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"Some of our friends on this forum are racists."

In a separate thread I posted a link to an article about Kris Kobach. His entire shtick is demographics. The approach is to build a legal veneer around the basic idea of limiting the electorate to white people as the only way to guarantee a continuation of white anglo culture. This strikes me as a pretty pure example of racism at work. Far from marginalizing bad actors Trump is mainstreaming them.

Ok. And I do not agree with that. But I am not shocked by this type of thinking becoming more prevalent for the exact same reason that the Salon article author is not shocked by it.

If identity is the most important factor (I would argue that it is not) in political power, then some people will start to gravitate towards those arguments. In other words, it is really easy to convince poor disaffected individuals that the "other" is their main roadblock to prosperity. Some bring that message behind "white privelege" and others behind "They took our jobs" or "They are just more prone to criminality". White racism in this country is historically more prevalent and has had the largest deleterious effect on minorities of their day and I think at one point we had an effective strategy and a positive trajectory to minimize its impact. I think most of us would agree that has reversed. Why do you think that is? I agree with the author's reasoning.
 
In a separate thread I posted a link to an article about Kris Kobach. His entire shtick is demographics. The approach is to build a legal veneer around the basic idea of limiting the electorate to white people as the only way to guarantee a continuation of white anglo culture. This strikes me as a pretty pure example of racism at work. Far from marginalizing bad actors Trump is mainstreaming them.

Sen. Rand Paul has been pretty vocal here in Kentucky about the fact of how many young African-American males have been disenfranchised from their vote through "War on Drugs" arrests.

Gov. Bevin went both ways - he "banned the box" on state employment applications, giving convicted felons the chance to get state employment without getting disqualified over past felony convictions, but undid a prior Governor's month-old Executive Order "automatically" restoring the voting franchise upon completion of a sentence.
 
Sen. Rand Paul has been pretty vocal here in Kentucky about the fact of how many young African-American males have been disenfranchised from their vote through "War on Drugs" arrests.

Gov. Bevin went both ways - he "banned the box" on state employment applications, giving convicted felons the chance to get state employment without getting disqualified over past felony convictions, but undid a prior Governor's month-old Executive Order "automatically" restoring the voting franchise upon completion of a sentence.

I'd be interested in the legal history of the lifetime ban on felons voting. I can understand not being allowed to vote during your sentence...but a lifetime ban never made sense to me.
 
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We do not fundamentally disagree that racism still exists in this country. That is the reason for the freak out that some of us on the right have had on this board for the last week. We are being judged on our perceived race and political leanings and are then being placed in a box by some of you guys. It is hard to have any conversation because they invariably devolve to "you are a terrible person. See exchanges between crazed and Rock in the DACA thread. They are not even having the same conversation.

I think you combat racism the way it was dealt with when I was in grade school. We talked about the differences in cultures and we learned to respect them. But we also focused heavily on the "American" culture that binds us all together. As the extremely liberal Salon author mentioned, everything else becomes subordinate when we elevate race to the most important factor in every topic.

White Nationalism blows, you want to know why? Outside of the fact that judging anyone by a genetic characteristic is the most base form of thinking and completely devalues the idea of individuality, the color of skin does not monolithically determine our policy preferences. There are many minorities who do tend to think like I do on a wide range of topics. The thrust of politics is for your ideas to win. My ideals are not advanced when my political party starts off by alienating so many potential allies.

Identity politics breeds racial animosity. It becomes that which it proclaims to abhor. How do I help racial resentment and Racism? First, you isolate and ridicule racist thought when it hits the public arena. Yeah, they pop up from time to time but you let them look silly and then you point out how silly they are. Comedy is powerful. If you have seen Dave Chappelle's Clayton Bixby bit, that is what works. You know what the image of Charlottesville would have been if Antifa did not get involved? A bunch of misguided young white guys with bad haircuts walking around with Bed Bath and Beyond tiki torches. They are absurd, let them be absurd and they will never be anything more than fringe groups. I would also stop all the intersectionality arguments.

