Sneering progressives are driving young white men into the arms of the GOP

[iiandyiiii]

@Ashtura

Well, hopefully the democrats can find another “articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking” black guy to run. That’ll make it a lot easier. Pesky term limits.

They don’t need an Obama every time. They just need someone a little more exciting than Hillary.

[ElvisL1ves]

Someone with a Y chromosome …

[k9bfriender]

@Blalron

Even if I concede that it’s an bullshit reason to switch from Democrat to GOP, the perception still exists in the minds of white voters that the Democrats are unwelcoming to whites. Without changing a single policy position on the Democratic side, what would be the harm in trying to counteract that perception? Denounce the movie critics, and the crazy antics of the college campus left. Why would it be bad for the next Democratic Presidential candidate to denounce this?

I’m white, I don’t feel as though the democrats are unwelcoming. Now, i don’t feel as thought hey are pandering to me, and praising me for my whiteness. I suppose that could be considered to be welcoming to some, and if that’s the case, if being pandered to and being told that you are special because you were born into a culture that values the color of your skin over that of others was important to me, I would go and join the republicans.

@CarnalK

The funny part is how you think that hasn’t been mentioned a billion times including by yourself.

The funny part is how it still has yet to sunk in.

@HurricaneDitka

Wait, what? I’m confused too. Which “other party’s views” did you think I was agreeing with?

That systemic racism is bad.

Does your millage vary from that?

[quote]

@Ashtura

The white demographic will become a minority in approximately 2045. White voters are increasingly leaning GOP, with self-identified white democrats decreasing approximately .5% per year over the last decade (currently 26%, from 31% in 2008). I suspect this trend will continue, and if it does, we’re looking at approximately 12 point additional loss by 2045, putting democrats at approximately 14% among whites, and 7% across the whole country. That will probably happen no matter what. The year might not be right, but I believe that will happen sooner rather than later. They may go republican, they may go independent, but they will go bye-bye from the democratic party, unless something truly remarkable happens.

Looking at this in the long-term, as I think some are, democrats have far less to lose pissing off whites than they do pissing off minorities. If democrats lose the minority vote, they’re dead, period. They know this, and are banking on minorities by pushing identity politics and intersectionality hardcore. Not saying that’s a purely pragmatic move, but there’s definitely some political motivation to. They pretty much have to. The question is, until whites are an inevitable minority, short term it is risky to piss them off. D’s may have to face some losses before they can win.

If we, as white people, want to be entirely selfish and pragmatic about it, we should make sure that minorities are treated equally and with respect, as it will not be long before we are one ourselves.

[Ashtura]

@iiandyiiii

They don’t need an Obama every time. They just need someone a little more exciting than Hillary.

I agree. If Obama voters not voting was a big factor, her sucking was right up there too. I think Biden could have won. I think a lot of people could have won. Bernie I’m not so sure (I’m not sure America’s ready for a self-identified socialist), but I definitely think Biden could have won.

[HurricaneDitka]

@SlackerInc

No. He addressed that to me. He was saying that I am right that Democrats could make their brand stronger, attract more votes, without actually changing policy positions, if liberals would take my advice. But he doesn’t want Democrats to have a stronger brand, because he doesn’t agree with Democratic policies, so he wants Democrats to attract fewer voters and thus have less of a chance of implementing their policies.

Right, Ditka?

ETA: If there’s any “contradiction” there, it’s that he is taking a slight risk, by agreeing with me, that the rest of you will go “shit, maybe he and other conservatives really are laughing all the way to the bank here” and change your ways. Unfortunately, though, I think he has pretty accurately surmised that you won’t in fact come to your senses.

Yes, you’re 100% spot on here.

[DSeid]

@Blalron

Even if I concede that it’s an bullshit reason to switch from Democrat to GOP, the perception still exists in the minds of white voters that the Democrats are unwelcoming to whites. Without changing a single policy position on the Democratic side, what would be the harm in trying to counteract that perception? Denounce the movie critics, and the crazy antics of the college campus left. Why would it be bad for the next Democratic Presidential candidate to denounce this?

You misunderstand. It is not that it is a bullshit reason. It would be but there are no significant number of voters, y’know people who actually vote, who have. The claim that there is is bullshit.

