Current Affairs The 2020 United States Presidential Election

[BlueTX]

When the likes of Rich Lowry, Erick Erickson and others of their stripe are in agreement with this sentiment you know it was batshit cray.

 

[tsubaki]

You have to understand it from their point of view. They're desperate. They feel disenfranchised, completely unlistened to, desperate to belong to something aspirational. They are generally poorly educated and with few life chances beyond the few square miles they grew up in.

You don't fix the situation by laughing at them. You fix the situation by reaching out and improving their lot in life.

There is some truth in this, but then again "improving their lot in life" is something that the people who are responsible for putting the white working class poor in the dire situation they are in will oppose with every weapon at their disposal (and they have an awful lot of them).

Even attempting to sort their situation out is the sort of thing that would get most US politicians shot.

 

[sdk]

FFS, it only takes a ten-second Google search to learn that Trump voters tended not to be nearly as animated by economic concerns as by racial resentment and xenophobia.

Please stop spreading the "they're dispossessed and shaken by lost faith in the American Dream" myth. Trump got a good portion of working-class votes but they were overwhelmingly white voters. It's not class, it's race, which is a point that people on the left as well as the right are interested in ignoring.

 

[Pittsburgh Footy]

FFS, it only takes a ten-second Google search to learn that Trump voters tended not to be nearly as animated by economic concerns as by racial resentment and xenophobia.

Please stop spreading the "they're dispossessed and shaken by lost faith in the American Dream" myth. Trump got a good portion of working-class votes but they were overwhelmingly white voters. It's not class, it's race, which is a point that people on the left as well as the right are interested in ignoring.

Trumpism and republicanism since at least the early to mid-90s has never been about policy or giving the working guy a chance.

It's about culture war stuff

it's always been about culture war stuff

 

[Tubey]

FFS, it only takes a ten-second Google search to learn that Trump voters tended not to be nearly as animated by economic concerns as by racial resentment and xenophobia.

Please stop spreading the "they're dispossessed and shaken by lost faith in the American Dream" myth. Trump got a good portion of working-class votes but they were overwhelmingly white voters. It's not class, it's race, which is a point that people on the left as well as the right are interested in ignoring.

Where do you think that attitude comes from?

It's a result of economic reality. They're not aware enough to realise the root cause of their own hardship, so they resort to easy scapegoat targets like race.

People aren't born racist; they're conditioned to it. It's not a coincidence that the poorest areas - those that contribute the least to national GDP - support Trump overwhelmingly and the richest support Biden.

It's class. It's always been class.

 

[UptheTofees]

Wow

Chavez came up with this 20 years ago.

 

[Ruairi77]

There is some truth in this, but then again "improving their lot in life" is something that the people who are responsible for putting the white working class poor in the dire situation they are in will oppose with every weapon at their disposal (and they have an awful lot of them).

Even attempting to sort their situation out is the sort of thing that would get most US politicians shot.

Yea.
The more I read Tubeys comment, the harder it is to take. We need to make an effort to improve white men's lives?
Ok, how about free medical care, no? you don't want that?
what about free community college? no, not that either?
Ok, how about we tax billionaires and use the resources to improve infrastructure and create jobs in your area. No? no tax hikes period?

What about we deport the Guatemalan family three doors down, you'd like that?
And we ban abortion, that'll improve your situation, that's a yes?
And what if we allow fully automatic weapons and remove any remaining gasoline tax. You're all for that?

These people are brainwashed, many are uneducated by design.
And I think, wondering how to reverse that and change it is a valid question.
Improving their lot in life without getting them to question their beliefs and morals will just embolden them.
Nobody is laughing at trump supporters. Plenty are shocked by them tho.

 

[Ruairi77]

Where do you think that attitude comes from?

It's a result of economic reality. They're not aware enough to realise the root cause of their own hardship, so they resort to easy scapegoat targets like race.

People aren't born racist; they're conditioned to it. It's not a coincidence that the poorest areas - those that contribute the least to national GDP - support Trump overwhelmingly and the richest support Biden.

It's class. It's always been class.

Normally you'd be right but not in America.
This all boils down to slavery.
From the civil war to jim crow laws
to the war on drugs.
The civil war never ended.
As you say, people are not born racist, they are conditioned and here they've been conditioned from generation to generation for hundreds of years.

 

[Tubey]

Yea.
The more I read Tubeys comment, the harder it is to take. We need to make an effort to improve white men's lives?
Ok, how about free medical care, no? you don't want that?
what about free community college? no, not that either?
Ok, how about we tax billionaires and use the resources to improve infrastructure and create jobs in your area. No? no tax hikes period?

What about we deport the Guatemalan family three doors down, you'd like that?
And we ban abortion, that'll improve your situation, that's a yes?
And what if we allow fully automatic weapons and remove any remaining gasoline tax. You're all for that?

These people are brainwashed, many are uneducated by design.
And I think, wondering how to reverse that and change it is a valid question.
Improving their lot in life without getting them to question their beliefs and morals will just embolden them.
Nobody is laughing at trump supporters. Plenty are shocked by them tho.