I disagree with the political direction that the article's author would like to go but I wholeheartedly welcome his prescription to change the debate. Economics impacts white, black, and brown alike. Focus on the economic argument and not on the racial component where it is not needed. Democrats lost the white working class vote to the alt right because they made those people the enemy. You know what would help the black and white working class? Well paying jobs. You know what Democrats are perceived to be worried about? How much better off those white working class people have it because of their white privilege. And black people are given the message that they will truly not have a chance unless they knock white folks down a peg. Meanwhile, the economic disparity that Democrats used to fight about continues on unabated.

You will never stamp out racism. Ever. I think it is a human condition. I think you can lessen its impact by reducing the focus on it though. Marshal people on ideas and not on demographics. Marginalize the bad actors through ridicule and the other tools of enforcing social norms.
I am thinking more subtle racism. I have linked the survey before that resumes with African sounding names are less likely to get interviews. If Blacks are being denied an equal opportunity, what should we do? I hear some on the right argue government involvement where proven, but proven is hard. What else can we do to even the playing field.
 
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I am thinking more subtle racism. I have linked the survey before that resumes with African sounding names are less likely to get interviews. If Blacks are being denied an equal opportunity, what should we do? I hear some on the right argue government involvement where proven, but proven is hard. What else can we do to even the playing field.

You are talking generations worth of change. It will not happen overnight and frankly it has only been in my parents' lifetime that black Americans were given more equal footing. So I do agree with the set asides where proven but I think too much government involvement is counterproductive.

Myself, I chose traditional names for my children because I do think that different names (white or black) can have an impact on things like that. And yes, I get that is not fair but life generally is not fair.
 
Ok. And I do not agree with that. But I am not shocked by this type of thinking becoming more prevalent for the exact same reason that the Salon article author is not shocked by it.

If identity is the most important factor (I would argue that it is not) in political power, then some people will start to gravitate towards those arguments. In other words, it is really easy to convince poor disaffected individuals that the "other" is their main roadblock to prosperity. Some bring that message behind "white privelege" and others behind "They took our jobs" or "They are just more prone to criminality". White racism in this country is historically more prevalent and has had the largest deleterious effect on minorities of their day and I think at one point we had an effective strategy and a positive trajectory to minimize its impact. I think most of us would agree that has reversed. Why do you think that is? I agree with the author's reasoning.
The parties flipped sides on race in the 1960s. But it takes a long time for partisan habits to die out. I think what we have been seeing over the last 40 years is the parties sorting themselves out with the white identity voters inexorably switching to the GOP while the Dems become increasingly the party of multiculturalism.

Is your argument something like that the ascendance of multiculturalism (i.e., people need not jettison cultural differences to be full participants in American economic and political life) is causally related to the upsurge of racism? If so then that is plausible to me. The monoculturalism that many white baby boomers grew up with was white-anglo-hetero dominant. One could not be a full economic and political participant without embodying and embracing that culture. As alternative cultural expressions have become acceptable this has produced a backlash that principally reflects cultural anxiety and a sense of loss of power. I think Trump is, in large part, an expression and exploiter of that backlash. But the insistence by the Trump base on a return to monocultural white-anglo-hetero dominance is literally an expression of white supremacy. That is, the reaction to multiculturalism is not a reaction to identity politics, but, rather itself is white identity politics.
 
The parties flipped sides on race in the 1960s. But it takes a long time for partisan habits to die out. I think what we have been seeing over the last 40 years is the parties sorting themselves out with the white identity voters inexorably switching to the GOP while the Dems become increasingly the party of multiculturalism.

Is your argument something like that the ascendance of multiculturalism (i.e., people need not jettison cultural differences to be full participants in American economic and political life) is causally related to the upsurge of racism? If so then that is plausible to me. The monoculturalism that many white baby boomers grew up with was white-anglo-hetero dominant. One could not be a full economic and political participant without embodying and embracing that culture. As alternative cultural expressions have become acceptable this has produced a backlash that principally reflects cultural anxiety and a sense of loss of power. I think Trump is, in large part, an expression and exploiter of that backlash. But the insistence by the Trump base on a return to monocultural white-anglo-hetero dominance is literally an expression of white supremacy. That is, the reaction to multiculturalism is not a reaction to identity politics, but, rather itself is white identity politics.


