I wouldn’t make the mistake of assuming your opponents are static. Your opponents are not exactly the GOP voters, but rather the money behind certain politicians. If you swing things a certain way, they’re just going to take your most popular ideas and throw them in with their own… so long as those ideas don’t result in them losing power. Once again, Trump touting, “The Democrats are going to take away your medicare! That you already paid for!” We’re at pro-wrestling levels of storytelling. The heels today will be faces tomorrow and so-on.
The democrats controlled both house & senate in 1995. What was different then?
At the very least, I think this guy does grok that people in this state are mostly just bitter and think whoever will tell them what they want to hear is the “good guy” in spite of constant evidence to the contrary. They will also always externalize problems… as immigration or racism or something else. I doubt they will reverse course for a generation or two…
The GOP still held on to basic rules of decorum and fair play. They wouldn’t appoint a SCOTUS judge 50-50 with a tiebreaking vote back then, and they’d regularly come to sad but relatively pragmatic compromises with the Democrats.
The GOP learned in 2016 that they can drop even the pretense of acting in good faith.
Meanwhile, the Democrats of that era were trying hard to placate a center that we now know doesn’t really exist. They were scattershot and often broke ranks to make deals.
The Democrats of 2018 are acting as a bloc. This is a massive change of party unity and structure that will have long-term ramifications if it continues.
Why do you seem so sure of this? This piece (and the report it draws from), linked earlier in this thread and which, at least to me, felt like a major revelation, seems to contradict you.
Thought experiment: if that were somehow to happen, I wonder how many white men would try to dig up whatever tenuous claims they have of being not-white to try to vote.
"If only nonwhite Americans could cast ballots, they would elect a gigantic Democratic majority (the largest projected majority out of any group we looked at). While white voters on the whole are Republican-leaning (Trump won them by about 15 to 20 percentage points in 2016), nonwhite voters are strongly Democratic (Hillary Clinton won them by more than 50 points). African-Americans, Asian-Americans and Latinos all overwhelmingly vote Democratic, although there are exceptions.5
We found that nonwhites leaned 33 points more Democratic than the national environment and their adjusted vote share would net a 388-to-47 Democratic majority. However, similar to what we saw in the scenario of whites without a college degree, the Democratic total is likely underestimated. The map suggests that some Southern districts would vote Republican, but again, because voting is so racially polarized in the South, it’s unlikely that these seats would elect a Republican if only nonwhites voted. For example, the Alabama 6th District — held by Republican Rep. Gary Palmer and still controlled by the GOP in this scenario — is 16 percent African-American, which is the largest minority group there. Given that about 90 percent of blacks in Alabama voteDemocratic, it would probably be very hard for a Republican to actually win. Nonetheless, the overwhelming Democratic House majority in this scenario makes sense if we look at nonwhite voters as a whole and don’t drill into specific districts. But for all the talk of college-educated white voters boosting Democrats in 2018, nonwhite voters will also be vital to their chances — especially in diverse suburban districts, particularly in the Sun Belt."
I mean let’s be real tho. Let’s say in some crazy world someone made some new law that white people couldn’t vote anymore… maybe one election would go to some massive Democratic party victory. But then it would go back to a heated debate as the new parties that arise from the new paradigm start trying to figure out new platforms and the party structure would pretty-much return to what we have now. There might be a brief window where you have a 3+ party race that actually is a race, but pretty sure it all shakes out back to much like we have now; albeit with different issues and talking points.
Which if that’s what people want, they just don’t want the debate to be over things like we have now, well great.
Still tho I think there’s more productive lines of thought than disenfranchisement over race, color, creed, political view, etc.
The reality is that even if the consequences of failure are that the state fails, human rights are destroyed, and people suffer… victory (in this case turning the direction of the nation onto a better path) still has to come from a sustainable and reasonably legitimate movement. Politics is not really the answer to any of it. How people vote is indicative of the mindset. Trying to cut out voting blocks (especially the ones historically most franchised and embedded with the vote) is a fruitless path.
Make more white people chill again?
