Well according to the CNN polls… 88% of Blacks voted for Kerry… Gays 77%.
How come such an anti-gay president manages to get more votes from gays than from blacks ?! I certainly don’t feel that Bush comes across as a racist or anything similar. Some of his associates naturally do… or being a redneck is an automatic label of racist ?
So what is different with Black Americans ? Why do other poor vote for Bush but they don’t ? (9% more Latinos voted for Bush this time around.) Does Black America feel left out of the typical “everyone can get rich” american myth ?
Are latinos becoming more close to whites than blacks ?
What’s surprising is that Bush managed to get over 10% of the black vote. This is what, half a million black Americans nationwide who voted for Bush? Who are these people? Why did they all decide to stop taking their medication at once?
In the sixties, the Democrats threw their support towards full citizenship rights and equal treatment before the law for black Americans. Those white southern Democrats who couldn’t let go of white supremacy and segregation fled to the Republican party. Right wing Republicans running for national office would pander to this segment of the electorate in hopes of getting votes. Both Reagan and Bush the elder, for example, went on record as opposing the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. You can’t very well vote for someone who implies that he’s against your having the right to vote in the first place. Bush baby and McCain continued the traditional Pub pandering to racists by campaigning at Bob Jones University, a school that has racial discrimination as part of its official policy.
Without regard to whether Pubs are Dems are better for black folks in practice, the implicit Pubbie message is usually, “We’re the white folk’s party!”
Bush ally Grover Norquist once stated that he would like to starve the federal government into submission, or something to that effect. He and other Pubs see the government as the enemy. Black Americans by contrast have found the Federal government to be the only guarrantor of basic rights and freedom, not the enemy but the one of the basic foundations of a civil society.
Another angle on black anti Bush sentiment is that, for many black folks that I know well, Bush reeks of white privillege. A black man who goes AWOL from his Guard unit, drives drunk, heads up companies that go bankrupt, and underperforms academically, doesn’t end up in the White House. He ends up in jail.
[Broad Brush]Many Latinos have a lot of the “family values” that the right supports. They hold family very close and are often deeply religious. They favor more traditional roles for men and women and don’t look well upon gay people.[/Broad Brush]
Class comes into it. Gay Americans come from every social class, race, ethnic group, religious group, region, etc. Some of them have an economic interest in a Republican administration, even if it’s against allowing them to form same-sex marriages. African-Americans, on the other hand, come mostly from the poor and the working class, even today.
Habit. Back in the day, the Dems were the good guys in the race wars. Now all the Dems have to do is pander to them a bit and presto: the Republicans sure as hell aren’t courting the black vote, really, so it’s not hard for the Dems to grab it. (This only works with poor and middle class blacks; the rich ones know that the Dems have no interest in seeing the black community REALLY prosper.) One article I read put it like this: Dems don’t want black voters, but they NEED them; Republicans WANT black voters, but don’t need them.
I have seen very conservative, VERY devout black Christians walk right into the voting booth and check off one box: straight ticket Democrat. I’ve got friends that couldn’t tell you anything about the candidates or the issues, which boggles my mind because in every other aspect of their lives they’re smart and well informed. When it comes to voting, though, they just assume that the Dems have their best interests at heart. They’ll vote for Robert Byrd over a Republican. I’ve never seen anything like it.
With all that said, TONS of poor people vote for the Dems, regardless of race. Impoverished blacks may vote Democrat more often but it is by no means isolated to just them. Hell, here in West Virginia, especially in the southern part of the state, we have got the most destitute white people you’ve ever seen voting straight ticket Dem; for 70 years it’s been the official state pasttime. I’m talking POOR. Living in houses not much better than shacks and actually going to bed hungry a lot. (It’s FINALLY starting to change around here.) The Dems promise entitlement programs, the Republicans … not so much. If you’re poor and believe you’re stuck being poor for the rest of your life, who are you going to vote for? Someone who wants to tax wealthy people and give you some of the money, or someone who thinks that if you want to prosper, you should work for it?
