# Sneering progressives are driving young white men into the arms of the GOP **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [May 4, 2018, 9:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sneering-progressives-are-driving-young-white-men-into-the-arms-of-the-gop/813566 "2018-05-04T09:14:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aji_de_gallina/32/260_2.png) [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aji_de_Gallina)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2018, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sneering-progressives-are-driving-young-white-men-into-the-arms-of-the-gop/813566/41 "2018-05-04T12:57:11Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > And yet how is this different from the “If only Hillary hadn’t called those people ‘deplorables’ they might have voted for her” argument? > > The underlying problem isn’t what progressives are doing. The underlying problem is that, much like the Southern Strategy courted racists, the GOP is currently courting assholes and they are coming out in droves. And right now the Alpha Asshole holds the White House. The Democrats don’t have an effective counter for that, because neither calling those people out for their assholery nor pandering to them will woo them to the Democratic side of the fence. > > Yes, the Democrats need to understand the reality of the situation but if you’ve got a solution to make people stop being selfish assholes, let’s hear it. Otherwise, stop trying to place the blame everywhere except where it belongs. The Southern Strategy is a myth. ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2018, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sneering-progressives-are-driving-young-white-men-into-the-arms-of-the-gop/813566/42 "2018-05-04T12:57:14Z")
Well, I’m a straight cisgendered age 40+ Christian white man and I do listen to several podcasts regularly. Granted, about 2/3 of them of from the NPR universe, but still. I also regularly follow progressive voices on twitter. I don’t hear sneering at white men. I do hear constant calling out of white men who don’t see their privilege or don’t use it to support women or people of color or sexual or religious minorities. Maybe we don’t listen to or follow the same media but I appreciate the occasional reminder to check my assumptions of what the world is like for people who are not like me and accept that men like me have shaped the world into a hostile place for people who are different. ---
**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:** [May 4, 2018, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sneering-progressives-are-driving-young-white-men-into-the-arms-of-the-gop/813566/43 "2018-05-04T12:57:18Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > You clearly don’t listen to pop culture podcasts. It’s endemic. > > But shaming people for white male privilege qualifies too. Even if it has major sociological validity, it’s strategically terrible. I’ve been a straight white man all my life. If people were sneering at me, I would have noticed it. I don’t see it. What I do see it are some of my fellow straight white men who think they are better than everyone else and resent it when other people treat them as equals. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2018, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sneering-progressives-are-driving-young-white-men-into-the-arms-of-the-gop/813566/44 "2018-05-04T12:59:34Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > I don’t doubt that the tax cut is part of it. I warned anyone who would listen Is there a ballet term for a simultaneous pirouette and back-pat? It’s nice how you managed to fail to acknowledge your error at the same time as you complimented your own foresight, and I feel like that should be recognized in a French term. ---
**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:** [May 4, 2018, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sneering-progressives-are-driving-young-white-men-into-the-arms-of-the-gop/813566/45 "2018-05-04T13:00:36Z")
[Pew Research: Wide Gender Gap, Growing Educational Divide in Voters’ Party Identification](http://www.people-press.org/2018/03/20/wide-gender-gap-growing-educational-divide-in-voters-party-identification/) > [@](#): > > As noted in our recent report on generations and politics, Millennial voters are more likely than older generations to affiliate with the Democratic Party or lean Democratic. Nearly six-in-ten Millennials (59%) affiliate with the Democratic Party or lean Democratic, compared with about half of Gen Xers and Boomers (48% each) and 43% of voters in the Silent Generation. A growing majority of Millennial women (70%) affiliate with the Democratic Party or lean Democratic; four years ago, 56% of Millennial women did so. About half of Millennial men (49%) align with the Democratic Party, little changed in recent years. But that’s not specifically white millennials, so if you have a link to what you’re talking about regarding a big shift there SlackerInc a link would be nice. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2018, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sneering-progressives-are-driving-young-white-men-into-the-arms-of-the-gop/813566/46 "2018-05-04T13:12:38Z")
