# Democratic operative: "we need to learn how to talk to White voters" **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [November 6, 2014, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democratic-operative-we-need-to-learn-how-to-talk-to-white-voters/703842 "2014-11-06T02:52:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2014, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democratic-operative-we-need-to-learn-how-to-talk-to-white-voters/703842/61 "2014-11-07T22:10:33Z")
FWIW, the WaPo’s Greg Sargent appears to [think](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2014/11/07/morning-plum-the-democratic-party-has-a-cultural-problem/) there’s something to Burton’s view, and he says that “multiple leading Dem[ocratic] strategists” have made similar observations. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2014, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democratic-operative-we-need-to-learn-how-to-talk-to-white-voters/703842/62 "2014-11-08T00:19:58Z")
It would be nice to think that politicians should be able to speak to all of us. To find what our shared concerns are, and not try and turn us into a bunch of groups fighting for a bigger share of the pie. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2014, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democratic-operative-we-need-to-learn-how-to-talk-to-white-voters/703842/63 "2014-11-08T01:43:15Z")
Part of learning to talk to white people is NOT talking to minorities as if white people are the enemy. I have to think that Democrats’ last minute blitz of fearmongering among minority communities, and the news coverage that followed it, could have resulted in a white backlash. You’ve got people wondering why the polls were so wrong. Maybe they weren’t wrong. Maybe things just changed drastically in the last couple of days. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2014, 10:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democratic-operative-we-need-to-learn-how-to-talk-to-white-voters/703842/64 "2014-11-08T10:31:48Z")
> [@RingsOfPylon](#): > > And, since very little of that type of middle to bottom-rung work results in an explosion of exportable technology, it’s guaranteed to be a governmental grunt job for a long time. Truly the way forward. Do I even need to read the rest of this post? You want our economic program to be based on portable cash-crop “exportable technology”? Great. A few corporations can own the intellectual property, while the mass of manufacturing jobs will be in Asia anyway. e\_e ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2014, 10:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democratic-operative-we-need-to-learn-how-to-talk-to-white-voters/703842/65 "2014-11-08T10:35:56Z")
I think that the rant in the OP is a case of Democrats trying to come up with an explanation of conservatives that only some self-described conservatives would recognize. It probably does mostly accurately describe a substantial fraction of the serious racists. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2014, 10:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democratic-operative-we-need-to-learn-how-to-talk-to-white-voters/703842/66 "2014-11-08T10:44:20Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > Thing is, this is a feature, not a bug. > > Every knows that, between 1968 and 1972, the Republicans (led by Richard Nixon and Kevin Phillips) followed the so-called “Southern Strategy” to strip away the working class white voters from the Democrats’ long-standing New Deal Coalition, and create a winning coalition for the GOP. > > What’s less well-known is that, at the very same time, the leading liberal strategists of the Democratic party were working to push the white working class out of the coalition anyway, and build a whole new coalition built around racial minorities, feminists and intellectuals. Fred Dutton and George McGovern re-shaped the Democratic Party into what it is today: a party LED by an elite group of highly educated urban whites, built on the votes of women, blacks and Latins. > > Nixon didn’t have to work very hard to attract the white working class (the so-called “Reagan Democrats”) because McGovern and Dutton had already concluded that the white working class was a bunch of unreliable, stupid racists anyway, and were in the process of pushing those voters out the door anyway. It’s NOT a coincidence that, in the early 70s, Hollywood started putting out movies like\*\*\* Joe \*\*\*and TV shows like _ **All in the Family.** _ Liberals had already concluded that working class white males were dangerous and stupid, if not outright evil. > > This is just one reason Obama is pushing so hard to grant amnesty to millions of illegal aliens. If the working class won’t vote Democrat, well, Obama needs to create a vast NEW working class that will. And _this_ is a right-winger trying to explain Democrats in a way that most Democrats will find bizarre. Here’s a hint about Archie Bunker. He’s not meant to caricature white working class men as backward racists. He’s meant to caricature backward racists, particularly the subset of backward racists who happen to also be part (but not all) of the working class. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2014, 10:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democratic-operative-we-need-to-learn-how-to-talk-to-white-voters/703842/67 "2014-11-08T10:58:02Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > It would be nice to think that politicians should be able to speak to all of us. To find what our shared concerns are, and not try and turn us into a bunch of groups fighting for a bigger share of the pie. “Divide and conquer” is an old strategy for people and groups seeking power. It’s easier for the powerful if America is composed of disunited groups that hate one another. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2014, 11:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democratic-operative-we-need-to-learn-how-to-talk-to-white-voters/703842/68 "2014-11-08T11:03:19Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > Hispanics are loyal primarily to the Hispanic community (many polls have shown this), not to either party. Right now the Democrats are doing more for that community. If some form of acceptable immigration reform is worked out I wouldn’t count on the Hispanic vote being locked up, especially not considering many Hispanics literally are people who desperately wanted to come to America _to work hard_ and make money for their families–that’s anathema to everything your party stands for, but as long as they’re choosing between you guys and the Minutemen it’s not much of a choice at all. Wow, that’s…distorted. [ol] [li]Hispanics aren’t one community. Latin America isn’t just a big place, it’s many places.