As someone who is, on paper, po’, one of the reasons I voted for Bush is because I DON’T PLAN ON STAYING POOR. I’m going to school, I’ll graduate soon and then I’ll have a real job. Then I’ll buy a house, etc. I KNOW I won’t be poor forever. I have hope and ambition. So I’d rather have a guy in office who doesn’t want to tax me to death when I make it.
I think those who are poor that are voting for Bush are the ones that believe that they can and will make it. When you have given up (and I can totally understand why some people end up giving up) and you’ve got no hope, who else IS there to vote for but somebody who promises to take care of you if you’ll vote them into office?
Bush and Kerry both oppose same-sex marriage, and both think same-sex civil unions are OK. Bush supports amending the U.S. Constitution to prohibit same-sex marriages, and Kerry supports amending state constitutions to prohibit same-sex marriages.
Disingenuous. Bush actually supported and stumped the Hill for the anti-gay-marriage amendment to the US Constitution. Kerry only says that it should be up to the states. There is a substantive difference there.
And Bush’s “civil unions are okay” was conspicuous by its absence in the entire campaign until the last week.
We live at a time where there are more black professionals who are --if not multi-millionaires outright – then extremely well-to-do, with vested conservative agendas and fiscal attitudes than any other time in our history. A perhaps larger number of younger blacks aspire to be among their number. These are upscale people who eschew the ‘It Takes A Village’ approach to family values; vote independently and Republican; are extremely selective about whom they choose to date and marry; who raise their children with the same expectations to marry very well; live far outside established ‘black communities’; network as often as they socialize; golfed before Tiger Woods and followed tennis before the Williams sisters. This generation and their children are active in the GOP in more conspicuous numbers.
Another facet of blacks within the broadly defined ‘black churchgoing community’ are extremely homophobic and to a certain extent antiabortion and leery about medical advances like stem cell research. They will back any candidate who is openly supportive of restricting gay rights and stymying medical research. To an extent fringe groups like the Nation of Islam overlap with this group.
There are a number of black career military families who fit the mode of both #1 and #2, and consider it unwise to remove a sitting wartime president and recognize that supporting Bush is good for their military careers.
This is my take of my uncle’s conservative viewpoints and several other relatives who have bucked my family’s 80-plus year traditions of Democratic voting.
Is Black rejection of the Republicans a rejection of what Michael Moore calls the myth of everyone can make it rich in America ?
I know a lot of americans think poor people have only themselves to blame if they aren’t rich, (I’m not taking this from my head… I actually saw people defending this) and blacks being discrimanated against and with poor education have a much harder time realizing their “american dream”.
I doubt blacks would still be grateful to democrats… they would naturally prefer… but 88% is a huge majority. Something about Republicans really gets to them.
I can only conclude some possibilities: (not all necessarily true… just thinking out loud)
That blacks in America feel out of step with the prevailing american atitude towards prosperity. Or are de facto left out.
That blacks are so behind in education, jobs and other aspects that they feel they don’t have a really shot at making it.
That Republicans are still racists or somehow still create a great rejection by blacks.
Or democrats have been promising a lot to them… is there a culture of dependence on government ?
Both the national news media and the government tend to lump all people of Latin American origin together in one group called Hispanic. This is misleading because different ethnic groups within this category have very different economic situations and political preferences.
South Florida Cuban Americans are largely Republican, mainly because of their strong anti Communist, anti Castro sentiment. Cubans is So Flo tend to be whiter and wealthier than those who settled in the NYC - northern New Jersey area. NYC area Cubans tend to have the same political preferences and economic profiles as Puerto Ricans. (Florida was a segregated southern state up through the mid '60’s and black and mulato Cubans were discouraged from settling there.)
Puerto Ricans and Mexican Americans skew Demorat at rates approaching those of black Americans.
I take issue with the characterization of black voters skewing Dem as a question of poverty. As a practical matter, poor black folks almost never vote. Black voters are much more likely to be school teachers, postal workers, city bus drivers, and other unionized, public sector workers. Well educated, high income black Americans typically vote against Republicans because the Pubbies still shelter a fair number of closet racists , and there’s a “we’re all in this together” feeling WRT to working class black folks.
American Jews, an unusually well educated, high income group also vote disproportionatley Democrat, though not to the same degree as blacks.