I'll just leave this here:



A little more on Carol Swain here:

http://www.weeklystandard.com/the-cassandra-of-vanderbilt/article/2007929#!
 
The parties flipped sides on race in the 1960s. But it takes a long time for partisan habits to die out. I think what we have been seeing over the last 40 years is the parties sorting themselves out with the white identity voters inexorably switching to the GOP while the Dems become increasingly the party of multiculturalism.

Is your argument something like that the ascendance of multiculturalism (i.e., people need not jettison cultural differences to be full participants in American economic and political life) is causally related to the upsurge of racism? If so then that is plausible to me. The monoculturalism that many white baby boomers grew up with was white-anglo-hetero dominant. One could not be a full economic and political participant without embodying and embracing that culture. As alternative cultural expressions have become acceptable this has produced a backlash that principally reflects cultural anxiety and a sense of loss of power. I think Trump is, in large part, an expression and exploiter of that backlash. But the insistence by the Trump base on a return to monocultural white-anglo-hetero dominance is literally an expression of white supremacy. That is, the reaction to multiculturalism is not a reaction to identity politics, but, rather itself is white identity politics.

Not a whole lot of time but I think the more recent rise in what is labeled the "altright" is attributable to a backlash to the backlash.
 
Oh my....she disputes the realignment of the 60s and 70s by saying that Republicans were competitive in the South. But she focuses on a few cases of at the Presidential level while ignoring the dominance of the Democrats at the Congressional level. Moreover, Swain neglects the important actions taken by FDR and Truman administration that were already generating racial backlash in the South.

Oh my, she notices that replacement of Dems took 20 plus years...indeed it did...partisanship is largely habitual and incumbency advantages make realignments take a long time. Quite bizarre performance.

None of this is particularly impressive social science in my view.

As is well known, both parties were quite aware of the effect championing civil rights would have on the Democrats and Republicans at the time.

There is plenty of bad social science around...any reason that you think Carol Swain makes a particularly compelling case?
 
Not a whole lot of time but I think the more recent rise in what is labeled the "altright" is attributable to a backlash to the backlash.
a backlash to a backlash is just a lash...sounds about right
 
Oh my....she disputes the realignment of the 60s and 70s by saying that Republicans were competitive in the South. But she focuses on a few cases of at the Presidential level while ignoring the dominance of the Democrats at the Congressional level. Moreover, Swain neglects the important actions taken by FDR and Truman administration that were already generating racial backlash in the South.

Oh my, she notices that replacement of Dems took 20 plus years...indeed it did...partisanship is largely habitual and incumbency advantages make realignments take a long time. Quite bizarre performance.

None of this is particularly impressive social science in my view.

As is well known, both parties were quite aware of the effect championing civil rights would have on the Democrats and Republicans at the time.

There is plenty of bad social science around...any reason that you think Carol Swain makes a particularly compelling case?
It seems you have a pretty solid grasp on the complexity of this issue, but I just want to interject something, because there's something that gets thrown around a lot, and I think people misunderstand the reality of it, which is this idea that the parties "flipped" on race.

They didn't flip on race. Before the civil rights era, there were racists in both parties, but the largest race-related issues were all heavily regional, and the Democratic coalition controlled the south. But when you dig down into the data, it becomes clear that it's not accurate to say that racists used to be Democrats and then became Republicans en masse.

For example, if you break down the Civil Rights Act vote by region, you'll notice that a Democrat in the south was more likely to vote for the CRA than a Republican in the south, and a Democrat in the north was more likely to vote for the CRA than a Republican in the north. However, when you look at the vote nationally, a generic Republican was far more likely to vote for the CRA, simply because there were almost no southern Republicans.

Civil Rights was pushed by a coalition of both Republicans and Democrats (primarily, but not exclusively, northern Democrats), and the Democratic party ended up owning a lot of the changes, which hurt them among white southerners, because many of those changes were aimed directly at southern discrimination. The GOP gradually won over a lot of these white southerners. So, if you want to say that white southern racists generally switched from the Democratic party to the Republican party, that would probably be an accurate statement, but that is a far different thing than what people generally think when they imagine the parties "switched sides" on race.

