Conservative whites are seeing their power erode. A big deal was made of how Obama lost the white vote as badly as Dukakis, but still won his election. Conservative whites are seeing the end of their tenure and they are not going quietly into the good night. Plus the democratic party is generally the party of those outside the power establishment. White men have been at the center of it, so their needs do not really list high compared to minorities, women, etc.
Outsourcing of decent paying jobs for working class people
Immigration is driving down prices of remaining jobs for working class whites.
The government seems to only care about the poor and the rich. The rich get tons of benefits and tax cuts. The poor get tons of benefits and tax cuts (free healthcare, free education, subsidized utilities and rent, etc). The working class get to pay taxes w/o getting benefits for it (at least that is how some of them feel).
No, and neither do you, though you might imagine so. That had to do with neoliberalism and globalization and technological developments facilitating same, and nothing at all to do with welfare policies, or, to any great extent, labor policies.
Many Democrats might. No progressives do. Nobody backing Sanders right now discounts any of that – the movement is about that – but, they also pay some attention to the sources of black working class frustration and others’.
This kind of hyperbole gets us nowhere; it’s worthy of a presidential sound bite. “very, very hard”? What percentage of people in the US do you think can pay their bills? 10%? 5%?
I think you misunderstand Trump’s campaign. Trump bashes plutocrats constantly. All the time. If you were to follow him around to rallies, you would hear him attacking “the establishment” far more than you would hear him going on about racial issues. It was widely noted that Trump’s favorite punching bag was Jeb Bush, at least until he dropped out of the race. Jeb is a rich, white man. So is Martin O’Malley, who Trump spent time mocking on the campaign trail. Trump’s main target is the rich and powerful.
Now don’t get me wrong, I am well aware of Trump’s inflammatory statements about Mexican immigrants and other groups. Point is, while media coverage of his campaign is mainly focused on these things, Trump’s main focus is attacking the Establishment. His message is not, “Illegal immigrants are the cause of all your problems.” His message is, “The establishment is the cause of all your problems, and the presence of illegal immigrants is one such establishment-caused problem.”
(Of course, while Trump tells his fans that he’ll defeat the evil zillionaires on Wall Street, he is a zillionaire himself. Then again, the same is true of Hillary.)
Being a billionaire doesn’t mean you’re evil. Markus Persson is a billionaire because he invented a toy loved by millions of people. You can’t fault him for that.
Unfortunately, Trump is evil. Making money by selling people false hope at your casino is a lot worse than making money by selling them a $15 construction toy for your computer.
This is an example of spin. Most people who object to the BLM movement, for instance, don’t think of themselves as opposing social justice, they think that supporting the police *is *social justice.
If you want to understand the anger of the working class white people, go onto youtube and search Trump Rally and then go to the comments section and just ask them questions, you can talk to these very angry people, you will be surprised over what they say.
The anger thing is puzzling to me as a non-American.
The quality of life for many people in the US is really very high even compared to most developed countries. Every time I visit the US it’s like many people are under a spell. I’m fortunate enough to be invited into a family’s home, which is huge, and they have a couple SUVs or whatever, a fridge that probably wouldn’t fit in my apartment, in a leafy suburb, and they’ll talk about america being in crisis (And as a guest, I’m limited in how far I can ask WTH…)
I guess certain parts of society have stagnated somewhat, but it’s not easy to find stats that have gotten worse (and, like the OP says, if income inequality were the thing getting people riled up, then why turn to those pledging lower taxes for the rich)?
There is a feeling that politicians are putting the interest of big money ahead of the interests of Americans.
There is a feeling that we have been getting the short end of many of these trade deals. Its one thing to tell people that they have to stop making buggy whips and start making cars. its another thing to tell people to stop making cars and start making Freedom Fries. There is a real sense that large companies have a seat at the table when negotiating free trade deals but labor does not.
There is a feeling that our unskilled labor market is getting glutted by economic refugees from south of the border who are willing to do back breaking work for subsistence wages. Sure illegal aliens work hard and are just trying to make a better life for themselves and their families but every country in the world controls their borders and limits how much cheap labor enters their country. Why aren’t the liberals telling us to be more like the Europeans when they Europeans try to keep out immigrants?
This is fallow ground for racism, jingoism and nativism to flourish and the Republican side of the argument is much more fertile grounds than the Democratic side.
I think this comes the closest to the truth as anything posted to date. The old American dream is dead. No longer can the average guy coast through high school playing a sport every season, graduate and walk into a factory and get a job that he can retire from with a defined benefit pension, send his kids through school, pay off the house, and enjoy the simple things in life. It isn’t asking that much from life. But they see this life vanishing before their eyes. If their plant didn’t close down, one in their city did. They listen to Hate Radio and there is a never ending list of “others” to blame for their plight. Their Facebook feeds are strewn with stuff like “THEY NO LONGER SAY THE PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE IN SCHOOLS BECAUSE THEY DON’T WANT TO OFFEND ANYONE. SHARE IF THIS IS WRONG.” It doesn’t matter if the facts are completely wrong and they indeed are still saying the pledge, it resonates with them and the hatred begins to boil.
So they want to blame someone. And there are many who are quite willing to exploit this for ratings points or political gain. They believe that Mexicans cross the border and immediately get free housing, free education, free healthcare, and simultaneously take jobs from Americans. It doesn’t matter if none of it is true. They believe it is true because they want and need it to be true. They see terror attacks in Paris and California and can’t believe that anyone else doesn’t think all Muslims are terrorists. They can’t handle fifty shades of gray, their world has ZERO shades of gray. It’s all black and white. Us vs them.
A guy like Trump comes along and he hits those fears perfectly and amplifies them like a perfectly calibrated tuning fork. For years they’ve been hearing “don’t like Obama? Then you must support everything the Wall Street Journal editorial board says.” In their views they’re forced to choose between the party that wants to give more of what they’ve got to THEM, and the party that thinks all things can be resolved with giving tax cuts to the wealthy. They say “screw that, there must be another way” and Trump is right their to exploit that. Never mind that he has no specific plan, he wants you to believe that he can do it by the sheer force of his Donaldness. And his gullible flock need nothing more than that than to march like lemmings behind him.
Perhaps. But you also seem to vote for candidates and policies that further the interests of those rich.
If you’re anything like my wife’s family, it’s not because you’re “stupid”. It’s because they have such a strong opinion about the world for someone who inhabits a very small part of it. It’s like people who come to Manhattan and eat at the same Red Lobster or TGIFriday’s they can eat at in any strip mall in the country. Or people who call sushi “bait” because it is uncooked fish. No one is asking you to become a sophisticated world traveler. But don’t be so dismissive or disparaging towards new things either.
Because “conservative” often translates to "I want my freedom to marginalize gays, minorities and women, prevent women from having abortions, keep absurd numbers of dangerous firearms and make Christianity the de-facto national religion of the USA.
How are you pro-labor?
No one “hates you because you’re white”. They hate that you complain about how persecuted you feel when you have all the jobs and don’t have to worry about being randomly harassed by the police.
Kind of like the rich people I guess.
It certainly provides significant insight into the sort of thinking we are talking about.
As well they may and should, yes? There may have been a time when some forms of conservatism were morally or economically defensible, but that time is long past.
E.g., anticommunism was always defensible, even if many conservatives (and liberals, too) took it way too far, like, into Vietnam . . . but, Communism is no longer a relevant factor anyway, and American conservatism has nothing left that is defensible.
There, there, sleestak, don’t worry your pretty little head about such things.