Hell yeah they would have. Long-haired, unemployed Palestinian w/ no stuff? Why, I bet this Christ fellow doesn’t even TRY to speak English!
One unfortunate thing I find myself seeing in abundance no matter the type of people I’m around is suffering and scorn. I remember a time when my levels of assholery were well above the norm - now I seem to blend in seemlessly.
I agree with the Brazilians: the first practical heavier-than-air craft was developed by Alberto Santos-Dumont, a famous Brown Person.
It was completely the notion that it’s a zero-sum game, not racism, hostility, etc… It was viewed that a lot of that sort of thing was taking away from other stuff that the government should have been doing, or that it’s directly taking resources away from what they hold dear.
It’s a matter of prioritization; it’s no different than worrying about poor people in some other country- most people don’t bear them any ill will, but feel that we should take care of stuff closer to home first. The difference was that it was a different set of “foreign” things that were lower priority.
And I believe we see the same exact thing today; many of the GOP voters aren’t actively hostile to these things, but they feel that concentrating on them takes away from what they hold dear.
Well, it is racism when you complain that something is being taken from “us” and given to “them”.
Right, and by foreign, they meant “other”. All of that is simply code for racism. “Taking care of your own”, and all that.
Racism doesn’t have to deal with hostility. Racism can be through indifference as well.
Hostility is what comes out when indifference doesn’t solve the racists problems.
And that is because they are ignorant and wrong.
Can they even articulate what it is that they hold dear, and how it is that it is being taken away from them by not discriminating against minorities?
You just know it all, don’t you?
Not everything comes back to racism, and merely prioritizing things over redressing racial imbalances or betterment isn’t necessarily racist either.
I’ll use an example. One of my grandfathers was a chemical plant operator like I said upthread. We were driving somewhere near the chemical plant complex he worked at, and there were always a wide variety of weird chemical stinks in the air near them. One was particularly stinky, and I asked “What is that smell?!” and his answer was “Money”, because those plants and the stinks they emitted were the vehicle by which he was able to provide for his family, and by extension, through which his community survived and thrived.
If you’d have asked him what he thought about environmental regulation aimed at eliminating those stinks, he’d probably have been all for it, right up to the point when it meant that someone would lose their jobs or be paid less. That’s what I was getting at- it wasn’t outright hostility, but a matter of prioritization.
And a lot of the us-vs-them mentality is where these working-class people pay their taxes, save, and do a lot of sacrificing to make sure their families are taken care of, including supporting polluting employers, etc… and then they see the government taking that tax money and effectively handing it to another group. You can see how that might irritate people. I don’t doubt that there was/is racism involved, but the genesis of the feeling isn’t necessarily racism- that’s a modifier. The genesis is the idea that they’re taking from us, who is barely making it, and giving it to them (whoever that “them” is). Had “them” been white people in Kansas, they’d still have been pissed, albeit not quite as much.
I think today’s GOP voters feel much the same, except with probably less racism overall, and more rural vs. urban animus.
Nope, I make it a point to learn something new every day.
Others make it a point to make sure that no new thought ever enters their head.
Just because something is not intended with racism, doesn’t mean that it has a racially disparate impact.
Is that plant still there? Is the community still thriving? Did their sacrifice of their health and their comfort pay off in the long run?
And that is his ignorance. He doesn’t care about the long term effects of the chemicals. He doesn’t care about the danger it puts him in, nor the danger that it puts those who live near it, and he doesn’t care about the long term effects.
If you had told him that those stinks were actually cancerginogins that would halve the expected lives of his children, he would still worry more about losing his job, wouldn’t he?
If some money was lost because of safety regulations, and some deadly chemical plant explosions were averted, would he begrudge those lost jobs?
Yes, he is exactly what I am talking about, selfish and short sighted.
what happens is that they are told by the media outlets that they choose to listen to that that is happening. What is actually happening is that those tax dollars, along with others, are coming right back into his community. they are going to roads, they are going to infrastructure, they are going towards schools. They are going to his neighbors who are not as fortunate. They only see the govt “effectively handing it to another group.” because they are paying more attention to what other groups are getting than to what they are.
And sure, this group gets this, and that group gets that, but then you conflate it to “they are getting all of this and that”, while refusing to acknowledge that you too, are getting either this or that.
I understand that that is a perception that many have in this country, but that is a perception that is based on falsehood, and is not actually related to the real world.
Right, “them vs us”,and you even acknowledged that white people getting stuff wouldn’t bother them as much.
but, yeah, I can see how it would irritate people. If I believed that the govt was taking from me, giving nothing back, and giving the fruit of my labors to “others”, then I may be irritated too. As that is not what is happening, and that is only a fantasy concocted by the right wing in order to cause irritation at the govt by their viewers, I know that I have to take this irritation seriously, as they do vote and do hold power, but I do not feel as though this irritation is justified, based on what is actually happening in the world.