The truth is, this idea of one party being the party of minorities, and the other being the party of disaffected whites is wholly new, and really can only exist because we now live in a time in which we have nationalized the two major parties to an extent never before seen. But just as it's an oversimplification to think of one party as pro-choice and one party as pro-life, dividing the parties along racial lines is still relatively inaccurate. In truth, both major parties have always been primarily economic coalitions, and the apparent shift in racial attitudes is tied wholly to a unique change in voting behavior specifically among southern whites.
 
I would expect that a study of the switch would find God and Abortion would be the leading cause of the switch. These people want to pray before high school football on Friday night and every morning before the pledge of allegiance. They are also strongly anti-abortion to the point that they are single issue voters. Racists are fringe voters.
 
I would expect that a study of the switch would find God and Abortion would be the leading cause of the switch. These people want to pray before high school football on Friday night and every morning before the pledge of allegiance. They are also strongly anti-abortion to the point that they are single issue voters. Racists are fringe voters.
There's a regional thing, there, too, though. The most religious people and the most pro-life people tend to be in the south and plains states. The south has shifted to the GOP, and the plains states have long been strong for the party.

I do agree that there was some intentional courting of religious conservatives by the party, especially after 1980, but I still think it's overly simplistic to claim one party is the party of A, while the other is the party of Not A. Even with abortion.
 
There's a regional thing, there, too, though. The most religious people and the most pro-life people tend to be in the south and plains states. The south has shifted to the GOP, and the plains states have long been strong for the party.

I do agree that there was some intentional courting of religious conservatives by the party, especially after 1980, but I still think it's overly simplistic to claim one party is the party of A, while the other is the party of Not A. Even with abortion.
Race didn't switch Daviess County Kentucky, Abortion did. What has happened in Kentucky in the last 37 years is nothing short of amazing. http://results.enr.clarityelections.com/KY/64180/182267/Web01/en/summary.html. http://results.enr.clarityelections.com/KY/64180/182267/Web01/en/summary.html
 
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Daviess County voted heavily against LBJ (apparently with quite a few votes for Wallace, as Nixon won with only 40%) in 1968. I don't think that had anything to do with abortion.
That is true, however those Wallace voters were democrats. Goldwater didn't carry the county. PS I live here, have a little faith that my understanding of the county is much greater than yours. Come on man.
 
That is true, however those Wallace voters were democrats. Goldwater didn't carry the county. PS I live here, have a little faith that my understanding of the county is much greater than yours. Come on man.
So what? Any Wallace voter was likely to be motivated by race above other issues.

My point in this thread is that it's not accurate to say there is one racist party and one non-racist party, or that there ever was. But the Civil Rights movement was primarily aimed at a specific type of racism - southern white discrimination - and therefore many voters were motivated by that specifically in the south. The point is that the so-called party shift was more regional than it was racial.
 
So what? Any Wallace voter was likely to be motivated by race above other issues.

My point in this thread is that it's not accurate to say there is one racist party and one non-racist party, or that there ever was. But the Civil Rights movement was primarily aimed at a specific type of racism - southern white discrimination - and therefore many voters were motivated by that specifically in the south. The point is that the so-called party shift was more regional than it was racial.
I love your position and points. Consider this, Wallace got a lot of law enforcement support. I hate to say this but the yellow dog democrats weren't sophisticated voters, how could they be they voted a straight ticket for generations after the war. They still lack sophistication as evidenced as one issue voters unwilling to compromise. Republicans from the faith based community have routinely sabotaged reasonable legislation with a multitude of anti abortion riders.
 
I love your position and points. Consider this, Wallace got a lot of law enforcement support. I hate to say this but the yellow dog democrats weren't sophisticated voters, how could they be they voted a straight ticket for generations after the war.
"Sophisticated voter" is and always has been an endangered species. :p
 
I edited my last post also.
Yes, and on that point, these single-issue and litmus-test folks are ruining politics. I predicted in the past that the GOP was on the brink of destruction because they were unable to broaden their coalition, because too many of their constituencies refused to compromise on select core issues. Turns out, from a certain point of view, Trump was the solution. He was able to piece together a coalition that, while it didn't win him the most votes, pulled together constituencies in just the right places to win the EC and help protect the GOP majority in both houses. I'm still not convinced he would have been successful had the Dems nominated anyone other than Hillary, but there it is. And it wasn't just Hillary. There were indications that the Dems were falling into the same intransigence I accused the GOP of, such as the pressure Sanders felt to back away from his gun stance.

