It wasn’t so long that Democrats ruled the south. I wouldn’t doubt if many of the middle-aged voters in the south had parents who voted Democrat.
Marc
Neither liberal nor conservatives are a cut from the same cookie cutter. Most of the black democrats I know support welfare, are against the death penalty, and love affirmative action. Hear them speak of homosexuals and they sound very much like Pat Robertson. LIkewise I’ve met people who were very convserative but wanted ot end the war on drugs. I’m really starting to hate the liberal/conservative labels.
Marc
What arrogance to assume that the reason individuals voted a certain way is because they are “uneducated” or ignorant. Might as well say, “Oh, but only if you were smart enough, you’d agree with me, since you dont agree with me, you must be stupid!”
The Left epitomizes this attitude of arrogance, presuming to know better than the individual what’s in the individual’s best interests. Maybe voting republican is actually a sign of intelligence, no?
The poor tend to vote conservative because they tend to be more religious. The Right champions things like “morals”, “family values”, and “Judeo-Christian principles” while the Left tends to shy from such terminology and imagery. Plus, the Left is seen as a group of hippies who just want to buck the system. Who can afford to buck the system? Not people who are living pay check-to-pay check.
Blacks, who tend to be socially conservative outside of civil rights and social welfare issues, lean to the left because leftism leads to rebellion and rebellion led to the Civil Rights Movement. The Democratic Party is the party of the civil rights struggle. It’s also the party that prides itself for being for poor people’s rights. For the longest time, blackness was synonomous with poverty. And as a generalized group, black people have not bought the American Dream mythology that many whites have swallowed hook, line, and sinker. As a black person, it made more sense to vote with the party that created things like the New Deal and the Great Society. They were helpful programs that brought poverty to the front lines, at least for awhile.
I think the Democratic Party will have most of the black vote for some time simply because everyone tends to vote the same as our parents. And also, the Republican Party still has a long way to go before it’s seen as anything but a Good Ole Boys club. Perhaps poor whites believe they are in the Good Ole Boys club simply because they share the same “values” as its members. I don’t know. I’m not a poor white.
So, were you actually trying to be an example of the arrogance you just finished criticizing, or was that just something you let slip by?
Voting on one side of the political spectrum or the other is not a sign of intelligence (or lack thereof)… it’s simply a sign of what the voter believes in. I know (and respect) intelligent examples of almost every political camp.
For what it’s worth, I’m firmly ensconced in the working class of America, and I tend to vote left. Of course, I am also college-educated, so I guess I fit at least some of the stereotypes being thrown around here. :rolleyes:
(Just in case, I don’t think being college-educated has anything to do with it either.)
No kidding. It’s really become quite silly. I think if politics were like a menu, people would pick some things from column A and a few from column B. Instead we have people berating each other like if someone happened to pick one thing from column A, the people who are mostly column B would go “You’re column A, you’re column A, nyah, nyah”
For instance, I’m basically identified as a liberal, but I have a few views that jive with conservatism, i.e. the gov wasting money on silly programs, etc. Of course, I think the DoD is the worst offender there, so must be a pinko-commie-faggot. :rolleyes:
Commentary and hyperbole, in that order.
I know, I should have specified that the people I’m talking about are in the Midwest. People that I would expect to be for small family farms, and farm subsidies, but they vote Republican. Always.
I have another family member from the south that’s a Democrat, though he’s more of the old school, Strom Thurmond type of Democrat that didn’t switch sides when Strom did.
Give me a break. Have you read the thread? On average would you agree that white people that would qualify as lower or lower-middle class that are working in a non-union, blue collar job are not as well educated as the middle and upper class? Would you agree that on average those people have more conservative views? On average would you agree that those people also vote Republican?
Yep, it’s just the left that presumes to know what is best for the individual, which is why those crazy Democrats are always trying to get prayer in school and prevent irresponsible women from murdering their unborn children; because they know what’s best for the individual. Oh wait …
Nice, how one cancels the other out. Well done.
My bet is that there isn’t any systematic way to prove anything about this subject without injecting some kind of political bias.
On the whole though, US nationals are just more conservative no matter what their economic status. There’s no need to single out poor people.
My own experience with the poor here is that they probably are still holding out and hoping they will win the lottery. They can accept being treated like crap because that’s exactly how they would like to treat their employees if they could employ any.
Americans are individualists and outside of rah-rah military violence, we don’t have much going on in terms of cultural unity. It’s been the easiest way to structure a nation of mostly immigrants. Individuals have to be left alone to do their thing because we wouldn’t all agree.
Heck, we just started letting black people vote a few decades ago. We still have the largest prison population per capita in the world. It’s obvious the US is a cultural backwater that hasn’t been on the cutting edge since the 18th century. We still have a long way to go before we can create a unified society that would have interest in helping others.
