by sending their wives to work, by reducing the size of the average family, by stopping to save money and instead even burrowing money. But all those things can do only so much, at sometime the point was reached that the average American had to resort to miracles: fortunes earned on the stock market with risky investments or the dream of living off the appreciation in value of their home that resulted in the housing bubble.

It's not White Americans exclusively that are in decline it is the bottom 90 percent, may they be White, Brown or Green. It is also not a problem exclusive to the USA, you can observe the same woeful trends in European countries (I, myself, am from Europe). The reason that White Americans are more vocal about this decline than, say, Hispanic Americans is that White Americans in most cases have a longer family history in the USA and hence have a better way of comparing their situation to that of previous generations, mostly those living and working in the time from 1945-1990.

 

[ScatheZombie]

I don't necessarily think that all poor white people are racist. Clearly many aren't.

You totally just Trumped poor white people here.

 

[OrangeGrayBlue]

It made an appearance in Tim Kaine's speech. He specifically mentioned that Hillary went to campaign in West Virginia and that when she wins she's coming back to help those people. Plus, I mean, she says "let's build good jobs at good wages" like every thirty seconds.

Sure, it could probably be more prominent. I'm sure when she goes to visit the area she'll make the argument.

Ah, that's good to hear. But yeah, I think democrats are wise to attract this bloc of voters going forward, and I think they can as the Southern Strategy starts collapsing following this election.

The Democratic party should focus on attracting impoverished, rural whites because it would break the Republican party. As currently constructed they would no longer be able to exist as an ideological force. Think big, Florida by itself is nothing.

Rescuing rural America should be the siren call for progressives. The sooner it happens the sooner we'll be able to meaningfully address the huge problems bearing down on us.

Agreed. The republican party is already teetering on being nationally unelectable. Pulling poor, white voters back into the fold would make the GOP unelectable on a statewide level too. It would force a total reform and realignment of our two major parties. Kind of a pipe dream, but it's a nice thought.

 

[pigeon]

You totally just Trumped poor white people here.

If Trump could point to an example of Mexican immigrants declaring civil war and attempting to sunder the union to protect their right to rape people, you might have a good point here.

 

[sphagnum]

Globalism levels the income and wealth inequalities among the nations in the long term but that comes to the price of rising wealth and income inequalities in the nations of the world.

In the past the big corporations of America actually produced goods and they produced them in the USA. Now, most of those companies either are defunct, switched production to a poorer country, basically stopped making goods and instead started offering services, substituted their resident employees with poor immigrants that have no other choice than to work for pennies or substituted them with robots. Either way, the USA (as most other Western countries) lost high paying and steady industry jobs and got low paying and unsteady service jobs in return.

When confronted with sinking working salaries Americans found some ways to mitigate the problem: by sending their wives to work, by reducing the size of the average family, by stopping to save money and instead even burrowing money. But all those things can do only so much, at sometime the point was reached that the average American had to resort to miracles: fortunes earned on the stock market with risky investments or the dream of living off the appreciation in value of their home that resulted in the housing bubble.

It's not White Americans exclusively that are in decline it is the bottom 90 percent, may they be White, Brown or Green. It is also not a problem exclusive to the USA, you can observe the same woeful trends in European countries (I, myself, am from Europe). The reason that White Americans are more vocal about this decline than, say, Hispanic Americans is that White Americans in most cases have a longer family history in the USA and hence have a better way of comparing their situation to that of previous generations, mostly those living and working in the time from 1945-1990.

I was with you until the end of the post, because that's just not demographically true. Hispanics and black people have been in the United States for a long time, and it's not like none of them are complaining about the effects of globalization either. But if there's a difference, it would probably be because while life used to really suck for non-white people in America and be pretty good for white people, the last half century has shown demonstrable progress in the lives of non-white Americans in various avenues, which is why they continue to support the Democratic Party, even if not everything has gotten better (just look at the statistics on how the Great Recession reset black wealth). Meanwhile, white people were once on the top of the world and are now feeling pressure; for some white people things have gotten better for them (see: women, gay whites, urbanites, etc.) while for working class white men outside of cities it just gets increasingly worse - both realistically (in terms of their economic prospects) and perceptionally (in terms of them losing their privilege, which is a good thing but to many of them is frightening).