I agree that GOP voters are still operating under the same incorrect assumptions about how the world works. I do not agree that we should coddle them for having that impression. And, as they way “urban” is used by much of the right wing media, it is essentially synonymous with “black” I do not see the same daylight between that and racism.
Maybe not coddle exactly, but I think the Democratic party does itself a disservice by dismissing all this as “selfish and ignorant” or the product of mere racism.
That’s been my point all along- it’s NOT necessarily just a bunch of ignorant hicks out in the hinterlands who are voting for Trump.
Instead, it’s a big chunk of people who SHOULD be Democratic voters in any sane universe, but they’re getting described as “deplorables” or told they’re not enlightened enough, or not tolerant enough, or that they’re not on board with the agenda.
I mean, I get where these people are coming from. It seems like as a white male, all I hear anymore is a lot of hostility from the left about how I’m part of the patriarchy, along with a lot of general hostility about “old white men”.
I can’t help but think that if I was a blue collar white guy and heard that same stuff, along with seeing black people in particular benefit from government programs from which I derived no benefit, while struggling to make ends meet, that I might conclude that the Democratic party is not looking out for me. And the GOP is essentially saying the opposite- we want to lower your taxes, we want to quit these social programs, we think all this patriarchy stuff is nonsense, etc…
Why is it at all surprising that people would vote for them? It’s not right, and it’s not accurate, but right and accurate aren’t what count in elections; it’s perception. And the Democratic party is doing a terrible job AFAIK of changing their perception among the rank and file of white middle class, lower middle class and working class voters.
I would agree that most GOP-voting suburbanites are just assholes though.
But you’re only seeing this stuff if you’re confining yourself to Fox News or other right-wing entertainment sources. Reality is very different. And I don’t think open-minded and tolerant people generally confine themselves to such sources. It might be a self-fueling cycle, but a big part of what’s fueling that cycle is the bigotry, xenophobia, and general close-mindedness of those that purposefully place themselves in that bubble.
I get that- what I’m saying is that they’re not going to come out of that bubble if you stand outside and tell them they’re closed-minded, intolerant, too bigoted, too unenlightened, etc…
They’re going to hunker down, pinch their noses and vote Trump, or whoever succeeds him, like clockwork because they’re convinced you don’t stand for them.
It’s an opportunity for the Democratic party to exercise some of that tolerance, and gently educate these folks that these things they believe aren’t actually the case, and that in general, they’re for what’s good for everyone.
But everyone on this side of the fence seems to be doubling down on the screeching and condescension, and that’s not going to get anyone anywhere.
I don’t think that they dismiss it at all. However, I do think that the news media that these people choose to consume tells them that they are dismissed.
Well, I will agree that the optics of calling racists “deplorable” were bad, but only because the right wing media repeated that word over and over and over again, insisting that it applied to all of their viewers, and not just the racists that it was directed at.
In a sane universe, they would be democratic voters. In the Fox Bubble, they are told not to be.
[quote]
I mean, I get where these people are coming from. It seems like as a white male, all I hear anymore is a lot of hostility from the left about how I’m part of the patriarchy, along with a lot of general hostility about “old white men”.
[?quote]
And these criticisms do exist. But they exist in small scales, people on blogs and such. Sometimes there are nuances about a discussion on race and privilege that may make something as notable as “The Atlantic”.
this is then distorted and amplified by the right wing media. It is that media that you are choosing to use to inform yourself that is telling you these things. All you hear is hostility, because that is all that they are showing you.
If you don’t want to hear it, stop listening to it. Don’t blame the democrats for Fox News repeating what you don’t want to hear. They are doing it with the specific intent of making you feel exactly how you feel.
Then you’d be wrong. But youre views would be supported by the media that you watch.
and how would you suggest the democrats change the way that they are portrayed on Fox News?
Hey, that’s my parents you are talking about. I could take that as an insult, as you just called my parents assholes, or I could say, yeah, they are, aren’t they. I still love them, but man, they are some real assholes.
That’s kind of my point – in general, the Democratic party is doing what you suggest. Only Fox News and co insist that all they’re doing is “doubling down on the screeching and condescension”.
Right. The Democrats can’t do anything about what Fox News and right wing media says about them. That you buy into that as the “Democratic party is doing a terrible job AFAIK of changing their perception among the rank and file of white middle class, lower middle class and working class voters.” just says how successful they are spreading this false narrative.
We used to have a fairness doctrine, but now there’s simply nothing the Democratic party can do to stop the right wing from lying about them and their motivations.
I agree- what she said wasn’t unreasonable or wrong at all, but people misconstrued it and took it to mean that everyone who voted for Trump is “deplorable”, not specifically the alt-right crowd, who pretty much everyone else agrees ARE deplorable.
