On the other hand, as a Board have we not concluded that racism was in fact a driving factor in the 2016 election? I find Huey’s conclusion valid. Even if not every white person voted for Trump for racist reasons, if they support him still, they are supporting institutional racism. Trump supporters are racist.
True for some no question … but how does the fact that some of these same people voted for Obama, and more just sat it out and did not vote against him, square with that?
Those for whom the authoritarian racist aspects were the appeal are a given that are going to come out against the diversity that is the Democratic side every time. Maybe not a constant but changing more with long term demographics than by changes of heart or minds. Maybe he motivated them to turn out a bit more but he also appealed, as Sanders did, to those Whites who felt that they were economically being left behind and that more of the same, be it by a Republican or a Democrat, was not speaking to them.
Bolding mine to highlight it. Blaming it all on racism is, to my read, lazy thinking. If all else was equal and Clinton won those white voters who voted for Obama Trump likely would not be president.
I struggle with this too.
Trump won 57% of white votes in 2016. Which means 43% of whites voted for someone else, of whom the vast majority (37%) voted for Clinton.
I’m not saying Trump didn’t win due to racism. He did. But if you pick a random sampling of 10 white voters, about 4 of them didn’t vote for Trump. Most of those 4 voted for Hillary. The other 6 are Trump voters.
I’m a white male. We went 62-31 for Trump. Does that make me ashamed? Yes, a bit and the election of Trump really cemented that we need a more multicultural leadership because us white men aren’t making very good decisions recently. But I am in that 31%. Lots of white men are in that 31%. Pick 1000 white men at random who voted and almost 400 voted for someone other than Trump.
Its something I struggle with too. How can you be honest about the role racial (and gender) resentment plays in our politics without demonizing entire groups of people? Yes, whites (especially older white men) are the root cause of our march towards fascism. But a lot of older white men are decent people too. White men like myself are the root cause of Trump’s appeal and the march towards fascism, but not all white men are bad.
Its like a saying I heard. Not all Trump supporters are racist, but almost all racists are Trump supporters. Same thing. Not all whites are protofascist, but most protofascists are white.
If you watch videos of neo-nazis and antifa getting into fights, almost all the neo-nazis are white. But the majority of antifa are white too.
For one thing, it was a 3rd term for a democrat. So democratic turnout would naturally be lower. Plus black turnout went down without a black president on the ticket. 66.6% of blacks turned out to vote in 2012, vs 59.6% in 2016.
Plus after the Sanders campaign, some people were disappointed in Hillary. Granted over 90% of Sanders voters voted for Hillary, but if even 5% didn’t then that is nearly 650,000 votes lost for Hillary.
Also even with the existing realignment of authoritarians moving to the GOP that has been happening for decades, 2016 was still special.
The odds someone high on authoritarianism would vote for the GOP presidential candidate in 2016 were 79%, as opposed to 70% in 2012. For people low on authoritarianism, it was 30% in 2016 vs 36% in 2012.
So even with existing disdain for democrats by authoritarians, the 2016 election was still an extra authoritarian election which shifted votes a bit.
I suppose it is possible that some Trump supporters were motivated by economics. But it was my understanding that most every study on the issue found that wasn’t the concern. non-whites and women face more economic hurdles than white men, but they didn’t vote for Trump.
There is an article that looks at how white your neighborhood and zip code are and compares them to how republican your area voted. From about 0-85% white, the neighborhoods were slightly less republican. But starting at 85% they start growing. By 90% they are about equal to where they were in 2012, and by 100% white I think they are something like 6% more likely to be GOP.
So how racially homogeneous your neighborhood is a good predictor of Trump support. But even then, only a small % of people changed their minds. If 3% of people used to be democrats and are now republicans, that gives you a 6% net jump for the GOP. Demonizing all 100% of people in a white neighborhood because of how 3% reacted isn’t good.
What do you think would appeal to those lost Obama voters? My impression is they didn’t vote because they were disappointed Obama wasn’t on the ticket, or they didn’t want a 3rd Obama term, or they didn’t like Hillary, or they liked the authoritarian racism of Trump. I’m not sure how to win them back in 2016 if we could do it again.
Keep in mind that quiet, under-the-radar misogyny is a factor, too. I live on a purple block in a purple town in a purple state. I know for sure of two neighbors that would have voted for Biden but didn’t vote for Clinton (one didn’t vote at all, the other for a third party candidate), and from conversations, I can tell there is some underlying misogeny mixed in there. (Both are women, BTW).
Elections are all about turnout. Minority voters have a long history of voting in smaller percentages than white voters, partially because of the active suppression of minority voters, partially because conditions in minority districts are less favorable, and partially because minorities have good reasons to feel alienated from the process and candidates.
Obama undoubtedly brought out a larger percentage of African-American voters than the norm. They voted in smaller numbers in 2016. The difference in their numbers in the crucial states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan was more than the 144,000 Trump won by. So all else was not equal.
That doesn’t absolve Clinton, of course. But it also doesn’t remove racism from the election. Immigration, which for political purposes means Hispanic immigration whether legal, illegal, or falsely perceived illegal, was a huge issue for defecting Democrats. Muslims were also in the news far more in 2016 than now, and being perceived as antagonistic toward Muslims was very helpful for Trump.
So when Wesley Clark says “Trump is appealing because he is authoritarian and racist.” that is certainly true, even if one segment of racism was not a decisive issue. Republicans vote for candidates perceived as strongly against the Other, whoever happens to be the Other at a given moment.