 

[LegendofJoe]

Agreed. The republican party is already teetering on being nationally unelectable. Pulling poor, white voters back into the fold would make the GOP unelectable on a statewide level too. It would force a total reform and realignment of our two major parties. Kind of a pipe dream, but it's a nice thought.

It isn't a pipe dream. A national political realignment is inevitable, Democrats pulling in rural, white votes will just hasten it. Time is of the essence though because the more of it we waste the worse our situation with regards to global warming and wealth inequality will become.

 

[electrotonus]

The Democratic party should focus on attracting impoverished, rural whites because it would break the Republican party. As currently constructed they would no longer be able to exist as an ideological force. Think big, Florida by itself is nothing.

Rescuing rural America should be the siren call for progressives. The sooner it happens the sooner we'll be able to meaningfully address the huge problems bearing down on us.

But do Democrats -- not the average voter, I mean the politicians in Washington -- really want to rescue rural America, or, for that matter, poor people in general?

I follow U.S. politics but I don't see the Democrats really striving to make the lives of poor people easier. They did not in the past, they do not in the present and I don't think they will start to in the future. To me as a European where the Democrats probably would be labelled as adherents of turbo capitalism they come off just as dishonest as Republicans. They claim to feel the pain of poor people but usually that's where their empathy ends.

 

[ISOM]

But do Democrats -- not the average voter, I mean the politicians in Washington -- really want to rescue rural America, or, for that matter, poor people in general?

I follow U.S. politics but I don't see the Democrats really striving to make the lives of poor people easier. They did not in the past, they do not in the present and I don't think they will start to in the future. To me as a European where the Democrats probably would be labelled as adherents of turbo capitalism they come off just as dishonest as Republicans. They claim to feel the pain of poor people but usually that's where their empathy ends.

I would stop trying to analyze US politics as a European because you just said a lot of generalizations that are not all that accurate.

 

[ScatheZombie]

If Trump could point to an example of Mexican immigrants declaring civil war and attempting to sunder the union to protect their right to rape people, you might have a good point here.

Really? The Civil War is your justification for blanket stereotyping and vilification of poor, rural white people?

Wow. You are ignorant as fuck.

 

[pigeon]

Really? The Civil War is your justification for blanket stereotyping and vilification of poor, rural white people?

Wow. You are ignorant as fuck.

They literally just stopped flying the Civil War flag this year!

I mean, I find this whole conversation pretty laughable. Are you really arguing that there aren't large numbers of poor rural white people who are racist? Are you really arguing that there hasn't been endemic racism in the American psyche literally since it was founded because of a large group of people who were willing to fight to the death to protect their right to own other human beings as property? Who continued for a hundred and fifty years to attempt to assert that right through Jim Crow, lynch mobs, white nationalism, and eventually went ahead and nominated a white nationalist as their candidate for President of the United States?

As far as I can tell, you're living in a fantasy world. I live in America. Feel free to come visit sometime, but if you're a person of color, there are some parts you should probably stay out of.

 

[electrotonus]

I would stop trying to analyze US politics as a European because you just said a lot of generalizations that are not all that accurate.

What generalizations do you mean?

 

[krazen]

Really? The Civil War is your justification for blanket stereotyping and vilification of poor, rural white people?

Wow. You are ignorant as fuck.

While I do admit some posters have gone a bit too hard, lets not act like some of these places have not been hotbeds for racist acts for generations and yes, that's going back to the Civil War era.

While the 'they stupid so fuck em' is a problematic I don't think that anyone can argue that bigotry and homophobia work MUCH better then expected in those pockets, lol.

 

[LegendofJoe]

But do Democrats -- not the average voter, I mean the politicians in Washington -- really want to rescue rural America, or, for that matter, poor people in general?

I follow U.S. politics but I don't see the Democrats really striving to make the lives of poor people easier. They did not in the past, they do not in the present and I don't think they will start to in the future. To me as a European where the Democrats probably would be labelled as adherents of turbo capitalism they come off just as dishonest as Republicans. They claim to feel the pain of poor people but usually that's where their empathy ends.

Medicare, Medicaid, Federal Pell Grants, Social Security, the Affordable Care Act, etc. do A LOT to help poorer Americans. All of these programs would be more robust and comprehensive if not for Republican intransigence. And that doesn't even get into the educational struggle that occurs at the state and local level.

