On the poor, underprivileged voters being more Conservative in US…

[Voodoochile]

I think whats missing and what adds to some of the confusion here is the difference between regions. In the west, I would agree that the poor in general vote conservative, while in the east/northeast the poor in general vote liberal.

I agree with the poster who pointed out that the northeast workingclass, traditional democrats, have been increasingly likely to vote for non-democrats, and this isnt so much a result of a change in the workingclass attitude as it is a shifting in just what the word ‘liberal’ means.

When ‘liberal’ meant individual freedom and opportunity, the chance to compete and work ones way to success irregardless of superficial things such as race or background, when it meant being given respect based on ones accomplishments and ability and not on ones family name or skin color, the vast majority of americans were ‘liberal’.

But someway, somehow, the term has taken on different meaning. Now, rather than breaking down barriers to individual opportunity and accomplishment, ‘Liberal’ has connotations of compensating for them. Many many poor people have self respect; they may not do things that make a great deal of money, but they have value none the less. This may be hard for some to understand, but just being given things isnt what many people want. They want the freedom to earn them themselves.

How can it be that you can work for years as, say, an electrician, but never get promoted to being an electrical engineer? Why is the liberals answer to this to merely insult the electrician by offering to use other peoples money to put them through school (when their years on the job were more than enough of an education already) rather than try to break down the barriers in the system (due diligence rules, etc) that place more value on a piece of paper than practical experience? Why dont the ‘liberals’ focus on the practical reasons causing companies to only promote non-college educated people so far, and from there on only hiring people with degrees, even if straight out of college? Many many fields can be done just as good or better by people with on the job experience as they can by someone with a degree; yet there is still a ceiling there.

This is just one example, and what are the legal/economic reasons causing companies to do this and why dont liberals act to change them rather than just compensate people for them?

This whole attitude of ‘Well the poor should vote democrat because the democrats are offering better handouts…’ that Ive seen reflected on here is absolutely disgusting. Not many people want handouts. They just dont want to be shut out. They want opportunity, and at one time the Democratic party stood for opportunity, but today it only stands for treating the poor as if they were some kind of sub-species who obviously cant take care of themselves and so need to have bread thrown at them. Either that or dictating what paths are ‘acceptable’ paths for success, rather than leaving the doors open to let people go as they please.

Theres nothing wrong with being poor, yet the liberals act like poverty is some kind of disease that needs to be eradicated, and then wonder why more of the poor dont vote for them. Some people just get more satisfaction out of what they do than the money they make doing it. Some people just want to know that what they have, they earned, so they start at the bottom. Some people have too much self respect to take a handout from mommy or daddy or the governemt. Figure it out.

The working poor didnt leave the Liberals, the Liberals left the working poor.

[kwildcat]

1. Concur w/ several posts stating the OP is somewhat flawed. It is reflective of a political myth and not backed by hard statistics. Far from all “poor, underprivileged voters”, the demographic that appears to defy traditional voting trends (the Washington Post article does a great job of defining the issue) are poor non-urban whites. They come in two primary (but not only) flavors - Southerners with religious proclivities and South-Mid-Westerners with strong anti-immigration and/or anti-gun control ideologies.

2. John Mace’s point about “it’s the economy, stupid”, is well taken, but we should NOT assume that economic self interest is an actual determinant for voting patterns for the demographic in question. Rather the state of the economy is a powerful determinant of voter turnout. When the economy is good, individuals tend to be swayed by the “values” issues when making voting decisions. Concomitantly, voter turnout (and I would expect the numbers to back me up, although I have no cites at present) would be lower during prosperous times. Happy people have little incentive to rock the boat, and they wrongly conclude that apathy reinforces the status quo. Those two factors would contribute to the state of affairs we had during the 2000 election: fewer people in total voted, and it was more likely that the voters would base their decisions on so-called “values” issues rather than reasoned policy platforms.

The result was that a detail-oriented technocrat like Gore came off badly compared to a polished image machine with a highly recognizable last name, and even then still garnered a majority of the electorate.

3. Bold (and possibly incendiary) statement: the demographic we’re talking about here, the poor non-urban white, is a fading demographic. I believe the impression of U.S. conservatism is actually the last bitter gasp of a white America trying to forestall the inevitable demographic shift in our population. For only one or maybe two more generations will high voter turnout among poor non-urban whites be able to swing elections. To that end, conservatives have relentlessly campaigned to that group, touting “values” and painting elections as single-issue, right-wrong, black-white affairs. However, during my lifetime the United States will become less than 50% white. This is a statistical certainty. Unless something fundamental changes in conservative ideology (in which case it wouldn’t be conservative, would it?), on that day, bye-bye Republicans.

[John_Mace]

@Degrance

Well because the poverty level has not been redefined because then we would have more people living in poverty and that wouldn’t look good (this isn’t a Republican thing the Dems did the same thing.) In fact there are huyndreds of thousands who are living in poverty who earn quite a bit more than the official “poverty level.” That level is a political relic and not statistical in nature and therefore has no relevance. I can certainly cite this for you if you want but I thought it was common knowledge.

Be that as it may, one measure of the “poorest of the poor” clearly indicates that that group votes Dem more than Pub. But I agree that any discussion needs to clearly define poverty.

I think you are quoting me out of context. The only reference to the phrase “vast majority” I can find in my posts was this quote, “The vast majority of these same people would benefit from liberal policies.” It is clear from the context there that I was saying that a vast majority of the demographic I was discussing would suffer under tose they voted for and would benefit by having the other party in charge and NOT that this demographic was the vast majority of anything. In fact in another post I estimated the demographic as being aproximately 20% of the republican voter base.

A careful reading of your context will, I believe, show otherwise. And your last sentence here is irrelevant to that discussion since we’re not talking about Republicans in general, but poor people in general. But I’ll take your word for it and just say that either you were unlcear in your original post or I read it incorrectly, or both.

All I was trying to do was describe some people. Do you agree that this “some” is statistically significant, even to the dergee that it decides some elections?

Perhaps. But no more “statistically significant” than the so-called minority vote that the Dems can pretty much count on regardless of how much they actually pay attention to those voters. There are all kinds of voting blocks out there and I don’t find much value in describing any of them as mindless robots who vote without thinking.

[Pabitel]

@John Mace

Perhaps. But no more “statistically significant” than the so-called minority vote that the Dems can pretty much count on regardless of how much they actually pay attention to those voters. There are all kinds of voting blocks out there and I don’t find much value in describing any of them as mindless robots who vote without thinking.

They self describe as mindless robots who vote without thinking. They may not use those same words but that is exactly what they are saying about themselves. Anybody, ANYBODY, who uses their vote in this way is abusing the privilege. I don’t care if your single issue is abortion or race. If one issue is all that goes in to your thinking on how to vote then you would better serve your own interests by staying home.

Pardon the outrage but I take voting very seriously. It is a great gift from the founders that we all get to help choose our leadership. I am greatly offended that these gits throw that gift away after trampling it in the mud by using it to make some inane religious “statement”. If you are not going to vote intelligently then please just stay home. And, since you are about to ask, the choices made by these voters could not, under any generally accepted definition of the word, be considered intelligent.