My point exactly.
These people are not voting for national policy. They are voting for who thumps the Bible the hardest. They don’t give two hoots about the economy. They couldn’t care less if we are at war or not. All they care about is whether the candidate mouths religious sounding noises while standing on his stump.
The vast majority of these same people would benefit from liberal policies. But becasue, “All liberals are heathen” they don’t even think about voting for them. They end up stabbing themselves in the back and praising god when their congressman casts his 100th symbolic vote to ban abortion.
Oh dignan, I’m sorry to go OT, but my old account FUTUREMAN doesn’t work anymore. I thought we would make a great team in this debate if only my old name worked. Its not banned BTW it just doesn’t work anymore. I got dibs on Bob Maplethorpe
Just because someone might benefit from a set of policies doesn’t mean they’d support it. Conservatives are often accused of being selfish and greedy. If they’re not voting for programs that benefit themselves maybe they’re not so selfish and greedy after all. Maybe those who disagree with the democratic party do so out of genuine philosophical differences.
Typical from both sides of any issue. If they don’t agree with you they’ve either been bamboozled or they’re bad people.
Marc
No, you are taking this piece of data to an absurd conclusion. The state of the economy has typically been a key issue (if not the key issue) in all presidential campaigns.
And you’re ignoring the one finding of this report that is actually relavent to this thread: More poor whites voted for Gore in '00 than voted for Bush. If you put blacks into the mix, that will only skew the results further in favor of Gore.
I’m frankly disgusted with the direction this thread has taken. Most people are just spouting unsubstantiated opinions. As far as I can tell, I’m the only person who has actually brought some facts to the table. And those facts contradict the thesis of the OP. I’ll check back in when some reason and facts creep into this discussion-- if they ever do.
Ok Mace, you want facts, I’ll give you facts. Poor, undereducated, underprivileged people are naturally more conservative. They are also naturally more intelligent and more in touch with reality than the educated and the rich. They know this. They know that an advanced education gives priviledge and sometimes wealth at the cost of being able to properly think. They know instinctively that it was through the tenants of Christanity that this Republic was made great. They know. And if you are lucky, you do too.
Well, we can always count on Milum to give us the facts! With “facts” like that, who needs unsubstantiated opinions!?!
Hoping this is a joke. :rolleyes:
-XT
The tenants of Christianity are always so loud, though… you can hear them right through the walls! I could never live in that building.
(I know, I know… lame joke. But it was a lame post anyway.)
Damn Astoria you just let the cat out of the bag. If the liberals (read that with “radical” attached) took you seriously there might be trouble. But then they wouldn’t be so damn “radical”. 
It’s worth remembering that, until relatively recently, Southern whites and blue-collar ethnics (Irish, Poles, Italians, etc.) of the big Northern cities were the most loyal, reliable Democratic voters imaginable. Are we to believe that “poor” whites USED to be smart enough to vote for liberal Democrats, but suddenly got too stupid to do so?
I speak fro mexperience. In the 1960’s and 1970’s, when I was a kid, Franklin Roosevelt was a god to the working class folks in my neighborhood in New York City. Blue-collar New Yorkers almost always voted a straight Democratic ticket, and would never have dreamed of voting Republican. And yet, most of those folks voted for Reagan in 1980, and now regularly vote for the GOP.
I ask again, liberal commentators: did these folks just get stupid all of a sudden? Or isn’t it possible that the Democratic Party has shifted so far to the leftn some issues that these traditional Democrats find there’s no longer a place for them in their old party?
Mind you, even in the South, the redneck vote (to put it crudely) is NOT something the Republicans can always take for granted. Many, perhaps most working-class Southern whites voted for Bill Clinton, after all. A lot depends on which issues are most important to them at a given moment. Consider a few imaginary Southerners:
Ida Mae is 75 years old and a devout Baptist. She thinks abortion is an atrocity, that homosexuality is immoral, and that children should pray at school. So… she’s a lock for the GOP, right? No- not necessarily. She’s on Social Security, after all. And if she’s worried about cuts in Social Security, she can and WILL vote for a Democrat.
Bubba is a 45 year old factory worker. He likes to hunt, he’d dead set against gun control, he hates affirmative action, and thinks “the system” is too soft on crime. A lock for the GOP, right? Again, not necessarily. A lot of factories have been closing down, and moving overseas. Bubba is worried about his job, and might well be open to voting for a Democrat who addresses his concerns.
The right Democrats CAN win the votes of Ida Mae and Bubba, and of the
“Archie Bunkers” in the North. But NOT if they persist in treating these people like ignorant rubes, and NOT if they persist in mocking such people’s values! Treating working class whites with scorn and condescension, then wondering why they don’t vote for you, is idiotic. But it’s become a habit among the Democrats.