Pandering to that fictional narrative would OTOH have real harm. No, what is suggested is no “Sister Souljah moment.”

And no I do not believe that there are any significant number of voters who are not within the hard third that would never vote D no matter what who perceive that the Democratic party is “unwelcoming to whites.” There are some who do feel that they and the significance of their problems are not being given enough attention by the party and who feel that they are being left behind. The party does need to market better to them, I think I have said that before, but not with meaningless tripe like condemning a movie critic for suggesting that a character in a movie might have been better cast as Black, but by actual recognition of the real problems and actual inclusion with explicit recognition that their problems matter too.

[Blalron]

@k9bfriender

I’m white, I don’t feel as though the democrats are unwelcoming. Now, i don’t feel as thought hey are pandering to me, and praising me for my whiteness. I suppose that could be considered to be welcoming to some, and if that’s the case, if being pandered to and being told that you are special because you were born into a culture that values the color of your skin over that of others was important to me, I would go and join the republicans.

I’m not saying Democrats should praise whites for their whiteness. I said they should denounce anti-white bigotry.

[Velocity]

@DSeid

Pandering to that fictional narrative would OTOH have real harm.

In which way?

As someone else pointed out upthread, the Democrats might not even have to change a single policy position. They could just talk differently, while still keeping 100% of their current policies intact.

[k9bfriender]

@Blalron

I’m not saying Democrats should praise whites for their whiteness. I said they should denounce anti-white bigotry.

There’s a few problems with that. You try to make it sound simple, but it isn’t, not really.

First you have to define anti-white bigotry. Some would say this is simple, but as there seems to be the perception that any sort of criticism of white people or the culture that promotes them is anti-white bigotry. If that’s the case, then this whole thing is a non-starter, and all it is is you saying that we cannot talk about systemic racial biases in our society.

If you want to denounce people over redlining white people, or calling the cops on them for loitering in a starbucks, or lynching them for looking at black women, or you know, things that actually cause harm to white people, then I’m there with you.

@Velocity

In which way?

As someone else pointed out upthread, the Democrats might not even have to change a single policy position. They could just talk differently, while still keeping 100% of their current policies intact.

You really think that just “talking differently” would fool the bigots?

[Airbeck]

How do the Democrats get random bloggers and podcasters to talk differently?

This is the thing I don’t understand, how is anyone supposed to change how other people use language? Can the Republican party stop the alt-right types from saying the awful things they are saying? I have not seen any actual suggestions on how this is supposed to work.

[HurricaneDitka]

@Slash1972

This is similar to the other thread where you said pretty much the same thing. And when asked which Democratic policies you think are bad, you stated something about minimum wage and your hope that it was abolished. When asked whether or not you thought abolishing the minimum wage would be good for most poor people, you conveniently stopped posting to the thread.

I don’t want to distract from the topic of this thread either, so I’m going to spoiler my response:

Here is the exchange we had in that other thread:

@HurricaneDitka

… I don’t want government to “fail”. I want it to advance conservative goals and principles. The second best thing it can do is nothing. The worst thing it can do is advance liberal goals. And there’s a vast distance separating these last two. I don’t call it “failure” when they do a little bit of the first, a lot of the second, and none of the third.

@Slash1972

Seems a strange position to take. “Hey, there are a lot of people in poverty. Maybe the government can get off it’s lazy ass and do something about it?” “Nope, I’d rather they do nothing than advance liberal goals”

@HurricaneDitka

It doesn’t seem strange if I consider the liberal policy goals, taken broadly, to be harmful to the poor.

@Slash1972

Fair enough. Without derailing this thread, could you pick one of the goals from this list and explain why you think it’s harmful to the poor?

@HurricaneDitka

Sure.

We should raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour over time and index it…

What would the results of such a policy be? I suspect we could have a robust debate about it, but here is one such analysis:

… increasing the minimum wage results in a substantial drop in the rate of job creation. They determine that the decline in job growth is the result of expanding establishments decreasing the number of jobs they create rather than resulting from additional job losses among declining industries.

