Probably for the same reason most gun enthusiasts are not leftists.
Like guns, motorcycles foster an attitude of individual independence and self reliance. These are conservative/libertarian values.
From my experience, you guys have missed the most obvious connection: the overwhelming majority of bikers, (especially on Harleys), are actually accountants.
My guess is that bike culture is founded on values so purely, hegemonically masculine that it could never be anything but libertarian, leaning right.
Bobo you ain’t gonna like this, but your response sounds assholish and condescending. I’ve got several buddies that are hard-core bikers. Yes, I’ve hung out with them at their bars and gone to their parties. I haven’t heard any racist remarks from them.
I guess we must not share the same definition of “Biker” or “Bar”.
To each his own.
Yes bobo, if your definition of “biker” is “racist on a motorcycle”, and “bar” is “place where racists hang out”, then our definitions differ.
Thanks, everyone else, for your opinions. I had never really considered the correlation between bikers and off road enthusiasts - but IME, there is definitely one there. Looking forward to more from you, Sam Stone.
I’d say it’s just because Republicans have done a good job of projecting a more macho image than Democrats over the past 30 years. I think image is really all it’s about.
I’m running short on time again, but what I was going to say earlier is that you can’t underestimate the power of tradition and cultural identity. If you polled a NASCAR crowd, I’m sure you’d find an over-representation of Republicans as compared to the general population. But there’s nothing about liking watching cars turn left in a circle that should select out for Republicanism, just like there’s nothing about motorbikes with loud exhausts and long front forks that should select out for Republicanism.
It’s funny, because the conservative slant of bikers exists even here in Canada, which doesn’t have anything like the same issues that motivate Bikers in the U.S. But they adopt the same culture, and align themselves similarly politically.
There are a few issues that you can point to that push bikers into the Republican camp. Gun control, for one. To the extent that liberals align themselves with the ‘nanny state’, communitarianism, pacifism, greater bureaucracy, more regulation, higher taxes, and in general giving more power to the establishment, they cause Bikers to go in the opposite direction. And patriotism, rugged individualism, and other similar concepts tend to be ‘owned’ by the right, and that attracts the biker crowd.
Of course, those are all stereotypes, but they tend to be cultural touchstones that mark different groups. To some extent, people choose political orientations not because of specific issues (look how people on the right and left flip-flop when ‘their’ guy proposes the same program the ‘other’ guy had), but because people just tend to feel more comfortable in one camp or another because of the entire package of values, prior actions, and the people who are on ‘their’ side.
But they aren’t monolithic, either. I knew lots of liberal bikers. Certainly not the majority, but a solid minority.
A bunch of things, I think, most of which have already been mentioned: pro-gun, rugged individualism, conspicuous consumers of fossil fuels, macho/rebel worldview, pro-small government. That tends to be Republican turf (highly debatable, of course, how much today’s GOP actually practices what it preaches).
I’m just going by personal experience with the two bike cultures I hung with for decades. The semi-outlaws and the executive yuppies.
Me too.
I lived on the fringes of the culture for years. I worked for two club presidents. I hung out in bars that catered to more than one club, including The Outlaws. I know the culture. The exec bikers weren’t outwardly racist, but there were no black or brown members, and in more than one one-on-one conversation, there was an obvious disdain for people of color. The rougher group was very outspoken about their feelings toward people of color, with few exceptions.
The fringe bikers were more about flying under the radar and living a virtually unrestricted life. Some worked regular jobs, but most were self-employed in fields ranging from construction to dealing drugs. Their women generally worked “straight” jobs. It added legitimacy and kept the law at arm’s length for many of them.
I agree with this for the most part, but in my experience, patriotism fell waaaay down the list of things they professed (back in the day). Nowadays, some of those guys are empty flag-wavers who send emails to me about how all the country’s problems can be blamed on people of color, and some still couldn’t give a shit what’s going on in their country.
Just to clarify, I don’t believe that bikers are racists because they’re bikers. I have seen exclusively black bike clubs, as well. But if you are a racist, you are unlikely to see any integrated biker clubs in these parts. Most of these guys consider that a good thing.
I knew liberal bikers back in the 70s, but they’ve all but disappeared off my radar. I don’t hang out with them much these days, though, aside from emails, so admittedly I’m working with dated information.
Bikers don’t want to be controlled, and the Republican view of the Democratic party is “bigger government, more interference.”
I think in Canada, racism is less of an issue. But the biker gangs (a subset of the bikers to be sure) finance themselves by controlling the drug trade, principally marijuana. And the Liberal part keeps talking about legalizing (actually decriminalizing) pot and that would destroy their economic base. The Conservatives of course, support the anti-drug laws on “moral” grounds.
If you lean left on a motorcycle, don’t you turn right?
A biker who supports gun control is about as common as a thylacine. The Democratic party is the party of gun control.
The funny thing is that I agree with democrats on most issues. Gun control being the big exception.
Which puts you in the same boat as thousands and thousands of other people, especially the new generation of educated, technology-savvy programmer/engineer guys in the 18-25 demographic. It’s a wonder why the Democrats still retain their gun control platform at all, in light of that. I guess it’s to throw some bones to a bunch of old farts, holdovers from the 60s peace-and-love utopian era.
You’d think they’d have learned something from Easy Rider!
Uh… yeah. And maybe, just maybe, because the U.S. has the highest rates of gun crime and homicide in the developed world. I’m a Democrat and I wish Obama would be doing much more about gun control, but I understand the politics of it: Back Burner for an Assault-Weapons Ban
The Banditos down in Texas have a lot of Hispanic members. I don’t know how a big a percentage they are in the group, but it’s a pretty significant number.
From what I’ve seen, biker groups do lean to the right in terms of jingoism, gun control, size of government etc. But mainly they just care about being badasses, and seeing as how their whole image is predicated upon being outlaws, they aren’t going to lose much sleep worrying about what party is in power.