# 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:** 47
**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 15, 2018, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sneering-progressives-are-driving-young-white-men-into-the-arms-of-the-gop/813566/922 "2018-05-15T00:29:58Z")
> [@E-DUB](#): > > The personhood, or lack thereof, of those being killed by the guns in not a subject of dispute. What does that have to do with My Little Pony?? ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2018, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sneering-progressives-are-driving-young-white-men-into-the-arms-of-the-gop/813566/923 "2018-05-15T00:37:10Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > (1) People have been saying this for years: “We need better civics education in this country, so we have better informed voters!” But (a) that would be nice, but it’s not going to do much in the short or even semi-medium term, even if it were to happen–which, in the environment that is obsessed with math and reading scores, thereby sidelining social studies, is unlikely; and (b) we have to admit that not all our partisans are so well-informed either. But trying to somehow control how millions of progressives express their opinions is supposed to be more realistic and feasible than demanding personal responsibility among the electorate? Yeah, okay. There’s a propaganda machine in the form of Fox News working 24/7 to promote the narrative that liberals are the divisive, racist, and viscous ones. Hence, a comedian’s quip about SHS’s eye shadow is treated like a reprehensible tragedy on par with terrorism, while multiple conservatives can talk trash about a dying Senator and former Presidential nominee and not even get a tsk tsk by party leadership. This is the upside down world we’re living in right now, and you’re actually asking us to make it even more upside down by indulging the Republican lie that the problem comes from liberal messaging. Nonsense. Ain’t gonna lie: if I were a white man, I would be fucking embarrassed by this thread and others like it. Like, much more embarrassed than any secondhand racial embarrassment I’ve experienced as a black woman to date (which is saying a lot). So embarrassed my nuts would fall off and maybe even my body hair. Not only are we in a situation in which crazy, unscrupulous, and power-drunk white men in the White House are making a completely mockery of this nation, but we largely have white men to thank for this outcome because they actually thought a reality TV character was the real deal. Like, they took it in like kids take up Santa Claus. And now, instead of owning up to what they did and taking responsibility for it like grownups, we see white men blaming everyone except themselves. And other white men—even ones who didn’t vote for Trump—are enabling them in casting this blame! Where is the accountability here? Where is all the intellectual superiority that white men supposedly have over all the rest of us low IQ humanoids? Where have all the cowboys gone? ---
**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 15, 2018, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sneering-progressives-are-driving-young-white-men-into-the-arms-of-the-gop/813566/924 "2018-05-15T00:59:09Z")
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > But trying to somehow control how millions of progressives express their opinions is supposed to be more realistic and feasible than demanding personal responsibility among the electorate? Yeah, okay. Who said anything about controlling others’ expression of opinions? You won’t find anyone more committed to freedom of expression than me: I don’t even think Nazis should be kicked off Twitter. But people should rebut the things they say. Look at the sample dialogue I posted: where’s the control? I’m advocating that people pipe up and be seen and heard saying “that statement doesn’t represent what all or even most Democrats think”. > [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > Ain’t gonna lie: if I were a white man, I would be fucking embarrassed by this thread and others like it. Like, much more embarrassed than any secondhand racial embarrassment I’ve experienced as a black woman to date (which is saying a lot). So embarrassed my nuts would fall off and maybe even my body hair. Not only are we in a situation in which crazy, unscrupulous, and power-drunk white men in the White House are making a completely mockery of this nation, but we largely have white men to thank for this outcome because they actually thought a reality TV character was the real deal. Like, they took it in like kids take up Santa Claus. And now, instead of owning up to what they did and taking responsibility for it like grownups, we see white men blaming everyone except themselves. Thanks for providing an example of exactly what I am decrying. How can I interpret this statement as anything other than asserting that God, or Mother Nature, decided before you were born that you got to be one of the virtuous people, and the same force or forces decided that I was to be one of the bad ones? Neither of us can help that we were born a black woman and white man respectively. Yet I should feel collective guilt for what a majority of other white men did? Secondly, you imply something that I think a lot of people do believe, which is wrong and is actually counterproductive to believe: that white men overwhelmingly voted for Trump. In fact, Hillary got as many votes from non-Hispanic white men as she did from black women and Hispanic women combined. If white men voted as overwhelmingly Republican as black women vote Republican, Trump would have won all fifty states or close to it (not sure about Hawaii), the Senate would have between 0 and 2 Democrats out of 100, and the House would probably have something like 400 Republicans out of 435 total. Something else that you might not know: white men are the single demographic most likely to tell pollsters they are “very liberal”. You can kind of see a hint of that on this board. ---