The authors find that those most affected by the decline in job creation tend to be younger and less educated jobseekers, because these jobseekers are more likely than other workers to be interested in obtaining jobs that pay minimum wage. …

The discussion in that thread continued, but this is a good point to pause and point out what I see as a critical difference between that time and this as asking two distinct questions. In that thread, you constrained my choices with the following limitations:

1. “without derailing the thread”; which, BTW, I think was a good thing, I didn’t want to derail the thread either, even though our continuing discussion started to do just that (and I don’t want to derail this one, which is why I’m constraining my responses on this subject to this spoiler).

2. “pick one”; you were asking me to name just one thing, not give a comprehensive list of everything that the Dems have wrong. Up above, you said “when asked which Democratic policies you think are bad”, but you never asked me which “policies” (plural) were bad, you asked me to “pick one” (singular).

3. “from this list”; there are policies and positions the Dems pursue, collectively or individually, which are not listed in the party platform, but you limited my choice to only those things, giving me the distasteful chore of skimming through the Dem party platform to find one. Nonetheless, I obliged.

4. “harmful to the poor”; at that time, we were discussing a policy, from the Dem party platform, that harms the poor specifically. In this thread, my post which engendered this conversation was “overall I think the policies generally supported by most Republicans are better for the country”, there’s nothing limiting it to poor people there.

TL;DR: In the posted quoted at the top of this reply, you said, “when asked which Democratic policies you think are bad”, that’s a far larger category with fewer constraints than what you asked for previously, so you’re entire “when asked which Democratic policies you think are bad” is a misrepresentation of our earlier conversation.

As for when I “conveniently stopped posting to the thread”, the conversation died like an hour or two after my last post, for several days, and I did indeed lose track of the thread. My normal habit is to keep tabs open for discussions that I’m actively participating in, but sometimes (like computer restarts or crashes, or switching devices) I lose track of those and don’t always get back to replying to every thread or question. Shit happens.

[Slash1972]

@HurricaneDitka

I don’t want to distract from the topic of this thread either, so I’m going to spoiler my response

Thanks!

[Blalron]

@k9bfriender

There’s a few problems with that. You try to make it sound simple, but it isn’t, not really.

First you have to define anti-white bigotry. Some would say this is simple, but as there seems to be the perception that any sort of criticism of white people or the culture that promotes them is anti-white bigotry. If that’s the case, then this whole thing is a non-starter, and all it is is you saying that we cannot talk about systemic racial biases in our society.

If you want a specific example of an influential figure on the left, and not just some random Twitter crank, I think Ta-Nehisi Coates evinces anti-white bigotry.

Coates recently published an article excoriating Kanye West for supporting Donald Trump. Pay close attention to the language Coates is using about white people. The tagline to the article says that “Kanye West wants freedom—white freedom.”

He goes on to define what “white freedom” is:

@Ta-Nehisi Coates

freedom without consequence, freedom without criticism, freedom to be proud and ignorant; freedom to profit off a people in one moment and abandon them in the next; a Stand Your Ground freedom, freedom without responsibility, without hard memory; a Monticello without slavery, a Confederate freedom, the freedom of John C. Calhoun, not the freedom of Harriet Tubman, which calls you to risk your own; not the freedom of Nat Turner, which calls you to give even more, but a conqueror’s freedom, freedom of the strong built on antipathy or indifference to the weak, the freedom of rape buttons, pussy grabbers, and fuck you anyway, bitch; freedom of oil and invisible wars, the freedom of suburbs drawn with red lines, the white freedom of Calabasas.

[SlackerInc]

@Airbeck

How do the Democrats get random bloggers and podcasters to talk differently?

If other progressives would fire back at them, with something along the lines of #notmyprogressivism and substituting an inclusive message that is just as progressive, there are two possibilities:

(1) The random bloggers and podcasters might get chastened going forward. Social norms are a powerful thing.

Or, failing that:

(2) The young white guys I’m concerned about might say “hey, those people stuck up for me or for it being okay to be a white dude–maybe I’ll chat with them some more and see what their whole deal is”. Honey vs. vinegar and all that.

Is it really such anathema to even contemplate trying this? I honestly don’t get it, other than for the people who really love to be arch and condescending about this shit.

@k9bfriender

You really think that just “talking differently” would fool the bigots?

For the (n+1)th time, you don’t have to be a bigot to be less interested in a social club that scorns you for characteristics you were born with but cannot change.

[iiandyiiii]

@SlackerInc

For the (n+1)th time, you don’t have to be a bigot to be less interested in a social club that scorns you for characteristics you were born with but cannot change.

