Last year, I was outside talking to our (White) yard guy. His truck with the name of his lawn service was parked out front. He was dressed in beat up jeans, dusty, and holding the lawn mower while I had just come from work - in slacks and button down shirt. A neighbor walked over to us and asked him how long has he been living here while completely ignoring me. He looked like he was going to say something and I quietly nudged for him not to. I politely said I would see them later and walked into the house.
She was embarrassed - point made. When she left, I walked back outside with a bottle of water for him and we started back talking. I told him I just walked into the house to make a point and we both laughed.
And they are going to vote for him again?
How many “good Christians” support him even after the recording came out about him “grabbing a woman by the p%%%%”?
For working class people, neoliberal economics have done nothing for them. Plants in town have closed and they don't see any investment in their community from their tax dollars.
If neither party is going to look out for you, it's perfectly rational to sigh and pick the one that at least doesn't villainize you as some sort of oppressor.
If the democrats want to win back the white union vote, they need to actually offer something besides "vote for us or you're racist". I guess there's always 2024.
Basically the type of people who think saying "Black Lives Matter" means you hate White people.
Also, WaPo recently used one question from historical surveys by the ANES (American National Election Studies) to measure what they consider "white resentment", and there seems to be a large correlation between that and other political positions. [2]
(Skip to the "Here’s how we did our research" part and the graph if you're not a fan of WaPo)
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[1] https://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2008/08/my-on...
[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2018/01/1...
Unless you grant that Republicans say that "blacks are lazy and violent" because right-leaning Internet randos say it online.
The presumptive Democrat candidate put out words of unity, compared to Trump's verbal shit splatter.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/apr/14/barackobama.us...
Obama was caught in an uncharacteristic moment of loose language. Referring to working-class voters in old industrial towns decimated by job losses, the presidential hopeful said: "They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."
Whether or not the specific phrase 'white trash' is said or not said doesn't matter. It could be 'clinging to guns and religion', could be 'deplorables', etc.
Racism totally does exist among the demographic we're talking about but it's not the only motivator anyone ever has.
Trump can afford to say “much worse” just like republicans in the past could afford to use the “Southern Strategy” and dog whistle to their constituents.
What is the role of the federal government, if not "to provide basic services to its citizens in times of extraordinary need"? In the face of a generational pandemic, from which nobody is unaffected, why should the government throw up its hands and not spend?
I recognize that that is something of an ideological statement, and we're not going to get anywhere with non-falsifiable statements. So let's think of it a different way: you say that "debt is at dangerous levels" - how would you quantify danger? US Treasury yields, how we "finance" debt, are at all-time lows - which means that private buyers are willing to pay higher prices than ever for the safety of Treasury bonds. There is absolutely no quantitative evidence that more US government debt is dangerous; in fact, the evidence points squarely towards investors demanding more debt issuance, and thus government spending, given the extremely low rates.
Part of what makes federal debt dangerous is the fact that we can't possibly run the country without issuing large amounts of debt at this point. If debt continues to grow at the rates that is has been, eventually tax revenue won't even cover the interest on said debt. At some point the US will have to be issuing debt to pay off interest on other debt, assuming we aren't there now - haven't checked in a while. Even assuming that investors never realize how much of a house of cards this is, this continual increase in the money supply will eventually lead to a large amount of inflation, which will devalue the currency, increasing debt required, which feeds back into the loop.
Currently, we don't have a major problem manifesting, but judging from pretty much every other country that has run massive debt for an extended period, it is just a matter of time.
Ahh but the idea of defense runs straight into the chicken and the egg of public health. Correct me if you disagree with me, but if anything, the ability of COVID to have completely overwhelmed our medical infrastructure and overrun our country and really the world has made me deeply question whether we as a country have adequate defenses to any possible bioweapon attack. If we can't muster a good response to this, what happens if a modern version of smallpox or Spanish Flu hits? I mean, Congo has just been hit by a second Ebola outbreak.
This assumes that the money has been earned completely fairly. Every law or norm restricting black people (redlining, restrictive covenants, discriminatory hiring practices, etc) is effectively a subsidy to white people. Therefore, some of the dollars in their pockets are stolen, in a moral sense. Restoring some of those dollars is only fair.
Mind you, I'm not sure if it's practical, but that's the logic.
Imagine your parents stole a fortune from your neighbor and passed it on to you when they died. Does that money belong to you, or your neighbor/their children? I think the answer is common sense. The fact that you weren’t the one who originally stole the money is irrelevant.
I'm conflicted on this issue, I really understand the need and can persuade myself either way but it's not obvious.
Being black in America may be a special case that's worth trying to correct directly with something like reparations, but I'm not convinced you can right all historical wrongs by this logic generally. A lot of groups have faced terrible persecution throughout history.
American Indians, Jews, etc.
I personally don't find this line of questioning fruitful. The trouble is that word 'should'.
Philosophers call it an is-ought problem. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem
edit: To make an analogy, if you move into a condo, and its roof needs to be replaced the next year, it's not your fault that the building's reserve fund can't cover the cost, but that doesn't exempt you from paying the special levy.
However, what I don't hear is radical solution to this problem. Even in Obama's medium essay, the solution is deep police and criminal justice reform. Which, while important, is incremental. What we need here is a step change to course correct 400 years of history. And incremental changes do not cut it. Here are some step change suggestions
1)Trillions of dollars of reparations 2) A generous UBI 3) Free healthcare 4) Trillions of investment in schools in poorer neighborhoods 5) A dramatic rise in minimum wage
In pre-COVID world, I would accept a reasonable pushback against this suggestion was "deficit" "debt" etc. But COVID has exposed these pushbacks was hypocritical (puts a stark spotlight on the hypocritical Tea Party movement). We printed trillions of dollars overnight to save small and big businesses, and employees. Why can't we move at that scale ? If we can suddenly print that much money, what is stopping us from massive investments in our most disadvantaged communities to undo 400 years of history ?