Personally, I still don't think the Trump movement is sustainable. I think it was a unique moment in history. And if the Dems are serious about learning their lesson when it comes to things like litmus tests (such as the DNCC promising they won't blacklist pro-life candidates), then maybe they can respond to the GOP in a big way.

Of course, my confidence in the competency of Democratic leadership doesn't allow me to make such an optimistic prediction. But you never know. November 2018 is still a long way away.
 
Yes, and on that point, these single-issue and litmus-test folks are ruining politics. I predicted in the past that the GOP was on the brink of destruction because they were unable to broaden their coalition, because too many of their constituencies refused to compromise on select core issues. Turns out, from a certain point of view, Trump was the solution. He was able to piece together a coalition that, while it didn't win him the most votes, pulled together constituencies in just the right places to win the EC and help protect the GOP majority in both houses. I'm still not convinced he would have been successful had the Dems nominated anyone other than Hillary, but there it is. And it wasn't just Hillary. There were indications that the Dems were falling into the same intransigence I accused the GOP of, such as the pressure Sanders felt to back away from his gun stance.

Personally, I still don't think the Trump movement is sustainable. I think it was a unique moment in history. And if the Dems are serious about learning their lesson when it comes to things like litmus tests (such as the DNCC promising they won't blacklist pro-life candidates), then maybe they can respond to the GOP in a big way.

Of course, my confidence in the competency of Democratic leadership doesn't allow me to make such an optimistic prediction. But you never know. November 2018 is still a long way away.
Hillary was a problem. I have posted how strange it was that she had little opposition. The election can be traced to a reduced black turnout. It is hard not to conclude that a percentage of blacks would vote for Obama but stayed home for Hillary. Unsophisticated voters. Maybe Louie told them to stay home.
 
Hillary was a problem. I have posted how strange it was that she had little opposition. The election can be traced to a reduced black turnout. It is hard not to conclude that a percentage of blacks would vote for Obama but stayed home for Hillary. Unsophisticated voters. Maybe Louie told them to stay home.
I have to disagree with this. I mean, in a close election, you can pinpoint any number of individual constituencies to blame, but highlighting black voters specifically makes little sense to me. Consider:

1. Hillary won a higher share of the black vote than any Democrat not named Obama.
2. Hillary lost key industrial states in which she also performed poorly in the primaries against an opponent who appealed primarily to white democrats.
3. No one in their right mind should have expected black turnout to keep up with Obama-era levels.
4. This is sort of a correlate of #1 above, but most black voters lost by Clinton stayed home. A lot of these blue collar whites didn't just abandon her, but also voted for her opponent, causing twice the damage.

Again, I don't think you should blame one specific constituency, but if you want to rank different failures in terms of how big of a deal they were, I'd rank Hillary's failure to appeal to blue collar midwestern whites far higher than depressed black turnout.
 
I have to disagree with this. I mean, in a close election, you can pinpoint any number of individual constituencies to blame, but highlighting black voters specifically makes little sense to me. Consider:

1. Hillary won a higher share of the black vote than any Democrat not named Obama.
2. Hillary lost key industrial states in which she also performed poorly in the primaries against an opponent who appealed primarily to white democrats.
3. No one in their right mind should have expected black turnout to keep up with Obama-era levels.
4. This is sort of a correlate of #1 above, but most black voters lost by Clinton stayed home. A lot of these blue collar whites didn't just abandon her, but also voted for her opponent, causing twice the damage.

Again, I don't think you should blame one specific constituency, but if you want to rank different failures in terms of how big of a deal they were, I'd rank Hillary's failure to appeal to blue collar midwestern whites far higher than depressed black turnout.
Ok, I just look at the lower participation rate and conclude that despite the stakes they stayed home. 3 is a point which speaks again to unsophisticated voters.
 