**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 15, 2018, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sneering-progressives-are-driving-young-white-men-into-the-arms-of-the-gop/813566/925 "2018-05-15T01:03:25Z")
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > Ain’t gonna lie: if I were a white man, I would be fucking embarrassed by this thread and others like it. Like, much more embarrassed than any secondhand racial embarrassment I’ve experienced as a black woman to date (which is saying a lot). So embarrassed my nuts would fall off and maybe even my body hair. No you wouldn’t. I’m a white man and it’s only a little eye roll worthy. I hope some day you gain the confidence of a mediocre white man. ---
**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 15, 2018, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sneering-progressives-are-driving-young-white-men-into-the-arms-of-the-gop/813566/926 "2018-05-15T01:10:45Z")
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > … Research needs to go into figuring out why non-voters sat things out, so a smarter marketing strategy that addresses this population can be developed. … Exactly why HRC failed to connect. She came off to too many like trying to appease different focus groups and a shifting target of market research. > [@SlackerInc](#): > > … You guys say the GOP is not “surging” in the generic ballot. Maybe that’s not the best word, but when I look closely at this graph, I don’t see much sign of that red line being as high as it is now at any previous point in the last eleven months: [Generic ballot Polls | FiveThirtyEight](https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/congress-generic-ballot-polls/) … Not looking very hard then. Or you need to clean your glasses. Or to put it another way, I don’t see too much sign of that red line being much lower as it is now either. R has been mostly running a fairly narrow range of 37 to 41 up and down and is now 39.5 fairly in the middle. A week ago higher, three weeks ago higher, most of February higher, end of January higher … ---
**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 15, 2018, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sneering-progressives-are-driving-young-white-men-into-the-arms-of-the-gop/813566/927 "2018-05-15T01:10:46Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > If white men voted as overwhelmingly Republican as black women vote Republican, Ugh, obviously this was supposed to be “…as black women vote Democratic”. ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2018, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sneering-progressives-are-driving-young-white-men-into-the-arms-of-the-gop/813566/928 "2018-05-15T01:11:15Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Rinse, repeat. There’s nothing wrong with slamming the right. I’m talking about slamming all white men, without caring that some of them might be on your side or at least open to the idea. No one is defending slamming all white men, so shouldn’t we regard this as nothing but a straw man? The tweet exchange you copied is nowhere close to representative of most political conversations taking place, and the fact that you found in that exchange a positive voice to highlight actually shows there’s often depth and nuance even in the most shallow and vitriolic exchanges. ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2018, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sneering-progressives-are-driving-young-white-men-into-the-arms-of-the-gop/813566/929 "2018-05-15T01:13:42Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > No you wouldn’t. I’m a white man and it’s only a little eye roll worthy. I hope some day you gain the confidence of a mediocre white man. Lol. Perhaps I’m projecting too much black woman dignity into things. ---
**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 15, 2018, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sneering-progressives-are-driving-young-white-men-into-the-arms-of-the-gop/813566/930 "2018-05-15T01:13:50Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Not looking very hard then. Or you need to clean your glasses. Or to put it another way, I don’t see too much sign of that red line being much lower as it is now either. R has been mostly running a fairly narrow range of 37 to 41 up and down and is now 39.5 fairly in the middle. A week ago higher, three weeks ago higher, most of February higher, end of January higher … I’m looking on a phone (no longer have anything else but that or a creaky old iPad to connect to the Internet with). In any case, the numbers are not good enough to retake the House, given what a lot of people call “gerrymandering” but is mostly about the inefficient distribution of Democratic voters. So regardless of whether we’re surging or not, we’re not where we need to be. Do you dispute that? ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2018, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sneering-progressives-are-driving-young-white-men-into-the-arms-of-the-gop/813566/931 "2018-05-15T01:15:11Z")
This thread is pretty solid evidence that sowing racial discord and tribalism can still be an effective political strategy. For years, mainstream Republicans used dog whistles. Trump said “Fuck the dog whistle. This is my clarion call” and it could damn well work. One reason I’m a chicken little is because I realize how easily the human animal can be easily manipulated. ---
