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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe Guardian: Will the American project survive the anger of white men?
At key moments throughout US history, white male anger has been privileged over national security, progress or basic welfare
Carol Anderson
Tue 12 Nov 2024 06.00 EST
A friend recently asked: Do you think the United States will survive the anger of white men? As blunt as the question is, the core element is not so far-fetched. In fact, the majority of white men (and women) who voted in the presidential election in 2024 have rallied around a man who has called for the termination of the constitution, vowed to be a dictator, and threatened to deploy the US military against Americans. They support a man who is a convicted felon, an adjudicated rapist, a proven liar, who has been fined nearly half a billion dollars for fraud, who incited an insurrection that injured 140 police officers, and who mismanaged the Covid-19 pandemic causing hundreds of thousands to die needlessly.
The fact that Donald Trumps candidacy was even viable, given that horrific track record, was because of the support of white men. White men, whose anger was on full display at Madison Square Garden as they spewed racist, misogynistic venom. White men who attacked poll workers and also voters of Kamala Harris. White men who chafed at the thought that their wives and girlfriends would not vote for the man who thought it was a beautiful thing that reproductive rights had been destroyed. And, as the New York Times reported, the downwardly mobile, frustrated white men without a degree, [who] have been surpassed in income by college-educated women.
And lets be clear. Trump has laid out an agenda that will provide the wages of whiteness to his male supporters but very little else. The racist hate that undergirds Maga can only provide threadbare comfort. The planned enormous tariffs, the rollback on workplace, food and environmental safety regulations, the dismantling of labor protections, the planned deportation of tens of millions of undocumented people and naturalized citizens, the assault on reproductive rights and alignment with dictators all of this will destroy the economy, explode the deficit and leave the United States severely isolated and weakened.
This is nothing new. White male anger, especially at the nations inclusion of African Americans, has repeatedly privileged white supremacy over the viability of the United States. During the war of independence, when the nation was fighting to become the United States, South Carolinas government fumed at Congresss request to arm the enslaved and give them their freedom in exchange for fending off a British force that was more than 10 times the size of what those in Charleston could muster. Government officials flat out refused and barked that they werent sure that the US was a nation worth fighting for and would rather take their chances with the king of England. In short, enslaving those of African descent was infinitely more important than the United States.
/snip
@jeffjarvis.bsky.social
Will the American project survive the anger of white men?
November 12, 2024 at 6:46 AM
https://bsky.app/profile/jeffjarvis.bsky.social/post/3laqr3sxpjk2a
Lovie777
(15,076 posts)Dennis Donovan
(26,271 posts)Bluesky is growing so each day there's more content. Inversely, Twitter is shrinking and so is its content. For a short while you might see more Twitter than Bluesky as it still has more content than Bluesky. But, it's changing daily.
Dennis Donovan
(26,271 posts)It also depends if the tweet has a video. Since tweets will still render on DU and you can watch the video w/o leaving DU, I'll still be posting video tweets. I can't post Bluesky video posts because the post doesn't render on DU (yet):
Liberal Twitter appears to be evacuating to Bluesky - can we have formatting for Bluesky posts?
ananda
(30,847 posts)I kept meaning to ask but hadn't got around to it.
Thank you!
patricia92243
(12,850 posts)ananda
(30,847 posts)...
CousinIT
(10,266 posts)Ndp5
(82 posts)I think it would be a major mistake for Dems to try to cater to angry white men at the expense of all the other groups who vote for them.
Develop policies to help the middle and working class and some of those men will come around. Others are lost to Fox, and to hell with them. Personal responsibility has to enter the picture somewhere. You ignore the higher quality media alternatives and vote negligently, and a lot of women arent going to give you a chance, for example.
travelingthrulife
(796 posts)whatever supports their endless grievance. 'Woke' nonsense mostly.
Ndp5
(82 posts)There are white male Obama voters who have since gone to Trump, so one cant argue that Democrats have never been able to win enough white males not a majority, but enough to put them over the top electorally by addressing the concerns of working- and middle-class voters.
Obama won 41 percent of the white male vote. Before Obama, no Democrat since Jimmy Carter had won more than 38 percent of those voters.
Obama won a huge majority among those with low or moderate annual incomes (60% of those making less than $50,000 a year).
Economic issues and personal financial concerns consistently cut in Obamas favor.