Ok, I just look at the lower participation rate and conclude that despite the stakes they stayed home. 3 is a point which speaks again to unsophisticated voters.
At this point, sophistication no longer means anything to me. I mean, you don't really think the white factory worker in Akron who voted GOP for the first time in his life is more sophisticated than the black Detroit voter who stayed home, right?

At this point, we're just getting into political reality. Hillary failed on many levels, but the one that hurt the most was her failure to win over blue collar whites in the midwest. This failure is not only painful because it helped elect Trump, but also because it should have been predicted and countered. Sanders embarrassed Hillary in the Great Lakes region, by and large. Did she take that as a hint to maybe put in some effort there? No, she didn't. This despite the fact that her most accessible adviser, a man who knows a thing or two about winning elections, specifically begged the campaign not to ignore the region.

Exceprts released this week from Hillary's book about Sanders only further highlight that she never got it, and still doesn't.
 
I have to disagree with this. I mean, in a close election, you can pinpoint any number of individual constituencies to blame, but highlighting black voters specifically makes little sense to me. Consider:

1. Hillary won a higher share of the black vote than any Democrat not named Obama.
2. Hillary lost key industrial states in which she also performed poorly in the primaries against an opponent who appealed primarily to white democrats.
3. No one in their right mind should have expected black turnout to keep up with Obama-era levels.
4. This is sort of a correlate of #1 above, but most black voters lost by Clinton stayed home. A lot of these blue collar whites didn't just abandon her, but also voted for her opponent, causing twice the damage.

Again, I don't think you should blame one specific constituency, but if you want to rank different failures in terms of how big of a deal they were, I'd rank Hillary's failure to appeal to blue collar midwestern whites far higher than depressed black turnout.

Why blame any constituency at all? People did not show up to vote for her or showed up to vote against her because of something about her. If anything, blame the DNC for apparently doing what they could to push her as their favorable candidate. Trump would have had a much more difficult time beating Sanders but people high up in the DNC had decided it was "her turn" And to some degree they put their thumb on the scales enough to help push her through.

Edit to add that the big money interests that back the DNC share in the blame. They by and large determine who gets covered and they can help to create a sense of inevitability around a candidate.
 
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Civil Rights was pushed by a coalition of both Republicans and Democrats (primarily, but not exclusively, northern Democrats), and the Democratic party ended up owning a lot of the changes, which hurt them among white southerners, because many of those changes were aimed directly at southern discrimination. The GOP gradually won over a lot of these white southerners. So, if you want to say that white southern racists generally switched from the Democratic party to the Republican party, that would probably be an accurate statement, but that is a far different thing than what people generally think when they imagine the parties "switched sides" on race.

The truth is, this idea of one party being the party of minorities, and the other being the party of disaffected whites is wholly new, and really can only exist because we now live in a time in which we have nationalized the two major parties to an extent never before seen. But just as it's an oversimplification to think of one party as pro-choice and one party as pro-life, dividing the parties along racial lines is still relatively inaccurate. In truth, both major parties have always been primarily economic coalitions, and the apparent shift in racial attitudes is tied wholly to a unique change in voting behavior specifically among southern whites.
All this rings true. Parties are coalitions. Their policies are the product of bargains struck between the coalition partners. The Republican coalition has, since the 1960s been willing to strike a bargain with racists. Trump won the nomination because he provided the racists with a better bargain than they ever had before from Republicans and a much better bargain than they got from Democrats. But that is not to say that attitudes about race are uniform within the party coalitions. It is not to say that there are not other economic or social issues that are more important to large chunks of both parties.
 
All this rings true. Parties are coalitions. Their policies are the product of bargains struck between the coalition partners. The Republican coalition has, since the 1960s been willing to strike a bargain with racists. Trump won the nomination because he provided the racists with a better bargain than they ever had before from Republicans and a much better bargain than they got from Democrats. But that is not to say that attitudes about race are uniform within the party coalitions. It is not to say that there are not other economic or social issues that are more important to large chunks of both parties.