**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 15, 2018, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sneering-progressives-are-driving-young-white-men-into-the-arms-of-the-gop/813566/932 "2018-05-15T01:17:09Z")
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > No one is defending slamming all white men, so shouldn’t we regard this as nothing but a straw man? The tweet exchange you copied is nowhere close to representative of most political conversations taking place, and the fact that you found in that exchange a positive voice to highlight actually shows there’s often depth and nuance even in the most shallow and vitriolic exchanges. Thanks for crediting me with “depth and nuance”, as that “positive voice” was supposed to represent me–or anyone else who takes my advice. 😃 But as I thought I had made clear, that was a creative writing exercise, not an actual tweet exchange. It was my suggested approach, in response to the question “what do you suggest we do?”. And you did in fact strongly imply a collective responsibility to white men for Trump. It’s just a few posts upthread. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2018, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sneering-progressives-are-driving-young-white-men-into-the-arms-of-the-gop/813566/933 "2018-05-15T01:28:58Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Ugh. As noted above, it’s disconcerting to me to see the basic thesis I’m arguing for get shifted in this way, to a complaint about sneering at people for their politics or cultural preferences. Those are not immutable! Meh. You assert _(your OP)_ that sneering is driving one group of people into a specific political camp. It may be a bad thing to engage in sneering, but after all these posts, no one has provided evidence that such sneering is actually having an effect on people who were not already predisposed to join that political camp. I do not favor the sneering crowd and a thread (IMHO? MPSIMS?) trying to persuade Left leaning people to stop sneering may be a wonderful thing. This is Great Debates and the specific thrust of the OP has not been supported by any statement, poll, or survey that the sneering has had the results attributed to it. ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2018, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sneering-progressives-are-driving-young-white-men-into-the-arms-of-the-gop/813566/934 "2018-05-15T01:34:03Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > (2) My exhortation is to simply do what I suggested in my narrative, which I’ll repost since it got such a disappointing “crickets” non-reaction the first time: > > I’d love to know how this kind of interjection/intervention makes “@bigtentprogressive” the thought police! I mean, seriously, people? …the narrative you posted got “crickets” because it was a load of nonsense. Lets start from the beginning: > [@](#): > > @snarkygrrl1: White boys gonna whiteboy. > @snarkygrrl2: You know it girl, ever failing upward in their glorious mediocrity. > > —@whiteboyteen: hey whats wrong with being white? The two snarky girls are having a conversation. White boy teen, uninvited, decides to crash the conversation. How did white boy teen even know that these girls were having a conversation? Was he “following” the snarky girls? If he was, then he knows that the snarky girls are gonna snark. Its like going into the pit and having the vapours because somebody chooses to use the word “fuck.” Was he not following the snarky girls, but found out what they were saying because either somebody he was following signal-boosted them? Or did he find the conversation because he did a very specific general search for the term “whiteboy?” Or is “white boy teen” actually a bot, part of the Russian-linked propaganda bot army? So when white boy teen decides to interject himself into the conversation he starts by using a tactic that you are probably familiar with: and that is attacking a strawman. His question, “Whats wrong with being white?” has nothing to do with what the snarky girls have said. The snarky girls haven’t said that there is anything wrong with being white. Whiteboys are always gonna whiteboy. There isn’t anything “wrong” with that. As for " You know it girl, ever failing upward in their glorious mediocrity": well, snarky girls are gonna snark. So at this point the snarky girls have to decide whether or not it is worthwhile engaging with someone who has rudely interrupted their conversation. And to make that decision they would look to how productive such attempts have been in the past. Goobergate became a thing in 2014. It was a massive online movement that purported to be about “ethics in games journalism” but what it actually was was an explosion of male toxicity. They used a variety of tactics to harass women, people of colour, and vulnerable people online, including a tactic that became known as “sea-lioning.” When it all started, spotting “sea-lions” in the wild was difficult, because it was hard to differentiate between people who were asking genuine questions, and those that were just spoiling for a fight. But over time