General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: And we're back to the "Economic Anxiety" excuse [View all]BaronChocula
(2,539 posts)and that's ok. We're on the same side in the larger picture. But I will take this opportunity to go deeper with what is going on with our politics, from my perspective.
The racial component is much stronger than most people are willing to let on. There has been a tremendous political realignment in politics since the Civil Rights Movement. LBJ underestimated the impact of his legislative agenda when he said "we're going to lose the South for a generation." It would have merely been a loss to the Democratic party for a generation had it not been for republicans from Richard Nixon on not capitalizing first on hostility of white Democrats in the South. The republicans welcomed those bigots with open arms.
Since then the party has been working to nationalize that hostility among white voters across all regions and it hasn't been that hard. The godfather of right-wing media Rush Limbaugh was syndicated nationwide in the late 80s. He had a specific appeal to white listeners that was anything but economic. He was a hundred percent "cultural." His message was that the liberal agenda to expand rights to all law-abiding citizens regardless of race, gender, religion, or sexual identity was an affront to the supremacy of the white conservative bigots who listened to him and for that reason, they should hate everything liberal, regardless of whether or not it propelled their own interests.
It was in these years that you had whites claiming "I didn't leave the Democratic party, the Democratic party left me." This had absolutely nothing to do with economics and everything to do with the fact that the Democratic party stood for protecting the rights of all Americans instead of allowing white bigots to make the call on who was allowed equal protection under the law.
The burgeoning right-wing media that came along after Limbaugh had to engage in his same populist bullshit in order to compete for the same audience and for them it was like shooting fish in a barrel. Even the most unsophisticated voter knows that the republican party is very white and very male. Throughout our country's history, white males have received all the passes, all the credit, and all the deference, way more so than even white Democrats like Joe Biden. THIS is why republicans are perceived by white voters to be better at handling the economy than Democrats. They are not. Its also why republicans are perceived by white voters to be better at handling national security. They are not. What gives the republicans the wide edge in these areas is what I call the White Man's Pass.
Joe Biden, with all his blue collar bona fides doesn't get the same White Man's Pass that Donald Trump gets because his affiliation is with the party that defends rights for more than just hostile white Americans. This isn't only true with the tea party/maga crowd. White swing voters will also tend to be more comfortable with a republican.
In my opinion people didn't buy trump's BS on tariff's because he messaged better. They didn't buy his BS on tariffs at all. His promise of tariffs had nothing to do with it. He is a pro-white white man. His victories were delivered on a majority white vote by white voters who give republicans the white man's pass. As a republican in America (particularly a white republican) you have to fail leaps and bounds beyond what it takes for a Democrat to be deemed less electable. It's why I used the Sam Brownback/Kansas situation as an example. Remember, amid an economic collapse trump got more votes in 2020 than he got in 2016. Was that because people thought he would be a great agent of change? I highly doubt it.
In 2016 the corporate press and media parroted the claim economic anxiety drove the vote when inflation was at about 1.3%. Unemployment had been on a downward trend. There was no evidence of recession on the horizon. It was only the diligence of less lazy journalists who debunked the economic anxiety myth and correctly exposed the outcome to what we politely call cultural factors. Bottom line, trump has that cultural appeal.
As a final note, I've never heard a white voter dismiss a republican candidate with "I just don't know enough about them." Perhaps they'd say "I'd like to find out more about them" and there's a world of difference between those two statements.
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