I do not disagree with your prescription as a guide to general political health in any case: “stay away from dissing people for inborn traits that do not inherently prevent them from being thoughtful, caring, cosmopolitan, progressive allies.” Good guidance. Debatable about how much it happens but of course it does and those who do should stop it. But you are taking one online survey with a lot more seriousness than it deserves and assuming its complete accuracy jumping to an attribution without considering many other aspects that have occurred over the two year interval. First quarter 2016 was Obama still at his peak, before a group of Millennial Whites attached to Sanders and then felt disillusioned by the party, before Trump rebranded the GOP into whatever it is now, before lots of things. First quarter 2018 is after all that. OTOH whatever disparaging things are said when “straight cisgender white men, are talked about online and in podcasts” has been the case possibly even more before first quarter 2016. Believing the latter is the putative cause rather than any of the formers (the loss of Obama as frontman, Sanders sour grapes, the changes wrought by Trump, etc.) is illogical. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2018, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sneering-progressives-are-driving-young-white-men-into-the-arms-of-the-gop/813566/47 "2018-05-04T13:13:17Z")
> [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](#): > > The Southern Strategy is a myth. Whatever you say. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2018, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sneering-progressives-are-driving-young-white-men-into-the-arms-of-the-gop/813566/48 "2018-05-04T13:15:58Z")
Steronz, what about the NPR interview I talked about? Not just the interviewer, but the fact that everyone else working at that big organization did not flag this as a problem and there was no controversy in the media about it as far as I know. But it was really blatant. So its falling in the pond with nary a ripple says a great deal about a pervasive attitude. And things like that give a huge amount of fuel to the alt-right, as Steven Pinker tried to point out but got skewered for doing so: > **[Opinion | Social Media Is Making Us Dumber. Here’s Exhibit A. (Published 2018)](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/11/opinion/social-media-dumber-steven-pinker.html)** > > Steven Pinker is a liberal, Jewish professor. But social media convinced people that he’s a darling of the alt-right. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2018, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sneering-progressives-are-driving-young-white-men-into-the-arms-of-the-gop/813566/49 "2018-05-04T13:27:01Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > Whatever you say. The link is screwed up. Fixed version: > **[Nixon's Southern strategy (Published 1970)](https://www.nytimes.com/1970/05/17/archives/nixons-southern-strategy-its-all-in-the-charts.html)** > > J Boyd article on K P Phillips' theory as expressed in his book The Emerging Republican Majority that there is inevitable cycle of Repub dominance that will begin in late '60s and prosper until 21st century; it is ethnic theory premised on alleged... ETA: [PDF of the original article](http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/books/phillips-southern.pdf). ---
**Author:** ![steronz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steronz/32/11765_2.png) [@steronz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steronz)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2018, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sneering-progressives-are-driving-young-white-men-into-the-arms-of-the-gop/813566/50 "2018-05-04T13:32:57Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Steronz, what about the NPR interview I talked about? Diversity in Hollywood has been a major news story for a years now, there was a boycott of the 2016 Oscars, you might remember, it was national news. Studios are falling over themselves to greenlight shows featuring minority casts because there’s huge demand for them. Maybe I’d have a different opinion if I actually listened to the interview, but I read that as a topical discussion, not “sneering at white men.” Do you think it’s reasonable that young white men feel threatened by an influx of minorities on TV and run to the GOP as a result? ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2018, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sneering-progressives-are-driving-young-white-men-into-the-arms-of-the-gop/813566/51 "2018-05-04T13:35:40Z")
So these ‘snowflakes’ need a ‘safe place’ because they’ve been ‘triggered’ by some podcasts? (Surely republicans can’t find that language dismissive, right? ) ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2018, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sneering-progressives-are-driving-young-white-men-into-the-arms-of-the-gop/813566/52 "2018-05-04T13:37:15Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > I don’t doubt that the tax cut is part of it. I warned anyone who would listen that demonizing that tax cut last fall was a really stupid mistake by Democrats. And in this case, the actual elected leaders share a lot of the blame. If the world ever develops a superior system of government to replace democracy, I’m sure that idiot tax cuts will be cited as democracy’s worst feature and ultimate downfall. There is nothing that the average voter loves more than getting his taxes reduced, and the average voter is so maniacally in love with this idea **that the consequences of it absolutely do not matter** – in fact he doesn’t even want to hear about it. The whole country’s infrastructure could fall apart, the national debt could rise to the moon – he just doesn’t care. And this goes double for Republicans. ---
**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:** [May 4, 2018, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sneering-progressives-are-driving-young-white-men-into-the-arms-of-the-gop/813566/53 "2018-05-04T13:37:36Z")
Regarding the NPR interview, her very next line in the interview walked it back: > [@](#): > > MCEVERS: Yeah, it’s not even the white thing. It’s like another show about a comedian dude trying to make it in the world. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2018, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sneering-progressives-are-driving-young-white-men-into-the-arms-of-the-gop/813566/54 "2018-05-04T13:41:35Z")