[/li][li]“_to work hard_ and make money”? Your emphasis is on the wrong phrase. They came to work hard and _make money._ There have always been plenty of places in Latin America you can be work hard and be poor or even a peon. Underpaid labor is _not_ the American Dream, and practically nobody risks life and limb to work hard and _not_ make money.[/li][li]“that’s anathema to everything your party stands for”? Have you ever spent any time around _actual,_ active, get-out-the-vote Democrats, let alone Democratic Party politicians? You would _gag_ on the amount of extolling the virtues of hard work and the working class. Remember that the old machinery of the Democratic Party is grounded in organized labor, and people who are not any part of the ownership class. They will draw wages and salaries until they retire and draw pensions, and never own capital of their own. They _are_ the party of work until you can’t.[/li][li]What is “acceptable immigration reform” to the party that refused to pass any kind of visa for guest workers when a POTUS of their own party was trying to get it done? What kind of immigration reform is acceptable to most Hispanics, and indeed most church leaders who work with migrants? And where is there any resolution where the GOP and the movement conservatives end up on the same side as most Hispanics on that issue?[/li][/ol] ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2014, 11:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democratic-operative-we-need-to-learn-how-to-talk-to-white-voters/703842/69 "2014-11-08T11:09:00Z")
> [@Fuzzy\_wuzzy](#): > > Demonising your political opponents is the oldest trick in the book. It helps shore up your own side. Such a tactic has been well used from diverse people and institutions such as the Catholic Church during the Counter Reformation; Protestant Churches during the Reformation; multitudes of Kings and Princes throughout history; Cromwellian Puritans, anti Cromwell Monarchists, communist regimes, fascist regimes, totalitarian regimes, democratic regimes, the Democrat Party, the Republican Party, the Bull Moose Party, the Tea Party, the Occupy Movement, Liberals, Conservatives, Libertarians, Social Justice Warriors, Reactionaries, pro abortion activists, anti abortion activists, pro Slavery activists, anti slavery activists, pluralists, atheists and every other movement you can think of. Well done, you follow in a long & glorious and line of shysters who demonise their political opponents. And by this definition of “demonize,” at least three previous posters in this thread, including the OP, astorian, and Martin Hyde. Also you yourself, here, by comparing Der Trihs to Cromwell. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2014, 11:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democratic-operative-we-need-to-learn-how-to-talk-to-white-voters/703842/70 "2014-11-08T11:11:46Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Part of learning to talk to white people is NOT talking to minorities as if white people are the enemy. I have to think that Democrats’ last minute blitz of fearmongering among minority communities, and the news coverage that followed it, could have resulted in a white backlash. > > You’ve got people wondering why the polls were so wrong. Maybe they weren’t wrong. Maybe things just changed drastically in the last couple of days. Oh, good lord. I didn’t notice those white Democratic candidates telling blacks that all white people, including themselves, were the enemy. No wonder they lost! Too bad Democrats have completely forgotten the whole idea of the brotherhood of all mankind.[/sarcasm] [del]Are you on LSD\* right now?\* Can I ask that outside the Pit? But are you?[/del] Seriously, that’s rich. As if the GOP were the party of racial love and understanding. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2014, 11:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democratic-operative-we-need-to-learn-how-to-talk-to-white-voters/703842/71 "2014-11-08T11:19:21Z")
Perhaps you should see the ads they were running before you say that. The ads were clearly meant to appeal to racial animus. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2014, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democratic-operative-we-need-to-learn-how-to-talk-to-white-voters/703842/72 "2014-11-08T12:08:22Z")
Were the Democratic candidates white, and running for statewide office in majority-white states (which is almost all of the USA)? Then they probably weren’t doing that. Let’s see the ads of which you speak. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2014, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democratic-operative-we-need-to-learn-how-to-talk-to-white-voters/703842/73 "2014-11-08T12:15:34Z")
[http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/30/us/politics/from-democrats-election-focus-on-racial-scars.html?\_r=0](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/30/us/politics/from-democrats-election-focus-on-racial-scars.html?_r=0) The key part: > [@](#): > > The messages are coursing through the campaigns like a riptide, powerful and under the surface, largely avoiding television and out of view of white voters Since the NY Times was good enough to report on it, however, the news spread pretty quickly. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2014, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democratic-operative-we-need-to-learn-how-to-talk-to-white-voters/703842/74 "2014-11-08T14:25:32Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > [del]Are you on LSD\* right now?\* > > Can I ask that outside the Pit? > > But are you?[/del] Knock off the [del]cute[/del] efforts to pretend these are not personal remarks. No warning issued. **twickster** , Elections moderator ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2014, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democratic-operative-we-need-to-learn-how-to-talk-to-white-voters/703842/75 "2014-11-08T15:30:16Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > And _this_ is a right-winger trying to explain Democrats in a way that most Democrats will find bizarre. > > Here’s a hint about Archie Bunker. He’s not meant to caricature white working class men as backward racists. He’s meant to caricature backward racists, particularly the subset of backward racists who happen to also be part (but not all) of the working class. Tell you what- read up on Fred Dutton, the Democrats’ top strategist, and get back to me. I repeat, and (in Dave Barry’s words, I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP), the Democrats consciously CHOSE to blow up the old New Deal coalition and build a new coalition that the white working class of America was not welcome in. ---