The GOP did not win the last election because of racists...unless you think that the blue collar rust belt whites who have overwhelmingly voted for Democrats in the past are racists. In which case, what does that say about how Democrats have won and who supports them?
 
The GOP did not win the last election because of racists...unless you think that the blue collar rust belt whites who have overwhelmingly voted for Democrats in the past are racists. In which case, what does that say about how Democrats have won and who supports them?
I would definitely say that race was a pivotal issue in this last election.
 
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The GOP did not win the last election because of racists...?

Baloney.

If you asked the Trump fans their # 1 reason for loving the guy, they'll say, "He's one of us and tells it like it is." It's not his policies because he flip-flops on them constantly.

And Trump is a certified flaming racist/bigot.

He kicked off his campaign by painting Mexicans as rapists and drug dealers and only went downhill from there every time he opened his mouth.

And in case you missed it, EVERY decision of his so far as been to pander to those people: his Muslim ban......defending neo-Nazi's.......his transgender ban......getting rid of DACA (which only 22% of his fans support)......

As far as "are blue collar workers racists", I grew up around union workers from 4 families and heard the n-word constantly. I went to high school in New Haven and out of about 1,300 kids (IIRC) there were about 5 black kids....total. I also heard the n-word constantly there too and actually remember a couple of kids bragging about belonging to the KKK my senior year.

Trump's campaign was BUILT on "they" are stealing "your" jobs.....and painting every Muslim as a terrorist.....and America was a hell-hole because of black people.

The Trump campaign actually let one of the leading "alt-right" guys do his radio show FROM the convention.
 
I would definitely say that race was a pivotal issue in this last election.

Where at though, again, Trump turned the election on rust belt blue collar white workers who had been firmly in the Democratic camp for almost every election since I have been voting. So, are you saying that the blue collar Democrats who switched their votes are by and whole racists? The rest of the electoral map stayed relatively the same as it has when McCain and Romney were running so if some new racist paradigm exists, it exists in states like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

Your labeling of these people as racists is part of why you lost them in the first place. News flash, the race issue is overplayed. These racists voted for a black guy in the prior two elections. The Democrats continued to talk down to them on race based issues instead of the economic issues they were truly concerned about. Opposition to NAFTA and TPP and economically based reasons for wanting border control are what turned their votes. Were some racists emboldened by Trump, I suppose so. But that is not what cost Hillary the election. She lost because she did not heed her husband's advice that she needed to spend more time in the rust belt. She took those votes for granted even though Bernie rolled her in several of those states with a populist socialist economic vision that shared some similarities to what Trump was proposing.

Keep banging that racism drum though. It has been so successful for the Democrats since they have placed so much focus on that. When you all were doing "it's the economy stupid" you were cleaning the Republican's clock with the same voters you are deriding now.
 
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Baloney.

If you asked the Trump fans their # 1 reason for loving the guy, they'll say, "He's one of us and tells it like it is." It's not his policies because he flip-flops on them constantly.

And Trump is a certified flaming racist/bigot.

He kicked off his campaign by painting Mexicans as rapists and drug dealers and only went downhill from there every time he opened his mouth.

And in case you missed it, EVERY decision of his so far as been to pander to those people: his Muslim ban......defending neo-Nazi's.......his transgender ban......getting rid of DACA (which only 22% of his fans support)......

As far as "are blue collar workers racists", I grew up around union workers from 4 families and heard the n-word constantly. I went to high school in New Haven and out of about 1,300 kids (IIRC) there were about 5 black kids....total. I also heard the n-word constantly there too and actually remember a couple of kids bragging about belonging to the KKK my senior year.

Trump's campaign was BUILT on "they" are stealing "your" jobs.....and painting every Muslim as a terrorist.....and America was a hell-hole because of black people.

The Trump campaign actually let one of the leading "alt-right" guys do his radio show FROM the convention.

You're wrong but I kind of expect that out of a 9/11, Grassy Knoll, Ancient Aliens truther.

Much like with those topics, you take facts and interpret them incorrectly. The "racists" that changed the political map voted for a black guy in the prior two elections. How does that information square with your analysis?
 