I think it’s more common than you think; I don’t watch Fox News, I don’t read a bunch of blogs, etc… Pretty much just here, and Reddit, and I STILL hear about it surprisingly often- it’s made it as far as the upper middle class Facebook circles my wife’s in- she’s started using vocabulary and comments I’d only heard on here.
So I figure if you’re especially sensitive to it, and a Fox News person, you’re probably at the point where you think it’s the prevailing non hard-right position out in the wider world.
Mine too… Some of it is explainable- and I’ve been trying to do that where I can, but some is just assholery- I have a guy I know who lives in a small city, and politically he’s just… entirely angry and hateful toward anything that’s not intended to maintain the status quo and/or bring back the 1940s and 1950s. The really bizarre part is that he’s 46, not 86. In all other respects, he’s a great guy, but politically, he’s a complete dick. My parents and their cohorts are less so, but still have some dose of dickishness. Which is interesting, because my parents aren’t racist. At worst, you can say they don’t entirely understand a lot of the racial issues, but they’re not hostile or hateful or bigoted.
Sorry, bump, anyone who voted for Trump is deplorable, There were exactly zero good reasons to vote for that clown.
No, they need the rock dropped on them.
I’ve said before, Trump’s base has eroded as much as much as it is going to; if someone* is still supporting Donny Two-scoop’s policies at this time, nothing he nor his opponents say or do between now and November 2020 is going to move that needle. The Dems need to woo members of the Apathy Party – those who did not bother to vote at all – to their side.
*I’m looking at you, McConnell
Well, sure, if you go looking for it. that’s a different matter. We are here, having deep nuanced conversations, and it is very often that if one sentence were taken out of the paragraph, then it would look pretty bad. I see people doing that from time to time, and it is certainly not an honest approach, but it does seem to be effective.
We sometimes talk about hard things, things that are not discussed in polite company, and we are often cold and analytical about it.
If you judge democrats by excerpting bits of the conversations that they have online, then you are going to have a negative impression. I think that is true of any group throughout the history of forever. (well, not the online part, but the “private conversations” part)
My parents are the type of racists that insist that they are not racist because they’ve never lynched anyone. Well, that’s a start…
It took quite a while, but they have now accepted that there is a gay member in their church, and they are no longer working to prevent him from being able to take communion with them, so that’s coming a long way. They brag about how tolerant that they have become due to this.
But, then my father does believe that Obama wasn’t born here, and my mother believes that Hillary had Vince Foster killed and was responsible for the Benghazi attack. (not just that it happened under her watch, but that she planned it.)
now, I get that the last person in the world that a parent considers to be an authority on matters worldly is their own kid, but I have tried to get through to them, using mostly positive tactics, though I will admit to getting frustrated and having some raised voice conversations with them as well.
Point is, if your own family can’t get through to you, who can? If they won’t listen to their son, why will they listen to MSNBC?
See, this I need to disagree with.
Anyone who still supports trump is deplorable, but there were reasons one may have voted in 2016 for Trump that are not. Misguided, short sighted, ignorant, or even stupid, sure, but deplorable, that’s only about half.
I get it. I’ve been in periods of desperation where I would try something different, even if I didn’t know if it would work, because what I am doing now is not working.
There were those who really thought that they would get their coal mining jobs back. They are lied to and groomed, pretty much from birth these days, that democratic economic principles are inferior to conservative ones, and so, if the economy is not working for them, they go with who they think are better.
They are poorly informed, and it only took them 2 years to forget who was in charge during the worst economic crisis since the depression, but they think that the choice that they are making is good for the economy.
Only, a lot of those regulations actually create jobs. And a lot of measures which improve a factory’s environmental output actually improve its financial results as well. But the same people who assume that recycling your solvent will always cost more than not doing so tend to assume that anything which improves one aspect of anything will be because of something else losing. The idea that improving one aspect can have multiple positive impacts will be met with disbelief or scorn: if you truly believe and try to prove, and to provide examples, of cases where improving environmental behavior also improved safety, the health of workers and the bottom line, then that means you’re either lying or stupid enough to believe the pink snake oil you’re peddling.
It’s a matter of seeing everything as zero sums.
FWIW, I’ve been using my grandfather’s attitude as an example; he died in 1998 and was from the era when people were very loyal to their employers in a way we don’t even dream of today. It was an era of having a job for life, and where providing for your family was your first priority, and anything that threatened that was to be fought tooth and nail.
There is an article out there called “The Jacksonian Tradition” from 1999 that is actually written as an explanation of US foreign policy, but it rings extremely true when describing the folk community I grew up in in Texas in the 1970s, 80s and 90s.
In particular it describes the populist thinking of lower and middle class Protestant white males, and the folk codes that they live by, and how this affects their politics and by extension, their foreign policy choices.
It’s dead-on accurate from what I can tell, and kind of eerie, considering it was written some 20 years ago. I recommend reading it and then thinking about how the Democratic party could actually reach that crowd, rather than just dismissing them as ignorant or closed minded or whatever.