The Democrat party is the party of urban america. The majority of black people live in cities. Thus the majority of black people vote Democrat. The Irish and Italians used to be as solidly Democrat as black people. Ethnic solidarity in voting is a relic of the machine era in politics. In a machine the number of votes given to the machine candidate would reflect the number of jobs and money sent to the district. Thus if a person voted against a machine candidate it was like voting for money to be sent to another ethnic group whose members were more loyal to the machine. As groups moved out of the cities they became less loyal to the democrat party and less loyal to their ethnic groups. Ethnic solidarity is still strong amoung black people so identity politics is concurrently strong. Most white people don’t vote their identities as white people or as an ethnic group but another identity.
Politics is not about policy, it is about group identification and status. The weakness of the policy arguements made above should show you that the political divide between blacks and the GOP is not about policy.
You could not be more wrong. He’s crying because when he hears the train whistle it reminds him he is not free. How’s this for remorse?
What’s torturing him is that is that he’s not free and other people are.
I don’t have any cites, but I seem to recall reading that several attempts were made to get the Reagan administration to cough up a real life example of his welfare queen and they never were able to do so.
Generational transfer of social dependency on government programs. Are you suggesting that poverty doesn’t cycle from parent to child?
Are you suggesting that there is evidence of the “welfare queen” Reagan described actually existing?
It was Linda Taylor. From the Wikipedia page on “Welfare Queen” (Foornotes deleted)
What is that supposed to mean? As a matter of broad policy, the existence of a small number of fraud cases signifies little but the need to crack down on fraud. But that wasn’t Reagan’s intent. He was using it to create the impression that social programs as a whole were nothing more than a tool for an entire disfavored social subsegment to take advantage of the hard-working, law-abiding regular taxpayer (read, “white”). It was nothing more than a form of race baiting.
Reagan was using the most extreme example he could find, still exaggerating and making shit up even then (Reagan was notorious for inventing facts and statistics out of whole cloth, but the media rarely called him on it. He even said he personally helped liberate death camps in WW2 once – just an outright, wild ass fabrication without even a kernel of truth. Imagine if Obama tried some shit like that), and, most significantly, in my opinion, tried to portray her as typical. Not as an insanely anomalous example, but as the norm. It became generalized in the rhetoric of the time (I was there in the deep south and I heard plenty of it), that all women on welfare were “welfare queens” living high on the hog. And they were always stereotyped as black, of course.
Reagan invented a mythical creature to pander towards racial resentments. No such things ever actually existed in reality.
Oh, I know. But how can that case (which it took a good deal of digging to find, never mind that Reagan’s version was so exaggerated as to be a simple lie) be presented as evidence of a systematic breakdown without a far more brazen dishonesty than Reagan’s?
Yet we see it repeated even here, even today. Incredible.
If you want to read “white” then you’re a racist jackass for saying it. There is nothing mythical about generational welfare and there is nothing racially linked to the phenomena. It was and continues to be a way of life passed down by example or lack of parental guidance.
The creation of society-wide outrage over the matter to raise it to the level of a presidential campaign is 100 percent racial. It would take a willful act of self-deception not to understand all the racially coded language.
No, sorry, you’re wrong. I well remember the sentiments of white southern culture at the time. I lived in it. I heard it from relatives. It was absolutely an unquestioned meme that women on welfare were black and were living luxurious lives finanaced by “white people’s money.”
“Generational welfare” is a different phenomenon than the mythical “welfare queen” (women living in such circumstances are not living as “queens”). Your dismissive, morally haughty comment about welfare being passed down by “example” and “lack of parental guidance” is exactly why black people won’t give Republicans the time of day, by the way.
You are accusing Reagan and/or the GOP of being racist and that is a complete load. Given the number of white people on welfare the logic of using “code” to garner votes would be political suicide.
Really, you want to explain that one.
Everyone is advised to dial it back. Argue the issues and the facts, but let’s leave out the speculations about a poster’s personality, motives or state of mind.
Name-calling goes in the Pit, not Great Debates. This is a formal warning; please avoid insults in this forum in the future.
Whether or not GOP politicians are personally racist (and I tend to think that most of them are NOT), is not relevant. They use racism and pander to it for personal gain. I think it’s probably completely cynical in most cases.
Also, white people on welfare are not exactly the GOP’s target demographic. I don’t think they’re losing too many votes there, and I can also tell you that there is a cognitive dissonance among some poor white people that causes them to be critical of black people for the exact same things they do themselves. They always have excuses or justifications for thmselves.
As I said upthread, it’s because of the conservative tendency to regard social and economic problems in black communities as being caused by their own moral failings.
Well, I don’t think Reagan’s version was that much exaggerated over the Legislative Advisory Committee report. Compare Reagan’s “Twelve social security cards . . .Her tax-free cash income is over $150,000.” to Edelman’s “[the woman] 'used 14 aliases to obtain $150,000 for medical assistance, cash assistance and bonus cash food stamps.” and Reagan’s “She has eighty names” to Edelman’s “She organized people and upwards of 100 aliases were used”
\Reagan was clearly opposed to welfare programs, and he used an example of an abuse of the system as a way to argue that the program itself should be gotten rid of. That tactic isn’t particularly uncommon. Look at what’s happening right now, for instance. People are using the BP gulf disaster as an argument that we shouldn’t drill in the Gulf.
The failings exist and have nothing to do with race. whether you feel it is a moral failing of parents who are neglegent in their child rearing duties is your call.
My apologies for criticizing the person and not the statement but my position stands that it’s nonsense to paint the Republican party with a racist broad brush. I’m fine with the buck stopping with me and I would prefer a more civil tone but the buck started one post above me.
[moderator castigation mode off]
And to be specific, my apologies to acsenray.