Most Democrats aren't as progressive as I'd like, but they're slowly getting closer while the policy positions of the Republican party are mostly in a different universe. It's hard to do smart, sensible things for the general welfare of your fellow citizens when the other major political party has people convinced that government can do nothing right.

 

[FStop7]

I find this post very ironic. A bigot is by definition someone who is intolerant of those who have different opinions.

This is elementary school logic. Elevate your game.

 

[damisa]

What generalizations do you mean?

Back in the great depression era, poor people (especially elderly) were basically just left to die. Since then Democrats have passed many social programs that vastly reduced poverty levels such as Social Security, Medicare, food stamps, etc.

I know it's popular to hate on capitalism, especially as a European, but in fact many countries in Europe are more capitalist than the US due to lower corporate taxes and less regulations. Uk, Switzerland, and Austria are all more capitalist than the US. country rankings

 

[ScatheZombie]

They literally just stopped flying the Civil War flag this year!

I mean, I find this whole conversation pretty laughable. Are you really arguing that there aren't large numbers of poor rural white people who are racist? Are you really arguing that there hasn't been endemic racism in the American psyche literally since it was founded because of a large group of people who were willing to fight to the death to protect their right to own other human beings as property? Who continued for a hundred and fifty years to attempt to assert that right through Jim Crow, lynch mobs, white nationalism, and eventually went ahead and nominated a white nationalist as their candidate for President of the United States?

As far as I can tell, you're living in a fantasy world. I live in America. Feel free to come visit sometime, but if you're a person of color, there are some parts you should probably stay out of.

Because you're just talking about the South now. Even more specifically, the Southeast - since everything west of Texas was literally Mexico. It doesn't explain, at all, why rural California or Montana or Pennsylvania have basically the same rhetoric and ideologies as rural Alabama.

Unless you are suggesting that all of rural America is now populated solely by relocated Confederate-supporting southerners.

 

[electrotonus]

Back in the great depression era, poor people (especially elderly) were basically just left to die. Since then Democrats have passed many social programs that vastly reduced poverty levels such as Social Security, Medicare, food stamps, etc.

I know it's popular to hate on capitalism, especially as a European, but in fact many countries in Europe are more capitalist than the US due to lower corporate taxes and less regulations. Uk, Switzerland, and Austria are all more capitalist than the US. country rankings

Okay, I concede, I should have added 'since the Great Society of Lyndon B. Johnson'. I do know that the Republicans have obstructed a lot since 2010 but from 2008 to 2010 the Democrats had the presidency and a majority in Congress yet they failed to address many of the pressing issues. Like, as an example, the many tax loopholes that often enable high earning people to pay a lot less in taxes than what would be their fair share.

I do not like to hate on capitalism, I'm a staunch defender of capitalism. But I think that the capitalism in the USA (and increasingly in many parts of Europe) does not really qualify as 'capitalism' as that it is rigged to the benefit of some and to the detriment of most. When certain companies and corporations like big banks get bailed out and, consequentially, the fortunes of many rich and powerful people grow on the expense of the tax payer, yet ordinary middle-income people don't get bailed out when they no longer can pay their bills, I have a problem with classifying such an economic system as capitalism.

 

[2MF]

A lot of these communities don't even have minority neighborhoods. What racial animus there is is abstract, they're not big enough to actually have any black people living there

This is pretty much the same every time there's an anti immigrant vote.

You see this pattern with Brexit, SD voters in Sweden, etc etc. Rural areas without immigrants are afraid of immigrants, areas with immigrants not as much.

 

[damisa]

Okay, I concede, I should have added 'since the Great Society of Lyndon B. Johnson'. I do know that the Republicans have obstructed a lot since 2010 but from 2008 to 2010 the Democrats had the presidency and a majority in Congress yet they failed to address many of the pressing issues. Like, as an example, the many tax loopholes that often enable high earning people to pay a lot less in taxes than what would be their fair share..

They were busy passing Obamacare. I'd like to see tax loopholes closed too, but between passing a law that would help millions get healthcare or closing loopholes that allow .001% of the population to pay less taxes, I'd take option #1

 

[Subpar Spatula]

Are you sure they can't use a computer? Are we not talking about the people in the comments section of every site that allows comments?