If you imagine a future where the hostile bad highly conservative voting core is largely passed on or dwindled to irrelevancy, it only means that the parties of the future will have shifted left and now divide down other lines. What will those parties be? What will the platforms be? The groups that all vote for the D will suddenly be on opposite sides of that new debate.
What will be interesting to me is then, with the assumption that we aren’t going to be taking people’s votes away, how do you predict the future parties and pull the people who will eventually be in one or the other, who currently don’t vote Democrat to see that not voting Republican will eventually lead to a party that they more agree with?
I think white Americans need to come to terms with why white voters lean heavily republican, and accept responsibility for educating themselves and calling out their white friends, family, co-workers, & strangers on those issues. If white liberals use racist/classist euphemism (e.g. “bad neighborhood”, “good genes”), proudly avoid uncomfortable political confrontation with other white people (“civility”), or fail to inform themselves past 3rd-grade anti-racism (for example), you can hardly expect centrists or conservatives to do so.
Okay, that’s an interesting map, and we need to fight Voter suppression with any weapon we can - but it’s starting to feel a lot like “Save us from our own stupid choices, people who aren’t white, it’s up to you now.”
We already knew that PoC vote overwhelmingly democrat, that has literally been known since before half the people on this forum were born. That is not new information. It ain’t the job of PoC to save y’all, it’s up to you to knock heads together - metaphorically or literally, I’m not particularly concerned - and get Left-wing white people to stop being fuckwits for long enough to vote the shitty republicans out. And yeah, that’s going to involve burning some faves for some of y’all, but frankly the fact that it’s even a sacrifice is one of those problems you should think about fixing.
I may be about to make a big mistake a put my foot in my mouth and if so, please don’t hesitate to call me out here. This isn’t me responding to you directly, it’s just your call to action reminded me of this… well this thing that’s on my mind I guess.
This sentiment reminds me of something. It’s excellent and I completely agree with it. White americans do need to take responsibility and explain things to their white friends, family, etc.
Simultaneously white americans need to shut the fuck up and let people from less privileged communities explain things for themselves because they’re perfectly capable of doing so and far more qualified to speak on social issues than I am.
I’ve seen both of these positions and I can cite them if anyone’d like. I personally think the answer is not easy and while some examples like this one are clear cut. I live in my own life where one experience happens after the next and most aren’t as obvious.
Those are two obvious examples. Both of which I’d effortlessly abide by.
How about one not so clear cut. Say I’ve got a podcast where I talk about stuff and people listen. Should I spend time on that podcast talking about social justice issues or shouldn’t I? How much time? Is vote democrat enough or should I give a brief or even detailed history of redlining?
What if I’m not at a BLM protest but at a mostly white (by chance and because of the demographics of the local area) protest of the appointing of that jackass to AG and I hear something not blatently wrong but somewhat misguided?
This second one actually happened to me last week. I still am wondering if I did the right thing.
Edit: Also you’re right, they’re not inherently contradictory positions. You can both. They are awfully close though, and it’s pretty easy if you’re not careful to let one become the other.
Some basic conclusions I’ve drawn on the issue are as follows:
Explain things to other white people, but don’t talk over people for whom this isn’t just academic. Don’t appoint yourself spokesperson for other communities, and try and only make arguments you’ve heard from people from those communities. This requires actually understanding those arguments and is more challenging than just arguing by saying the next thing that comes to your head.
This report doesn’t contradict anything because it is bunch of made up gibberish. Like even the reaching towards categorization doesn’t make any sense and reflects the biases of the authors more than any concrete reality.
That’s a fair criticism. Though I guess all I can say is I saw it differently. I saw a great number of people with whom I interact daily in their category of the “silent majority”.
Reading it made the whole fight seem pretty bourgeois.
Is it, though? Because I don’t see any there, he’s just accusing what you bought of being made up gibberish while making basically no coherent argument, presenting zero evidence, and frankly, showing zero relevant expertise. Even the slightest bit of explanation he gives reads like like madlibs. Don’t be a push-over for that penny-ante bully, make him actually make a point, or tell 'em to fuck right off.