it didn’t become very hard to differentiate at all. Because almost nobody was actually asking “genuine questions” because nearly all of them were spoiling for the fight. Which brings us back to the narrative you invented. We have two snarky girls online, having a conversation that got rudely interrupted by a troll and the troll got the treatment he deserved. Were the two snarky girls “sneering progressives?” Fuck yeah. Are the two snarky girls responsible for driving young white males into the arms of the GOP? Fuck that shit. The second part of your narrative: that’s just fantasy. Its an invention: its how you “think” things would play out. And I’ll grant you, on occasion it may have played out exactly that way, because its a very big internet, and more surprising things do occasionally happen. And if you want to invest your time seeking out trolls on the internet and to spread the gospel of the democrats then you are welcome to do so. But it very rarely works. Because these people aren’t looking for answers, they are looking for a reaction, they are looking to “win an argument.” But if you are suggesting that this is the best way to deal with random people interjecting themselves into conversations on the internet? No it isn’t. Because it isn’t the snarky girls responsibility to fight for the “moral centre” of somebody that they do not know. People have agency. People are responsible for their own actions. If somebody chooses to vote for the Trump administration they do so because that is what they have chosen to do and it wasn’t because they were “driven there.” If America is at the stage where in order to prevent Trump from getting a second term snarky girls have to stop being snarky on the internet then America is well and truly fucked. I don’t believe that is true. You aren’t going to be able to police the internet. You aren’t going to be able to stop snarky girls being snarky. I’m a sneering progressive. What are you gonna do to stop me? > [@](#): > > (3) I don’t see how there is any cost/downside. Andy says doing stuff like this will turn off young voters of color. Do you really mean that, Andy, or did you misunderstand and think I was talking about actually changing the policy agenda, or some kind of anti-POC messaging? The cost/downside is in peoples mental and emotional well-being. Goobergate took a tremendous toll and drove many people away from the internet. The goobers did their very best to silence women, people of colour, of vulnerable people. And the lesson those people learnt was to not let themselves be silenced, to push-back on passive aggressive attacks, and to stand together. So for many, what you characterize as “sneering progressives” is simply people pushing back to reclaim their space online. ---
**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 15, 2018, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sneering-progressives-are-driving-young-white-men-into-the-arms-of-the-gop/813566/935 "2018-05-15T01:50:07Z")
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > Lol. Perhaps I’m projecting too much black woman dignity into things. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2018, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sneering-progressives-are-driving-young-white-men-into-the-arms-of-the-gop/813566/936 "2018-05-15T02:00:15Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Who said anything about controlling others’ expression of opinions? You won’t find anyone more committed to freedom of expression than me: I don’t even think Nazis should be kicked off Twitter. But people should rebut the things they say. They should rebut them if they want to, not out some anxiety over who the other guy is gonna vote for. > [@](#): > > Look at the sample dialogue I posted: where’s the control? I’m advocating that people pipe up and be seen and heard saying “that statement doesn’t represent what all or even most Democrats think”. Yes and in the process, you show that thing that is not happening, does in fact happen. I see this on the online forums I go to as well. Sometimes the more extreme voices dominate but more often there is a diversity of views and perspectives. There is something there for anyone on the internet. > [@](#): > > Thanks for providing an example of exactly what I am decrying. How can I interpret this statement as anything other than asserting that God, or Mother Nature, decided before you were born that you got to be one of the virtuous people, and the same force or forces decided that I was to be one of the bad ones? You’re kidding, right? For someone who started this [thread](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=824576) and has opined the most foolish things about how intelligence distributes by race, I’m tempted to see this pearl clutching as a joke. > [@](#): > > Yet I should feel collective guilt for what a majority of other white men did? Of course not. But in the spirit of [respectability politics](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Respectability_politics), you should really think about what message you’re sending about white men when you act as though they are too impressionable and weak-minded to think and vote responsibly. Was I being provocative with that paragraph? Hell yeah. I know the statistics on who voted for Trump and who didnt. My point isn’t really about the data; it’s about the very thing that seems to be your concern. Which is optics. Except in my case, I’m talking about the optics of white men. You might want to look at that. Mind you, I wouldn’t be saying any this if you weren’t the same poster who has promoted the “science” of Bell Curve apologists on this board and argued that whites have higher intellects than others. You have opened this particular door by showing us what you think of non-whites and it would be shame if someone were to think your views were representative of all white men. A big shame indeed. ---