So they don’t have to become weird fringey internet people. We’re not asking them to. We’re asking them to vote Democrat, and this isn’t a problem with the party beyond a very small number of weird fringey internet people.

[Airbeck]

nm

[k9bfriender]

@Blalron

If you want a specific example of an influential figure on the left, and not just some random Twitter crank, I think Ta-Nehisi Coates evinces anti-white bigotry.

Coates recently published an article excoriating Kanye West for supporting Donald Trump. Pay close attention to the language Coates is using about white people. The tagline to the article says that “Kanye West wants freedom—white freedom.”

He goes on to define what “white freedom” is:

Those sound like freedoms that are currently enjoyed by white people that minorities do not have as much access to. Can you tell me what harm it caused you to read those words?

[MaxTheVool]

@iiandyiiii

Especially when an overwhelmingly outnumbered population has also been historically brutalized, slandered, oppressed, etc.

Right. THAT is what you should be focusing on. I can use the same statistical argument you’re using to demonstrate that left-handed people should be afraid of right-handed people. Therefore the statistical part of your argument is flawed. Therefore your overall argument is stronger without it.

[SlackerInc]

How about something like this:

@snarkygrrl1: White boys gonna whiteboy.
@snarkygrrl2: You know it girl, ever failing upward in their glorious mediocrity.

—@whiteboyteen: hey whats wrong with being white?

@snarkygrrl1: Oh look, we hurt his pweshus feewings!
@snarkygrrl2: Watch out, SG1, he might be feeling date rapey. They tend to get that way around this time of night.

@whiteboyteen: why would you say that, i wouldnt rape anyone

@snarkygrrl1: Riiight, because it’s not rape if she’s too drunk to say no, right?

—@bigtentprogressive: Don’t listen to them, WBT. They are making the mistake of thinking just because a lot of white guys might be a certain way, that they can judge all of them without knowing them.

@snarkygrrl2: Oh look, #notallwhiteboys! How sweet. But don’t you have some kind of Breitbart function you need to be running off to? Toodloo, now.

@whiteboyteen: oh, are you into breitbart

@bigtentprogressive: No way. Actually, those guys are really gross. They support politicians who want to let the 1% and corporations run everything and ruin the water and air just so they can make a little extra money. They may tell you “it’s okay to be white”, and that’s true: it IS okay to be white. But those alt-right guys really don’t think it’s okay to be anything BUT white, and that’s not cool.

@whiteboyteen: so your a democrat

@bigtentprogressive: Totally. Actually, lots of white guys are Democrats, even though you might not guess it the way people stereotype. Did you know Hillary got more votes from white guys than from black women and Latinas combined?

@bigtentprogressive: Lots of white guys are smart enough to know we don’t need leaders who either want to run everything based on the Bible (and not the good parts), or based on making rich people richer, or a lotta times both!

@bigtentprogressive: We want a $15 minimum wage, we want everyone to have a fair chance at jobs and places to live, we want to make sure schools and roads are taken care of, and we think being able to go to the doctor when you are hurt or sick is a human right everyone is entitled to, not just if you have a lot of money or connections to get you the right job.

@bigtentprogressive: And it’s not just okay to be white, it’s okay to be black, or Asian, or gay, or whatever…and no one should ever make you feel “less than” for being any of those things you are born with and can’t change about yourself (and hopefully, you wouldn’t want to).

@whiteboyteen: fair

I’d love to write the next line from the snark sisters, saying maybe they were being too harsh…but I’m not sure that feels realistic. Still, the rest of this might have done some good. Worth a shot IMO!

ETA: TNC writes for my favorite magazine, The Atlantic. He has done good work on redlining in Chicago and elsewhere, and I endorse his call for slavery reparations (I actually think there are white moderates who would see clear more to this than endless nebulous affirmative action). But he suuucks at building bridges. He’s more like the guy who raises the drawbridge, and burns it.

[Chimera]

There are also many false flag players, almost entirely on the right.

Russians posing as Americans and deliberately posting false and misleading information, often as Psi-Ops. Republicans are ludicrously easy to fool with these things.

Conservatives trolling other Conservatives. Antifas? It’s amazing how many of those “antifas” accounts turned out to be conservative trolls.