Why blame any constituency at all? People did not show up to vote for her or showed up to vote against her because of something about her. If anything, blame the DNC for apparently doing what they could to push her as their favorable candidate. Trump would have had a much more difficult time beating Sanders but people high up in the DNC had decided it was "her turn" And to some degree they put their thumb on the scales enough to help push her through.

Edit to add that the big money interests that back the DNC share in the blame. They by and large determine who gets covered and they can help to create a sense of inevitability around a candidate.
What specifically makes you think that Trump would have had a more difficult time beating BErnie?
 
What specifically makes you think that Trump would have had a more difficult time beating BErnie?

The economy. If you look at the arguments that Sander's was making in the realm of economics they match up to a degree with the issues that Trump was hitting on. Sanders would have lost all of the usuals that the Democrats do not do well in but I think he would have won states like Wisconsin.

I do not like his solutions to the problems that he was addressing but at least he was talking to them. Hillary's slogan was based around the notion that it was her turn. Great, what does that do for me? She was never really successful at selling how she would change the status quo. Bernie and Trump, agree with them or not, both offered a shake up to that status quo that was aimed at addressing concerns of blue collar to middle class workers. I think the rust belt blue collar workers would have been receptive to the socialism light that Sanders offered.

And then you have Hillary's baggage which did not help.

I don't want the Democrats to win but if I was on your side I would be playing up the Bernie message much more than the race stuff.
 
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See my post above: Bernie was especially strong among exactly the people who abandoned Clinton.

https://indiana.forums.rivals.com/t...-forum-are-racists.156445/page-4#post-2209656
Yes, but BErnie did not receive any of the treatment that Hillary did from Trump since he was not running. I've read all kinds of things they were planning to run on opposition research that would have come out had he been the candidate. True or not, as we've seen , it doesn't really matter. Also, BErnie did not relate well to black voters and quite likely would have done even worse than Hillary did with them. I think it's impossible to know what would have happened had Sanders been the candidate.
 
Keep banging that racism drum though. It has been so successful for the Democrats since they have placed so much focus on that. When you all were doing "it's the economy stupid" you were cleaning the Republican's clock with the same voters you are deriding now.
It was Trump that put the focus on race, not the Democrats. Re Birtherism, Immigration--build the wall, support for White Nationalism.
 
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Yes, but BErnie did not receive any of the treatment that Hillary did from Trump since he was not running. I've read all kinds of things they were planning to run on opposition research that would have come out had he been the candidate. True or not, as we've seen , it doesn't really matter. Also, BErnie did not relate well to black voters and quite likely would have done even worse than Hillary did with them. I think it's impossible to know what would have happened had Sanders been the candidate.
America didn't elect Trump. They didn't want Trump. Trump won the EC because he barely eked out wins in several key states. These states were exactly the same states Bernie trounced Hillary in (either by winning outright or shockingly outperforming polls). They were also states Hillary ignored, despite at least one knowledgeable adviser (Bill) begging the campaign to put effort there.

The GOP anti-Hillary machine is and was disgusting. There's a special place in hell for people behind the kind of calumny she suffered. But fact is she lost because Midwestern blue collar whites didn't like her message, and she did nothing to alleviate that. This is exactly the opposite of how they felt about Bernie, and vice versa.

Read the new Bernie excerpt from Hillary's book. She still doesn't get it.
 
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It was Trump that put the focus on race, not the Democrats. Re Birtherism, Immigration--build the wall, support for White Nationalism.

Did he? Or was all that a response to "white privelege", intersectional politics, and a perceived economic loss due to open borders that left an opening on that topic with economically distressed white voters?

You are perceiving their reaction through your lense. They perceived that with a Democratic focus on race issues, their concerns were getting ignored. They went to someone who talked about them. Same reason blacks tend to congregate in one party. They feel that party talked to their concerns. White people are human too, they act no different than anyone else. You guys were talking BLM and they were worried about how to pay for their or their child's education. BLM and institutional racism talk discludes those people. They may be on your side on those issues but neither of those pays a medical bill or give a them a raise. Sanders had that figured out, Hillary did not.
 
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