**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 15, 2018, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sneering-progressives-are-driving-young-white-men-into-the-arms-of-the-gop/813566/937 "2018-05-15T02:04:51Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > I’m looking on a phone (no longer have anything else but that or a creaky old iPad to connect to the Internet with). In any case, the numbers are not good enough to retake the House, given what a lot of people call “gerrymandering” but is mostly about the inefficient distribution of Democratic voters. So regardless of whether we’re surging or not, we’re not where we need to be. Do you dispute that? Taking the generic tracker as the _sole_ input I go back to [538’s take](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/heres-the-best-tool-we-have-for-understanding-how-the-midterms-are-shaping-up/): > [@](#): > > … Rough estimates suggest that in 2018, the Democrats may need to beat Republicans by 5 to 8 percentage points nationally to win a majority of House seats. > > So if the Democrats maintain their 7-point advantage in the generic ballot, does that mean they are on their way to taking back the House? … Huh 7 points. Not far off from what it is now. That post? June 2017. That’s how long the tracker has been going up down in that range. At that point 7 points led 538 to call it 50/50. Since then the PA gerrymandering ruling which move the dial a few seats over from the gerrymandered advantage to R. And for prediction purposes we have the special election numbers (D+17) to factor in, which are historically as predictive as the generic tracker is, both +/- 5ish. Where we are now is enough to take the house and then some. Now is not Novmeber though. Midterms is about enthusiasm and turnout. Your imagined young white man unsure if he is comfortable voting with liberals when there are some meanie ones who question if a character in a movie would be better cast Black, and because he wandered into some snarky mean girls … he’s not voting D, he’s not voting R. He aint voting midterms. He likely did not vote even in the general, but he sure as heck won’t this November. I don’t count chickens yet though. Half a year is lots of time for lots to happen. ---
**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 15, 2018, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sneering-progressives-are-driving-young-white-men-into-the-arms-of-the-gop/813566/938 "2018-05-15T03:11:03Z")
DSeid, Vox seems to disagree with your view on the generic ballot, or they did as of a month ago: > **[The Democratic advantage in congressional generic ballot polls has been...](https://www.vox.com/2018/4/16/17242220/poll-democrats-midterm-elections-2018-congressional-ballot)** > > A lot could still happen between now and November. > [@](#): > > There’s also good news for the GOP in making gains among white voters, who said they prefer Republicans by a 14-point margin over Democrats, up from 5 points in January, according to the poll. Apparently white people do change their minds! And again: as distasteful as we might find it when any voter even considers voting Republican, those fickle folks are the ones we have to woo the hardest. > [@tomndebb](#): > > Meh. > This is Great Debates and the specific thrust of the OP has not been supported by any statement, poll, or survey that the sneering has had the results attributed to it. This is not GD, it’s Elections. I often go looking for debates, but here I was actually more hoping to do my little part to help Democrats be in better shape over the next few decades than they might otherwise. My experience with the thread has not been reassuring, and I expect that after this thread goes dark, I’ll go back to staying away from Elections as I have since November 2016. I would note also in response to your desire for ironclad proof that much of the way campaigns are run does not have such proof behind it. It would be nice if everything did, but sometimes we have to go with common sense. Kristin Soltis Anderson, a pollster who often appears on TV and is co-host of the podcast “The Pollsters” (a great listen, BTW) expressed a hunch about the softening of the millennial white male support for Democrats that was essentially identical to mine. She has conducted not only many polls but also focus groups in swing states and knows voters as well as anyone. > [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > Was I being provocative with that paragraph? Hell yeah. I know the statistics on who voted for Trump and who didnt. My point isn’t really about the data; it’s about the very thing that seems to be your concern. Which is optics. Except in my case, I’m talking about the optics of white men. You might want to look at that. But this is the same thing I keep trying to hammer home, to little avail. The Democratic Party is a group of people one can choose to associate with, or not. And it is organized around ideology and (theoretically) inclusiveness in terms of demographic diversity. So it makes sense for me (or any Democrat) to be concerned about whether others who are, or are perceived to be, Democrats present a welcoming image. Being a white man is not the