Time after time, I encounter people who believe people of color and the LGBT are liberal by default. Especially within the last week. Mostly other liberals. They are shocked SHOCKED that 1/4 of black men, 1/6 of the LGBT, and many Hispanics voted for Trump. Gays and POC vote red for many of the same reasons straights and whites do.
This isn’t surprising to me at all. I’ve known many minority and LGBT conservatives throughout the years. There isn’t any genetic link between having darker skin or being LGBT and liberalism that I know of. A lot of personality is genetic though. And personality and political leanings tend to be linked. Conservatives are likely to be low in Openness and high in conscientiousness. Liberals are likely to be high in Openness and agreeableness. So if someone scores very high in conscientiousness and low in Openness, they’ll likely vote red, regardless of skin color or which genitalia they like to lick.
Most people are sheep, unfortunately. People are heavily influenced by their peers, and tend to vote who their peers vote for. If they’re military or first responder LGBTs or minorities, you can bet they will lean right. People from marginalized groups aren’t immune to societal influences.
My suspicion is that such beliefs are formed from spending a lot of time in insular liberal environments such academia or non-profit work. Living in blue states and/or major cities. Reddit. I’m liberal, but I’ve been exposed to a variety of environments and people from various walks of life. I spent a lot of time in academia, but I also worked in blue collar jobs. I play sportsball, lots of conservatives in adult recreational sports including some LGBT ones. I’ve met all kinds of people in casinos too. I was a Greek in college, not many hard-core liberals in fraternities and sororities lol. Except…me?
Then there’s particular training and curriculum that many liberals might be influenced by. Diversity training and social justice courses. I remember taking a few social justice courses and was taught that many if not all people in oppressed groups put their minority identities first. That’s just isn’t true for many people in those groups. They might view their orientation, race, or whatever as just slice of their overall identity. Some might not even view themselves as being oppressed these days. I’ve come into contact with some LGBT folks who havent been estranged by their families or haven’t been rejected by their straight peers. I’m not saying they’re right, oppression is still alive. I’m saying that’s how they might think, going by the interactions I’ve had with such people.
I guess I’ve answered my own question. I guess I’m giving people here a heads up that you can’t guess a person’s politics going by surface things such as race or orientation.
Too much belief that people are basically rational and well meaning. It causes a lot of people on the left/center to assume that nobody would be so self destructive, stupid and/or malignant as to support people who want to kill them.
I don’t assume that all of those groups are liberal. Plenty of them are conservative.
The mystery is why any of them would support the least conservative party in this nation’s history. The Republican party platform consists entirely of persecuting people like them. Why, indeed, would they support that?
They often assume that the people of those groups logically should vote left, out of self preservation. That’s just them overestimating the intelligence (and morality) of the American public.
As others have stated already: the incredulity is not about LGBTQ/BIPOC/etc. people supporting conservative socioeconomic policies or sociocultural values. The disbelief is about voting to promote an ultrarightist agenda that would perpetuate marginalization, oppression and persecution of those like them.
Of course, we fail at our own risk to understand that these same people may not see that latter description as bloody self-evidently obvious and actually feel we are the ones who are being hysterical about the risk to them.
I’ve known people who were conservative and LGBTQ. Both were moving to different conservative states. One said she didn’t care that the state she was headed to was unlikely to be very accepting of her and her partner. (This was before Obergefell v. Hodges.), that other issues were more important to her.
The other said he had to escape the bullying and harassment he’d experienced and get a fresh start, and besides, he was confident his partner would protect him.
Anecdotal evidence means nothing, I know, but FWIW, the one thing both situations had in common was that they’d BEEN harassed and rejected, and they both expected the homophobic crap wouldn’t be any worse than that.
Oppression and hard times make some people more compassionate towards others experiencing the same, even if for different reasons. For others, they don’t.
Yeah, you aren’t wrong about that. For whatever reasons, they tend not to see Trump’s agenda as ultrarightest. Any accusations of such is just considered as propaganda, to them. They think their “subtype” will be safe. Examples, being a “straight acting” gay or a legal immigrant.
And, it is likely that they overestimate how accepting other conservatives in general are of their lifestyles or background. The conservatives in their own little corner of the world might be more tolerant of them, but it is different elsewhere.
I’m a staunch liberal, but I was pretty regularly telling my liberal friends that Trump was going to win. Neither liberals nor conservatives have a claim to complete homogeneity and purity of thought. Individuals with LGBTQIA+ concerns can disagree about immigration, support for Ukraine, student loan forgiveness, economic policies, and a great many other issues. To think of groups of people as monolithic in their attitudes and motivations is, at best, hopelessly optimistic, and, at worst, sadly prejudicial. One could easily see that there were a lot fewer single-issue voters than expected.
I didn’t adopt an “I told you so” attitude after the election, but I did remind a few people that you can never go broke overestimating how many people can hold their noses while doing something others might find repugnant.
Or even a stranger one - I recall reading a story about a woman who voted for Trump in 2016 for whatever her reasons were who was absolutely shocked when her undocumented husband was deported. She thought only “criminals” and “bad hombres” would be deported apparently not realizing to a whole lot of people anyone who entered the country illegally or overstayed a visa is a criminal by definition.
I can understand a whole lot of conservative positions that POC or LGBT people might agree with - but there are certain ones that just don’t make sense, like a gay person who thinks discrimination based on sexual orientation or identity should be absolutely legal.
Jews who worked with the Nazis in the ghettos ended up in the death camps right along side their charges. House slaves were still slaves, with all the same loss of autonomy.
But somehow MAGA gays think this time will be different. Hey, stupid: this isn’t some policy disagreement. The party you voted for wants you DEAD! When they put you up against the wall, be sure to tell them you voted for them.