Also, even if all they have is a TV, Fox News is not the only news program. There are others. Why do they gravitate to that cesspool? Even lacking any other information other than broadcast television news, one would hope that an intelligent person could defy ignorance and spot contradictions, hate speech and selective content in contrast to the other stations.

Having access to the Internet isn't the answer to all. This is where a lot of people do not understand and it's why these voters vote the way they do: y'all don't actually know what it's like to be broke ass in the middle of no where with very little prospects. Sure, some see the light and do differently but it's a deep fucking hole. Poor people have it extremely rough and it's even worse when you're in an area that won't see prosperity from any party. So votes are thrown in the direction of the loudest candidate who can promise quick recovery. Democrats aren't necessarily loud and have plans to fix these areas. Republicans can say they will and the ignorant masses will believe it because, to them, they are the only one that care enough to bring them to center stage.

 

[Jmanunknown]

Okay, I concede, I should have added 'since the Great Society of Lyndon B. Johnson'. I do know that the Republicans have obstructed a lot since 2010 but from 2008 to 2010 the Democrats had the presidency and a majority in Congress yet they failed to address many of the pressing issues. Like, as an example, the many tax loopholes that often enable high earning people to pay a lot less in taxes than what would be their fair share.

That majority that democrats had from 2008-2010 that was filibuster proof was only really for 6 months plus on top of that certain democrats could not be trusted to actually follow through and vote with democrats. Along with the republicans being the most obstructionist congress in history.

Remember that Minnesota Senatorial election in 2008? The one that pitted former SNL writer/cast member and Air America Radio host Al Franken against Republican incumbent Norm Coleman?That race dragged on forever, resulting in several challenges and recounts until the Minnesota Supreme Court finally concluded on June 30th, 2009, that Franken was indeed the winner. Franken wasn’t sworn into office until July 7th, 2009, a full six months after the 111th Congress had taken charge.

And it wasn’t even that easy. Even had Franken been seated at the beginning of the legislative session, the Democrats still would only have had a 59-41 seat edge. It wasn’t until late April of 2009 that Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter defected from the Republican Party to caucus with the Democrats. Without Franken, the Dems only had 58 votes.

But even that’s not entirely accurate, and the Dems didn’t have a consistent, reliable 58 votes. Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy was terminally ill with a brain tumor, and could only muster up the energy to vote on selected legislation. His presence could not be counted on, and thus his vote in the Senate could not be counted on. During the first year of the Obama presidency, due to his illness Kennedy missed 261 out of a possible 270 votes in the Senate, denying the Democrats the 60th vote necessary to break a filibuster. In March of 2009, he stopped voting altogether. It wasn’t until Kennedy passed away in late August, 2009, and an interim successor was named on September 24th, 2009, that the Democrats actually had 60 votes.

And even then the 60 vote supermajority was tenuous at best. At the time, then 91 year old Robert Byrd from West Virginia was in frail health. During the last 6 months of 2009, Byrd missed 128 of a possible 183 votes in the Senate. Byrd passed away on June 28, 2010 at the age of 92.

In all, Democrats had a shaky 60 vote supermajority for all of four months and one week; from the time Kennedy’s interim successor Paul Kirk was sworn in on September 24th until the time Republican Scott Brown was sworn in as Kennedy’s “permanent” replacement after his special election victory over Democratic disappointment, Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley. In a state that is heavily Democratic, it seems that Coakley figured she didn’t have to actually campaign for the Senate seat; that Massachusetts voters would automatically elect the Democrat to replace the legendary Kennedy. No way Massachusetts would send a Republican to replace Ted Kennedy. Brown took the election seriously, Coakley did not, and Brown won (he will, however, lose this November to Elizabeth Warren, and all will be right with the world again).

During those four months and one week, Congress was in session for a total of 72 days. So for 72 days the Democrats held a 60 seat, filibuster-proof supermajority in the United States Senate. But wait! There’s more! As Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn points out, even that was unreliable. “Even in this window Obama’s ‘control’ of the Senate was incomplete and highly adulterated due to the balkiness of the so-called Blue Dog conservative and moderate Democratic Senators such as Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Evan Bayh of Indiana, and Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas.”

http://sandiegofreepress.org/2012/09/the-myth-of-the-filibuster-proof-democratic-senate/