I don’t really struggle with it, to be honest. I think Huey’s broad-brushing against wipipo is foolish and counterproductive and poor analysis; but I also think it’s some trivial bullshit compared to the overwhelmingly racist power structures he’s struggling to explain. Sure, it’d be better analysis and better strategy were he more nuanced. So what? Not like it’s hurting anyone.
I guess my concern is it is like the left’s distaste for the rich. I post on some left wing boards and some people there hate all the rich.
But I like to point out that not all rich people are bad.
Nancy Pelosi, Alan Grayson, Ned Lamont, the Clintons, Al Gore, George Soros, Warren Buffet, Oprah Winfrey, J.B. Pritzker, Rob Reiner, Tom Steyer, etc.
Painting all rich people as bad is a broad brush. There are lots of good rich people, just like there are lots of good white people.
Anyway, I agree that white people as a group are having serious issues. My concern is that too broad a brush will push rich people and white people into the arms of the right out of fear of exclusion by the left.
There is ample room in the left for white people and rich people, as long as they believe in core leftist values (egalitarianism, redistribution, liberal democracy, anti-corruption efforts, etc).
My point is this. Huey is right overall, my fear is that too broad a brush could push white people (or rich people) away from the left and make them join the right just because they don’t feel welcome on the left.
But again, 31% of white men (like myself) voted for Hillary. Another 7% voted for someone other than Trump. About 1/3 of white baby boomers voted for Hillary. Even among the most right wing demographics (white men or white baby boomers) about 1/3 are left wing.
We white people aren’t all mindless protofascists trying to defend our privilege by any means necessary, including endorsing treason, criminality, corruption and incompetence, or declaring war on democracy like Trump’s base are in their efforts to defend white privilege. And lots of white people, lots of baby boomers, lots of millionaires and billionaires, lots of christians, and lots of men want to do our part in a multiracial, multiethnic, multicultural, multinational, multiclass effort to protect our democracy from the white protofascists who are threatening it.
I thought “driving factor” meant a cause, not a result.
I feel this way a lot too.
On paper I look like a Trump supporter.
White hetero cis male. Grew up in a rural area in a red state with a heavy emphasis on religion. Gun owner.
But I despise Trump and what the modern GOP stand for (cruelty, authoritarianism and bigotry).
I was talking about the election and after the election. For the election, yes, racists were a driving factor in getting Trump elected. It is also fair to say that not every person who voted for Trump was a racist, just a large bloc of them.
Since the election, however, even if you consider yourself not to be racist, if you still support Trump, you support racism. I think it’s reasonable to assert that everyone who supports Trump is racist now.
ETA: Perhaps I should have said Huey’s assertion instead of “conclusion”.
George Will was an early influence on a young foolsguinea. I left him behind as I moved left, but even now I appreciate things he has said; notably about the nature of rights and laws in a society that actually reconsiders its conventions and is willing to change them. I hope this stance of his does some good.
You have strange ideas about what’s “fair” and “reasonable”
ETA: Hey look everyone, some liberal called the people that disagree with them “racist”. It must be a day of they week that ends in “Y”.
If Trump supporters want to stop being called racists, they should stop being racists.
Want to hear an effective way for them to stop being called racist? Stop being racist.
I’m not saying all Trump voters are racist. But racism was a major component of Trump support. Not all Trump voters are racist but it is dishonest and disingenuous to pretend that racism (and sexism) isn’t a major factor in his support.
I get upset when people call me fat. I don’t understand why they can’t pretend I’m not fat because I would find that less insulting.
He called the racists that voted for Trump racists. Are you claiming that racists that voted for Trump weren’t racists?
Trump actively incites hatred against black and brown people, and says in various ways that they are less than human.
This is not some aberration from the core of what the man is about; this is his essence, and this is why his base supports him.
There was a time when it was still possible to be a reasonable person and be in denial about this. That train’s not only left the station, it’s most of the way to Albuquerque by now.
If someone supports Trump, they are supporting an out-and-out racist. And in this case, a racist with the power - which he’s rather conspicuously using - to back his racist words with extreme harm towards those he’s prejudiced against. If someone supports Trump, they are an enabler of these active, virulent, gratuitous, and despicable racist acts.
If there’s some room in between that and being a racist, it’s a pretty damn thin room.
Awesome dig! Lemme try.
Hey, look, everyone, some dude called frozen water “ice.” It must be a day of the week that ends in “Y”.
I like this game!
- Notice something freakin’ obvious about the world.
- Notice that someone else has mentioned that freakin’ obvious thing.
- Mock them for noticing that freakin’ obvious thing with the “day ending in Y” super-funny joke.
Keen! Now your turn. Do another!
A decade or so ago, I had a blog called “Everybody Laughs at Broder” which I used to critique David Broder and the rest of the WaPo op-ed page. Which, of course, meant that during the active life of the blog, I was reading George Will regularly, along with the rest of the op-ed contributors.
George Will, frankly, sucked worse than the rest of the regulars. He was even worse than Richard Cohen, which takes some doing. He was a climate change denialist, he was reflexively rather than thoughtfully conservative, he made crap arguments, and at that point, he usually didn’t even write that well anymore.
So though he may be right this once, he can still go fuck himself.
Calling supporters of racism racist is fair game. If you don’t want your feelings hurt stop supporting racism.