# Slate article - Dems are still pooping the bed when it comes to dealing with the white working class **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [June 5, 2017, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slate-article-dems-are-still-pooping-the-bed-when-it-comes-to-dealing-with-the-white-working-class/788208 "2017-06-05T18:40:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2017, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slate-article-dems-are-still-pooping-the-bed-when-it-comes-to-dealing-with-the-white-working-class/788208/21 "2017-06-05T21:44:10Z")
So nobody has anything remotely resembling evidence to support Little Nemo’s claim? > [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > No, Clinton wasn’t willing to tell white men that they deserved more than everyone else. Trump was. ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2017, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slate-article-dems-are-still-pooping-the-bed-when-it-comes-to-dealing-with-the-white-working-class/788208/22 "2017-06-05T21:48:32Z")
> [@Procrustus](#): > > I don’t recall that being part of the campaign of 2016. Not from Clinton’s camp, anyway. [Hillary Clinton plays “woman card” 13 times in a minute.](https://youtu.be/xlDqptoRR28) Scott Alexander from Slate Star Codex guy wrote [a long article](http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/11/16/you-are-still-crying-wolf/) arguing that Trump didn’t run a racist campaign, or at least not more racist than your standard Republican. Not sure if a lot of people were convinced, though. ---
**Author:** ![Lance\_Turbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lance_turbo/32/6156_2.png) [@Lance\_Turbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lance_Turbo)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2017, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slate-article-dems-are-still-pooping-the-bed-when-it-comes-to-dealing-with-the-white-working-class/788208/23 "2017-06-05T21:48:50Z")
I did. I posted it in this thread. Then you quoted it. It’s weird that you don’t remember that. Just scroll up. It’s all still there. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2017, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slate-article-dems-are-still-pooping-the-bed-when-it-comes-to-dealing-with-the-white-working-class/788208/24 "2017-06-05T21:53:19Z")
> [@Lance\_Turbo](#): > > I did. I posted it in this thread. Then you quoted it. > > It’s weird that you don’t remember that. Just scroll up. It’s all still there. If you think that’s evidence supporting Little Nemo’s claim, you’re not someone I take seriously or have any interest in talking to. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2017, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slate-article-dems-are-still-pooping-the-bed-when-it-comes-to-dealing-with-the-white-working-class/788208/25 "2017-06-05T21:57:26Z")
What about all the rhetoric about how white working class folks wanted to “take back the country”? ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2017, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slate-article-dems-are-still-pooping-the-bed-when-it-comes-to-dealing-with-the-white-working-class/788208/26 "2017-06-05T21:59:41Z")
We need to be honest about things, Hillary Clinton lost the \*\*white \*\*working class. She won all the non-white working class groups. Black, latino, asian, etc. So pretending this is all about economic policy and jobs isn’t true. It isn’t like blacks or latinos with a high school education aren’t struggling. There are several demographic factors you can use to determine how someone voted in 2016. Race Gender Education Whites were to the right of non-whites, men to the right of women, high school educated to the right of college educated. A white male with a high school education voted about 74% for Trump. A black female with a high school education voted about 90-95% for Hillary. Both are facing limited job prospects, both deal with economic uncertainty. But change the race and gender, and you go from an economic group that vastly prefers Trump to one that overwhelmingly supported Hillary. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2017, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slate-article-dems-are-still-pooping-the-bed-when-it-comes-to-dealing-with-the-white-working-class/788208/27 "2017-06-05T22:01:02Z")
> [@Lance\_Turbo](#): > > I did. I posted it in this thread. Then you quoted it. > > It’s weird that you don’t remember that. Just scroll up. It’s all still there. Your mind reading ability is, I suppose, evidence in the broadest sense of the term. It’s just that it’s the kind of evidence that is easily dismissed by anyone who does’t believe in mind reading. Unless, of course, you can tell me what I’m thinking… right… NOW!! ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2017, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slate-article-dems-are-still-pooping-the-bed-when-it-comes-to-dealing-with-the-white-working-class/788208/28 "2017-06-05T22:01:04Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > What about all the rhetoric about how white working class folks wanted to “take back the country”? If you could provide a specific quote, in context, I’d be delighted to discuss with you how close it comes to “tell[ing] white men that they deserved more than everyone else”. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2017, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slate-article-dems-are-still-pooping-the-bed-when-it-comes-to-dealing-with-the-white-working-class/788208/29 "2017-06-05T22:04:05Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Your mind reading ability is, I suppose, evidence in the broadest sense of the term. It’s just that it’s the kind of evidence that is easily dismissed by anyone who does’t believe in mind reading. Unless, of course, you can tell me what I’m thinking… right… NOW!! [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/XsC8zEgZEfo/hqdefault.jpg "69 dudes!") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsC8zEgZEfo) ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2017, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slate-article-dems-are-still-pooping-the-bed-when-it-comes-to-dealing-with-the-white-working-class/788208/30 "2017-06-05T22:05:07Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > We need to be honest about things, Hillary Clinton lost the \*\*white \*\*working class. She won all the non-white working class groups. Black, latino, asian, etc. > > So pretending this is all about economic policy and jobs isn’t true. It isn’t like blacks or latinos with a high school education aren’t struggling. > > There are several demographic factors you can use to determine how someone voted in 2016. > > Race > Gender > Education > > Whites were to the right of non-whites, men to the right of women, high school educated to the right of college educated. > > A white male with a high school education voted about 74% for Trump. A black female with a high school education voted about 95% for Hillary. > > Both are facing limited job prospects, both deal with economic uncertainty. But change the race and gender, and you go from an economic group that vastly prefers Trump to one that overwhelmingly supported Hillary. Trump got more Hispanic votes than Romney got. This idea of “winning” a certain demographic is nonsense. You just have to win enough of the various demographics to add up to an electoral win. If the Republicans could get 40% of the black vote, they’d be unstoppable even though they would have “lost” that demographic. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2017, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slate-article-dems-are-still-pooping-the-bed-when-it-comes-to-dealing-with-the-white-working-class/788208/31 "2017-06-05T22:09:06Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > So nobody has anything remotely resembling evidence to support Little Nemo’s claim? Lots of people are showing you the evidence. You’re just refusing to accept it. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2017, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slate-article-dems-are-still-pooping-the-bed-when-it-comes-to-dealing-with-the-white-working-class/788208/32 "2017-06-05T22:17:45Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > You weren’t listening either? Can’t say as I blame you. Got as far as fifteen-twenty minutes, then the demands of mental hygiene took effect. Had to break off for a cuppa chamomile tea, couple tokes and some Twain. > > I recall his deft diplomatic engagement with the President of Mexico with wonder and awe. And his admiration and outreach to communities of color, and the frank and open discussion of judicial prejudice among Hispanic federal judges…things like this just add to the lustre of his egalitarian humanism! His deep respect for women is a matter of public record, we need not remind. > > Maybe we just got the idea that he only likes white men because he doesn’t seem to like anybody else? Your arch notes are almost exactly what the author of the book the article is talking about and is citing as a communication strategy that does not work. Even the interviewer could not help himself from sounding almost exactly like you. It’s almost instinctive for white liberals and progressives to be deprecating of the white working class. People who would never think to use the work “nigger” toward black people fling “racist” toward working class whites with eager abandon. And if told this the liberal/progressive response is a sputtering “But… but… they are!” as if that should end the conversation. White liberals and progressives have been fully engaged in attitudinal class warfare against working class whites for some time now. They are the universal punching bag for white liberal Americans and the attitude was (and is) that you could do this with impunity. But there is a price for this behavior and Democrats are paying it. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2017, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slate-article-dems-are-still-pooping-the-bed-when-it-comes-to-dealing-with-the-white-working-class/788208/33 "2017-06-05T22:21:17Z")
Unfortunately, we’re all paying it… ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2017, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slate-article-dems-are-still-pooping-the-bed-when-it-comes-to-dealing-with-the-white-working-class/788208/34 "2017-06-05T22:24:53Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Trump got more Hispanic votes than Romney got. This idea of “winning” a certain demographic is nonsense. You just have to win enough of the various demographics to add up to an electoral win. If the Republicans could get 40% of the black vote, they’d be unstoppable even though they would have “lost” that demographic. Yes, but claiming that the white working class is concerned solely (or even mainly) with economics is dishonest. If economics were the only concern, why did the non-white working class support Hillary so strongly? Like it or not, there are some major cultural factors at play. Generically speaking, the republicans are the party who want to uphold the positions of power and privilege for those who have them, and the democrats are the party of people who feel left out or inferior in the current socioeconomic political system (a coalition of various minority groups, racial and cultural). Trump ran on ‘MAGA’ which was dog whistle to a lot of people of returning to a society where white men were the undisputed rulers, latinos were kicked out en masse, blacks were under the police’s thumb in the ghetto, etc But even talking about that makes people upset (and they call us the snowflakes for some reason) so we all have to sit around and pretend the reason the WWC voted for Trump was economics, when a black woman with a high school education has worse economic prospects than a white man with a high school education, but she was far less likely to support Trump. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2017, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slate-article-dems-are-still-pooping-the-bed-when-it-comes-to-dealing-with-the-white-working-class/788208/35 "2017-06-05T22:25:52Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Lots of people are showing you the evidence. You’re just refusing to accept it. By “lots of people” do you mean **Lance Turbo** ’s absurd comparison of “make America great again” - a slogan that was neither directed exclusively at whites / men / white men, and also did not promise “more than everyone else”? Or did you have someone else in mind too? If I were to ask you for just a list of posts in this thread that provided me this evidence, how many post numbers would I get back? I await your answer, and hope that it will do something to restore your badly-damaged reputation in my mind, because as things stand now, you’re teetering on the edge of being tossed into the not-to-be-taken-seriously pile alongside **Lance Turbo**. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2017, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slate-article-dems-are-still-pooping-the-bed-when-it-comes-to-dealing-with-the-white-working-class/788208/36 "2017-06-05T22:47:26Z")
> [@Lance\_Turbo](#): > > Nope. > > But that’s what it meant in the minds of more than a few Trump voters. I’m not always the quickest on these dog whistles. You’re basically saying “Make America Great Again”=“Let’s bring back Jim Crow laws”? Seems a stretch. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2017, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slate-article-dems-are-still-pooping-the-bed-when-it-comes-to-dealing-with-the-white-working-class/788208/37 "2017-06-05T22:47:50Z")
Re the notion of “But Hillary did talk to working class whites here is her platform” is neatly encapsulated in this Atlantic article [The Dangerous Myth That Hillary Clinton Ignored the Working Class](https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/12/hillary-clinton-working-class/509477/) and the presumption in the above article is almost the exact same presumption by the interviewer in the Slate article that was thrown back at him by the author as absurd, specifically that the policy details of the campaign platform and talking points are what the voters should be paying attention to and that _they_ should be what the POTUS decision is based on. When the author told him " No I think that’s completely unrealistic." Saying “it’s in the platform” as if that should suffuse out to the polity who should be responsible and dive into the details is insane. That’s not the way real visceral political communication works if you expect to get elected. > [@](#): > > Interviewer: I watched a lot of campaign speeches last year, and I can tell you the single biggest topic of conversation in Trump campaign rallies was Donald Trump. And if you tallied up the time that Hillary Clinton spent talking about jobs for the American people versus Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton spent way more time. And if you look at their websites Hillary Clinton has more plans, or had, for Americans without college degrees than Donald Trump does, and the more sensible plans, at least by my analysis and I think your analysis. Don’t “average people” have some responsibility to learn this. > > Author: No I think that’s completely unrealistic. > > Interviewer: I agree it’s unrealistic, but I am not sure whose fault that is. ---
**Author:** ![amarinth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3be4f8/32.png) [@amarinth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarinth)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2017, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slate-article-dems-are-still-pooping-the-bed-when-it-comes-to-dealing-with-the-white-working-class/788208/38 "2017-06-05T22:56:39Z")
> [@elfkin477](#): > > Huh. Why do you think she chose “I’m With Her” as her motto, then? She didn’t. Her motto was “Stronger Together.” “I’m With Her” is what a lot of people said. It got hashtagged frequently and people not directly affiliated with the campaign sold a lot of merch with that slogan on it, but it wasn’t her motto. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2017, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slate-article-dems-are-still-pooping-the-bed-when-it-comes-to-dealing-with-the-white-working-class/788208/39 "2017-06-05T22:58:44Z")
> [@Lance\_Turbo](#): > > “Make America great again.” I believe he said it more than once. Going from this to “White men deserve more than anyone else” is a huge Rorschach-Blot projection-stretch. You might as well say that “I’m With Her”, Hillary’s campaign, means “Men are inferior sub-human creatures.” ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2017, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slate-article-dems-are-still-pooping-the-bed-when-it-comes-to-dealing-with-the-white-working-class/788208/40 "2017-06-05T23:06:30Z")
> [@amarinth](#): > > She didn’t. > Her motto was “Stronger Together.” > > “I’m With Her” is what a lot of people said. It got hashtagged frequently and people not directly affiliated with the campaign sold a lot of merch with that slogan on it, but it wasn’t her motto. I don’t know how you’re defining “motto” ([wikipedia lists](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillary_Clinton_presidential_campaign,_2016) both “I’m with her” and “stronger together” as campaign “slogans”), but pretending that it all came from people not directly associated with the campaign is ludicrous. > [https://www.hillaryclinton.com/tools/withher/president-obama/](https://www.hillaryclinton.com/tools/withher/president-obama/) [https://www.hillaryclinton.com/tools/withher/michelle-obama/](https://www.hillaryclinton.com/tools/withher/michelle-obama/) [https://www.hillaryclinton.com/tools/withher/vp-biden/](https://www.hillaryclinton.com/tools/withher/vp-biden/) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slate-article-dems-are-still-pooping-the-bed-when-it-comes-to-dealing-with-the-white-working-class/788208.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slate-article-dems-are-still-pooping-the-bed-when-it-comes-to-dealing-with-the-white-working-class/788208.md?page=3)