No. Everyones. The lives of everyone in society. Make it fairer. Rectify the imbalances.

The idea is to stop thinking of Trump voters as "them". They're "us" - they're people from all walks of life, stuck in the same system but experiencing the unfairness of it in different ways.

Because all those things you've just listed assumes every single Trump voter thinks and supports everything. They don't. They have various life motivations and experiences. When it comes down to it, they'll always vote with the hot topic issue that affects their lives - for most, it's the economy (four times as many Republican voters had that as a major factor compared to Dems) and it's just as viable a voting motivation as an ethnic minority voting for the Dems due to Black Lives Matter. It's what is most important to them.

If you make society fairer overall, there's much less angst and tribalism. But the longer we make bitter enemies out of anyone with anything remotely contrarian in their views, the more divided and dangerous the world gets, and nothing gets fixed. Mitch McConnell blocks Biden at every turn with cheerleaders from the sidelines, and four years from now Trump or a competent version of him is back in, and the merry-go-round continues.

 

[Ruairi77]

No. Everyones. The lives of everyone in society. Make it fairer. Rectify the imbalances.

The idea is to stop thinking of Trump voters as "them". They're "us" - they're people from all walks of life, stuck in the same system but experiencing the unfairness of it in different ways.

Because all those things you've just listed assumes every single Trump voter thinks and supports everything. They don't. They have various life motivations and experiences. When it comes down to it, they'll always vote with the hot topic issue that affects their lives - for most, it's the economy (four times as many Republican voters had that as a major factor compared to Dems) and it's just as viable a voting motivation as an ethnic minority voting for the Dems due to Black Lives Matter. It's what is most important to them.

If you make society fairer overall, there's much less angst and tribalism. But the longer we make bitter enemies out of anyone with anything remotely contrarian in their views, the more divided and dangerous the world gets, and nothing gets fixed. Mitch McConnell blocks Biden at every turn with cheerleaders from the sidelines, and four years from now Trump or a competent version of him is back in, and the merry-go-round continues.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that there is deep seeded racism in this country that Trump has brought out from the shadows for political gain. It's not based on economics or class. If you make the life of the average Trump voter better, it's not going to make him less racist. Also I'm not sure you're getting the right image of the financial well being of most Trump supporters.
We're not making enemies with everyone who says something remotely contrarian. We're trying to figure out how to move forward in the face of fascism, racism, and in a lot of cases, complete insanity.
It's all well and good to propose a level playing field and raising standards for everyone but how do we deal with the institutional racism that is used as a political tool?

 

[sdk]

Where do you think that attitude comes from?

It's a result of economic reality. They're not aware enough to realise the root cause of their own hardship, so they resort to easy scapegoat targets like race.

Presumably so, as they're not opposing immigration on the traditional "they're taking our jobs" basis. They're lamenting the loss of "the American way of life," which tends to refer to an earlier age of unabashed white privilege and stricter race control generally. They're not objecting to the fact that healthcare costs are the leading cause of personal bankruptcy in America, but to hearing conversational Spanish at the donut shop.

Call it false consciousness if you like, but in the USA class conflict has usually been channeled into racial prejudice as a means of social control.

 

[catcherintherye]

Where do you think that attitude comes from?

It's a result of economic reality. They're not aware enough to realise the root cause of their own hardship, so they resort to easy scapegoat targets like race.

People aren't born racist; they're conditioned to it. It's not a coincidence that the poorest areas - those that contribute the least to national GDP - support Trump overwhelmingly and the richest support Biden.

It's class. It's always been class.

I'm not trying to be facetious here mate, but I'm pretty sure Trump polled best amongst people earning more than 100k and worst amongst those earning less than 50k.

 

[TN Toffee]

You have to understand it from their point of view. They're desperate. They feel disenfranchised, completely unlistened to, desperate to belong to something aspirational. They are generally poorly educated and with few life chances beyond the few square miles they grew up in.

You don't fix the situation by laughing at them. You fix the situation by reaching out and improving their lot in life.

If they truly feel disenfranchised then they’re even dumber than they’re typically portrayed as. No group of people have the scales of power tilted more to their favor than straight white men in all those red states you see on the election map.

 

[Tubey]

If they truly feel disenfranchised then they’re even dumber than they’re typically portrayed as. No group of people have the scales of power tilted more to their favor than straight white men in all those red states you see on the election map.

Ahh that'll be why they're poor, live in rural areas with bad education and career progression prospects then.

 

[Tubey]

I'm not trying to be facetious here mate, but I'm pretty sure Trump polled best amongst people earning more than 100k and worst amongst those earning less than 50k.

Look at any state you care to think of and look at the demographics - it's constantly the same thing. Urban and suburban dominance for Dems, rural dominance for Republican. The vast majority of less affluent areas in the country went strongly Republican; the vast majority of affluent areas went Dem.