It’s a valid question: if this meme (in the original Dawkins sense) is being perpetuated not by party leaders or by defined progressive organizations, what’s the remedy? I would say that it comes down to being willing to be brave and counter it when you see it. Think about whether a smart young white guy might be watching or reading and be visible as a progressive that doesn’t support that message. If you are a woman or POC, even better. Instead of liking, retweeting, or just letting this shit pass on by, call it out. It takes guts like any political action against powerful/influential voices. But if enough people started doing this, it might catch on. If you genuinely don’t see this happening, because you don’t run in these spaces or somehow don’t see it even there, then the answer is: do nothing. But be aware, watch for it, and push back if you see it. That’s all I ask. Point out that without the votes of white men, we’d have a few members of the Congressional Black Caucus in the House, and nothing else. No Obama, no Speaker Pelosi, etc. That letting white men settle in the GOP at anywhere near the percentage black women have found a home in the Democratic Party means we’re sunk. And, again, that people can’t control whether they are born white and male any more than whether they are black and female. We have to judge people by their actions. Preferably after they have gotten out of their parents’ sphere of influence a bit, although that’s murky. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2018, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sneering-progressives-are-driving-young-white-men-into-the-arms-of-the-gop/813566/55 "2018-05-04T13:46:26Z")
> [@](#): > > [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-u](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-u)…-idUSKBN1I10YH > > > [@](#): > > > > The shift was especially dramatic among young white men, who two years ago favored Democrats but now say they favor Republicans over Democrats by a margin of 46 to 37 percent, the Reuters/Ipsos poll showed. At least somebody noticed that Hillary lost the election. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2018, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sneering-progressives-are-driving-young-white-men-into-the-arms-of-the-gop/813566/56 "2018-05-04T13:46:40Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > Regarding the NPR interview, her very next line in the interview walked it back: Sort of. Sounded to me like it would have been okay with her if it were a white woman. But just listen to that audio and tell me that is journalistic professionalism on a level one would expect at that level. In a show biz interview! ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2018, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sneering-progressives-are-driving-young-white-men-into-the-arms-of-the-gop/813566/57 "2018-05-04T14:00:22Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > The genuflecting, even self-flagellating white man who is always at the ready to provide intellectual support for identity politics. So a straw man, then. Do you have even a single post in which I’ve ever “self flagellated” (whatever that means)? As for identity politics, I’m concerned about discrimination and bigotry… I guess that counts as identity politics from the anti social justice faction. ---
**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:** [May 4, 2018, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sneering-progressives-are-driving-young-white-men-into-the-arms-of-the-gop/813566/58 "2018-05-04T14:00:51Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Sort of. Sounded to me like it would have been okay with her if it were a white woman. > > But just listen to that audio and tell me that is journalistic professionalism on a level one would expect at that level. In a show biz interview! I did listen before I posted. “dripping with open derision” seems pretty hyperbolic. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2018, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sneering-progressives-are-driving-young-white-men-into-the-arms-of-the-gop/813566/59 "2018-05-04T14:02:06Z")
> [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](#): > > The Southern Strategy is a myth. Right. The overwhelming millions of white southern racist just changed parties by coincidence. It had nothing to do with opposition to Civil Rights, or the Republicans trying to appeal to those voters. Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms just happened to switch parties on a whim. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2018, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sneering-progressives-are-driving-young-white-men-into-the-arms-of-the-gop/813566/60 "2018-05-04T14:12:51Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Right. The overwhelming millions of white southern racist just changed parties by coincidence. It had nothing to do with opposition to Civil Rights, or the Republicans trying to appeal to those voters. Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms just happened to switch parties on a whim. On this we agree 100 percent. I don’t know how anyone can argue otherwise. It might sound contradictory for me to say this, but I have long said that as parties changed and they nearly reversed positions, the easiest way to analyze politics in bygone eras is to ask which party had the strong support of white men in the Deep South, and there’s your “bad” side. This gets mangled by FDR, but otherwise it holds up well. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sneering-progressives-are-driving-young-white-men-into-the-arms-of-the-gop/813566.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sneering-progressives-are-driving-young-white-men-into-the-arms-of-the-gop/813566.md?page=4)