same. It doesn’t make sense for me to be concerned about preserving a positive image of white men because to do so is to buy into this idea that white men (or black women) are a voluntarily chosen assemblage of like-minded people. They are not. White men are like women with autism or Native American people who are over six feet tall: they share two attributes which a person is born with and cannot change. The idea of their being a group with a group identity, with “optics” and a reputation they should manage, is closer to a Trumpian or alt-right view than anything I’m comfortable with. I asked if “I should feel collective guilt for what a majority of other white men did” and you replied “Of course not”. But then what did you mean by “And now, instead of owning up to what they did and taking responsibility for it like grownups, we see white men blaming everyone except themselves”? Sounds exactly like an expectation of collective guilt (“owning up”, “taking responsibility”) to me. > [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > Mind you, I wouldn’t be saying any this if you weren’t the same poster who has promoted the “science” of Bell Curve apologists FYI, a moderator earlier in the thread cautioned someone for making just this kind of ad hominem attack. You want to discuss a Pit thread, come to that thread and do so. Here, let’s stay with this one. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2018, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sneering-progressives-are-driving-young-white-men-into-the-arms-of-the-gop/813566/939 "2018-05-15T04:16:30Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > DSeid, Vox seems to disagree with your view on the generic ballot, or they did as of a month ago: > > [Poll: the Democratic advantage on the 2018 congressional ballot is shrinking - Vox](https://www.vox.com/2018/4/16/17242220/poll-democrats-midterm-elections-2018-congressional-ballot) > Apparently white people do change their minds! And again: as distasteful as we might find it when any voter even considers voting Republican, those fickle folks are the ones we have to woo the hardest. Seems to be missing the forest for the white trees. > [@](#): > > However, when ABC and the Washington Post posed the same question to a wider group of adults of voting age (not just registered voters), the Democratic spread was better — a 10-point margin, with 50 percent of adults saying they preferred the Democratic candidate and 40 percent preferring the Republican. Elsewhere the overall picture is very steady: > **[Generic ballot Polls](https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/generic-ballot/)** > > The latest political polls and polling averages from FiveThirtyEight. Yes, there is a concern about white voters, but it is still a concern that assumes that we should ignore that a good number is following really reprehensible ideas and men, people that indeed deserve to be sneered at. > **[Opinion | How to Make Fun of Nazis (Published 2017)](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/17/opinion/how-to-make-fun-of-nazis.html)** > > Don’t respond to fascists with violence. A German town offers some helpful tips. And yet, what I have seen are many examples of white guys (in this thread too) where they do realize that they are not the targets of that sneering, they do realize that the targets are those that do follow reprehensible ideas and men. What it is happening is that even in discussion of topics like this one I see some that frame this according to what some of those people that want to divide America want us to frame it. ---
**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 15, 2018, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sneering-progressives-are-driving-young-white-men-into-the-arms-of-the-gop/813566/940 "2018-05-15T04:30:00Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > DSeid, Vox seems to disagree with your view on the generic ballot, or they did as of a month ago: > > [Poll: the Democratic advantage on the 2018 congressional ballot is shrinking - Vox](https://www.vox.com/2018/4/16/17242220/poll-democrats-midterm-elections-2018-congressional-ballot) … You mean the article in which after they try to hype the change in an individual poll from an arbitrary high point admit that > [@](#): > > Of course, the ballot has fluctuated all year and will continue to do so. The generic ballot spread still has Democrats up about 6 points … ? In other words nothing to see there. Or as much to see as headlining that the recent YouGov Poll which has shown _surging_ D strength going from D+3 5/1 to D+9 5/8 with males going from R+1 to D+2 and the 18 to 29 year old group going from D+23 to D+37!!! Which is to say not much. Follow the aggregators and take spikes and dips in even them with skepticism until they’ve shown legs. That said I cannot disagree with their conclusion, a lot can still happen and it is not over. ---
**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 15, 2018, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sneering-progressives-are-driving-young-white-men-into-the-arms-of-the-gop/813566/941 "2018-05-15T04:38:57Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Seems to be missing the forest for the white trees. … John Birch Society? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sneering-progressives-are-driving-young-white-men-into-the-arms-of-the-gop/813566.md?page=46) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sneering-progressives-are-driving-young-white-men-into-the-arms-of-the-gop/813566.md?page=48)