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2008/11/05/inside-obamas-sweeping-victory/
Definitely not saying Dems should cater to white male grievance. But they could win back some of those voters if they can persuasively become the defenders of the working and middle classes.
Farmer-Rick
(11,460 posts)Who made them angry?
The malignant narcissist who they just "voted" in. He, Putin and Musk along with Zuckerberg and corporate media riled them up. Those filthy-rich white men told poor dumb white men lies and used others to feed them lies about what was happening in the US. Because he made them angry, they voted for him.
And no, American democracy did not survive, it is gone. Democracy is dead in the US. Pretending our country will come out of this is just plain stupid. This is not a tunnel or a carnival ride. This is the end of a once vibrant democracy. This is a dictatorial fascist regime.
Trump is our dictator now. He will enjoy making Americans suffer. American democracy is all gone. Maybe he should rename America? Call it Trumpica or Ameritrump, or Trump world.
travelingthrulife
(796 posts)clearly white males denigrating going to college. It was a new phenomena. 'We don't need no stinking education'. At the time no one looked down upon you if you went to trade school or learned on the job vs college. It was thought to be a totally acceptable option based on money and school tolerance.
Someone TOLD them to be aggrieved by this. It has been downhill since then.
Farmer-Rick
(11,460 posts)They made those white men poor and angry, then conned them into voting for their tormentors.
jalan48
(14,438 posts)Are there potential solutions to bring people together or will our society devolve into a Orwellian one where it's simply, my group hates your group? If that's the case, it doesn't bode well for the minority groups in the US.
Farmer-Rick
(11,460 posts)Minus the invasions and wars. Concentration camps, slave labor for corporations, brutal crack down of all dissent. Maybe Pinochet's Chile would be a better example because he never tried to invade any counties.
Fascist Italy is good example too, but think of it as the corporations controlling the government....but no allies are coming to rescue us.
Dem4life1234
(1,899 posts)are not the well read and intelligent relatively siccessful white men.
It's the losers who rely on their skin and feel entitled to get what they want which no longer happens as it did back in the 1950s. These types are entitled. Still, the world is their oyster.
If anyone should be angry, it's women and POC.
dchill
(40,545 posts)...and ginned-up butthurt? Is one more easily defused?
Beck23
(211 posts)Before Bacon's Rebellion there was no caste system in America based on race. In colonial Virginia, blacks and poor whites teamed up to overthrow Gov. William Berkeley in Bacon's Rebellion. After the rebellion was put down, Berkeley established a caste system to keep blacks and whites from teaming up again. All blacks were automatically slaves by heredity. Poor whites were given extra privileges to make them feel superior to whites. Women were a lower caste in Europe already, and this was reinforced by organized religion.
So with women and blacks advancing in our society, white men are gradually losing status and the caste system is breaking down. Like Governor Berkeley, the rich are fostering division to stay in power to preserve their Oligarchy.
Farmer-Rick
(11,460 posts)Explained very well
bucolic_frolic
(47,137 posts)They will steal all that you own including yours and the Commonwealth. Sort of eminent domain, applied to your equity. Your equity will become their equity. When they've taken that they'll destroy the currency by buying crypto. With your money.
Irish_Dem
(58,324 posts)They are only 30% of the population but hold most of the power and wealth in the US.
Women are 51% of the population but hold minority status.
And their situation is becoming more dire by the day in this country.
It is a tragedy.
OldBaldy1701E
(6,414 posts)The planned enormous tariffs, the rollback on workplace, food and environmental safety regulations, the dismantling of labor protections, the planned deportation of tens of millions of undocumented people and naturalized citizens, the assault on reproductive rights and alignment with dictators all of this will destroy the economy, explode the deficit and leave the United States severely isolated and weakened.
Putin knows what he is doing.
Farmer-Rick
(11,460 posts)It sounds like Russia. But Russia never had such a well developed social infrastructure to dismantle.
lindysalsagal
(22,395 posts)paleotn
(19,298 posts)Always a risk with universal suffrage. Just saying.
Restricted suffarage and plural voting. Our ancestors in England may not have been as wrong on this as we thought. That "great strength" of a people Lincoln talked about might be a mirage. Maybe founder, Roger Sherman was right. He argued....
https://www.hoover.org/research/are-we-smart-enough-democracy
GenThePerservering
(2,630 posts)Martin Eden
(13,514 posts)Trumpista fascists will try to punish media sources which dare to tell such truth.