**Author:** ![Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/7ba0ec/32.png) [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omg_a_Black_Conservative)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2014, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democratic-operative-we-need-to-learn-how-to-talk-to-white-voters/703842/76 "2014-11-08T17:12:46Z")
Kind of on-topic (if it hadn’t been posted already). > **[White women didn't just fail Wendy Davis -- they failed the rest of Texas, too](https://www.salon.com/2014/11/06/white_women_didnt_just_fail_wendy_davis_they_failed_the_rest_of_texas_too/)** > > It's already been said that Greg Abbott won among women voters. So are women of color not women? Republicans almost always carry Whites across all demographics (young, old, rich, poor, single, married, make, female, etc.). I like how progressives only seem to care about that fact when their candidate loses. I don’t recall the left beside themselves over the fact that Romney won White women (probably because their candidate won). ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2014, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democratic-operative-we-need-to-learn-how-to-talk-to-white-voters/703842/77 "2014-11-08T18:48:00Z")
I’ve given this background before: I come from an Irish working-class family. To my grandparents, Herbert Hoover was Satan and FDR was God. My parents were strong union people. To my family, the Democrats were the working man’s party and the Republicans were the party of the elites who looked down on them. But by 1980, most of those people voted for Reagan. How did the Democrats lose their most loyal voters? Hint: it wasn’t by accident. Can anyone seriously claim that the leadership of the Democratic Party’s first priority is the working class? That hasn’t been the case in decades. In the late Sixties and early Seventies, both parties began assuming that prosperity was pretty much here to stay and that the social issues were what mattered most. The Democrats’ leadership hasn’t cared about steelworkers in Western Pennsylvania or farmers in Arkansas in ages. If they think about the white working class at all, it’s in dismissive (stupid bigots and rednecks) or puzzled (“What’s Wrong With Kansas?”) terms. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2014, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democratic-operative-we-need-to-learn-how-to-talk-to-white-voters/703842/78 "2014-11-08T18:51:13Z")
Well, to be fair, they are known to cling to guns and religion… ---
**Author:** ![doorhinge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a5b964/32.png) [@doorhinge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doorhinge)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2014, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democratic-operative-we-need-to-learn-how-to-talk-to-white-voters/703842/79 "2014-11-08T20:58:15Z")
> [@Tom\_Tildrum](#): > > FWIW, the WaPo’s Greg Sargent appears to [think](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2014/11/07/morning-plum-the-democratic-party-has-a-cultural-problem/) there’s something to Burton’s view, and he says that “multiple leading Dem[ocratic] strategists” have made similar observations. Bill Burton and Greg Sargent both miss the point that Democrats already know how to talk to white voters. Many white voters already vote for Democrat candidates. The Democrats have a problem reaching conservative voters. Both sides hear what the Democrats are preaching, but one side objects to what the Democrats views are. Especially when the Democrats continually demonize the GOP, Tea Party, NRA, Christians, business owners, and rural voters and repeatedly call them the enemy or racist simply because they might be white. Saying, “You’re all assholes and you should vote the way we tell you to”, isn’t going to win over any converts. The Democrats who continually trash the conservative voter simply can’t understand that they’ll never convince conservative voters to vote for a liberal, progressive, democrat platform if name-calling is their go-to campaign effort. The biggest problem Democrats have when dealing with conservative voters is that they keep listening to other Democrats tell them what conservatives believe, stand for, and will vote for. Live and learn (or lose more than the U.S. Senate). ---
**Author:** ![doorhinge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a5b964/32.png) [@doorhinge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doorhinge)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2014, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democratic-operative-we-need-to-learn-how-to-talk-to-white-voters/703842/80 "2014-11-08T21:16:10Z")
Some back history - > [@doorhinge](#): > > 90% of the black vote? Really? > > Are you suggesting that white people split their vote among black, yellow, brown, and red female and male candidates? You must find that very irritating? :smack: > [@iiandyiiii](#): > > No idea what you’re saying here. Are you disagreeing that in most recent elections the Democratic candidate gets around 90% of the black vote? > [@doorhinge](#): > > Is **astorian** statement correct? Is he talking about all black candidates, some black candidates, a few black candidates, one black candidate? > > Are you confirming his statement? > [@iiandyiiii](#): > > **Astorian’s** not talking about black candidates – he/she’s talking about black voters and Democratic candidates. > [@iiandyiiii](#): > > This one: Do you believe that **steronz** became confused because I was asking you to clarify **astorian** ’s position instead of waiting for **astorian** to respond or might it be the fact that you chose to channel **astorian** ’s thoughts thru your posts? That last part had me a bit a confused but I can deal with it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democratic-operative-we-need-to-learn-how-to-talk-to-white-voters/703842.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democratic-operative-we-need-to-learn-how-to-talk-to-white-voters/703842.md?page=5)