Michael Eric Dyson On Why Poor Whites in 'Red-States' Vote Against Their Interests

[Lady Freedom Returns]

Nailed it!!!

[napkinz]

1. Voting Against Their Own Interests --->

[napkinz]

2. ...

[Fumesucker]

3. Why are you so invested in spreading untruths about poor whites?

It's really middle class whites who vote en masse against their own economic interests, not so much poor ones.

http://themonkeycage.org/blog/2012/03/23/voting-patterns-of-americas-whites-from-the-masses-to-the-elites/

Within any education category, richer people vote more Republican. In contrast, the pattern of education and voting is nonlinear. High school graduates are more Republican than non-HS grads, but after that, the groups with more education tend to vote more Democratic. At the very highest education level tabulated in the survey, voters with post-graduate degrees lean toward the Democrats. Except for the rich post-graduates; they are split 50-50 between the parties.

What does this say about America’s elites? If you define elites as high-income non-Hispanic whites, the elites vote strongly Republican. If you define elites as college-educated high-income whites, they vote moderately Republican.

There is no plausible way based on these data in which elites can be considered a Democratic voting bloc. To create a group of strongly Democratic-leaning elite whites using these graphs, you would need to consider only postgraduates (no simple college grads included, even if they have achieved social and financial success), and you have to go down to the below-$75,000 level of family income, which hardly seems like the American elites to me.

The patterns are consistent for all three of the past presidential elections. (The differences in the higher-income low-education category should not be taken seriously, as the estimates are based on small samples, as can be seen from the large standard errors for those subgroups.)

[JI7]

4. many middle class whites see themselves as closer to the wealthy whites including millionares

and even more wealthy types than they do to those just below them.

[Lady Freedom Returns]

5. But it is the Poor that help to tip the scales for them in the elections.

Why?? They don't get all the facts.

I have got see it first hand working for a consulting group. The numbers we were getting did not lie, we asked who they were planing on voting for and we asked their income for the last year. And what came up time and again in the red stats? People under $25,000 was planing on voting republican.

And what did we see Tuesday???

[Fumesucker]

8. Did you look at the OPs second post on the thread?

Why would anyone who fit the profile he was mocking ever consider joining him in anything?

What was the point of that other than division?

Personally I try not to judge people based on their external appearance, others evidently have a different standard.

[Yo_Mama]

15. Well, open immigration is directly suppressing working class wages in many areas.

So I would say that Dyson is not necessarily staring at the same deck of cards that the average "red" district voter is contemplating.

At-will immigration (our current real policy) directly affects some classes of workers more than others. Originally it was a Reaganite union-busting gambit that somehow got taken over by the Dems.

Sure - some. I think our country would be way weaker without immigration. But on the scale we are doing it, the effects are inevitable, and they fall disproportionately on the young and the lower-class worker without a lot of specialized skills.

And then you have ACA. I know a bunch of people who lost their health insurance this year because rates were too high for them. But now when they walk into the local hospital cash in hand, they the ones paying while all the undocumented immigrants are getting free care. There's a reason why some of the Dem voters in these rural areas rolled to Republican voters.

[daredtowork]

17. What this says to me

Is Democrats should talk about supporting unions and other issues that would lift rural "boats" in the same breath as immigration reform: put the two issues together some way.

The health issue has to stop being an either/or: if *everyone* is getting health care (i.e. Red State Governors no longer blocking it, no more Insurance company/Big Pharma hijinks) then it doesn't matter if immigrants are getting it, too. But, btw, there's a big difference between being able to get sutures in an ER and being able to get a retinal specialist to treat your eyes if you're going blind. The latter is hard to get even if you HAVE some some sort of cheap insurance. So don't think of undocumented workers as getting cadillac health care coverage the minute they cross our borders. They are actually taking big risks regarding their health.

To both congress and the immigrant community I would ask for clarification as to what "immigration reform" means. Everyone loves to keep this term vague so they can smuggle in their specific agenda and avoid the direct hits from virulent opposition. But this vagueness is what makes it impossible for political action to occur, because anything that happens is going to be wrong according to some faction within this rubric. The first group that takes ownership of the term "immigration reform" and endows it with specific content wins!

Once we have a set agenda of "immigration reform" - let's say we document the undocumented or change the green card numbers or tweak the seasonal worker program to put people in line for citizenship - then we can talk in specifics about how these groups are similar and can be allies of the struggling working class across America.


Picture these Ad "optics": $1 for a bottle of milk - do you want it to go toward another overpriced Pentagon toilet seat or to a family in need"? Do you want it to go for a trillion dollar plane or a family in need? Show families of all colors/settings.

[Yo_Mama]

19. Yes THEY SHOULD talk about on-the-ground issues in a coherent way

And no, I don't believe, and I don't think many people believe, that illegal immigrants are getting Cadillac health care. But ACA was crafted so that undocumented workers don't have to pay in and aren't subject to the mandate, and so that employers don't have to pay a fine for them if uninsured. We have created a situation that truly doesn't make sense - it is more expensive to employ a legal resident than an undocumented worker in many jobs.

It's not that I don't believe the Dems are trying, and it is hard to patch good policy together in the shambles left over from more than two decades of rack-up-the-debt corporatism. But ANYONE willing to address the issues facing average workers today will get a very favorable response from the electorate.

I do believe we will end up legalizing a lot of people, and that we should. But the other side of the issue is how we stop the flood over the borders, and how we get companies to stop screwing the plebes. Oh, and we need to get larger corps paying real taxes. Right now the smaller businesses pay taxes, but the large ones hardly do.

It is not at all impossible to come back strongly in the 2016 election, but we are going to have to have real sensible policies.

Just screaming "racism" doesn't work any more. My husband, who is a naturalized citizen who came to this country in his 20s from Central America, voted straight R in this election because of the immigration issue and the health care issue. He is on Medicare now, but a bunch of his friends lost their insurance. I can't even talk to him about it - he is so angry that he just starts ranting. When he's calmer he has a lot of sensible stuff to say. The guy who works on his car, Dave (black, native Georgian) and his wife lost their insurance - and I know Dave voted R down the line this election. A bunch of people I know who were cradle Dems did.

We have got to address the real issues - when you look at the polling this cycle, those voting R were voting based largely on economic concerns.

I think the American public would be tremendously happy with a rework of ACA that relied on a payroll tax instead of fines for those not getting insurance through their employer. That would remove the incentive to cut the hours and would put legal residents and undocumented workers on at least an equal footing. And I think the American public would be very happy overall with a reform that allowed those who have been in this country for a certain period of time to get grandfathered legal residence for say 10 years, but made those who want to come in now do it legally - and prevented them from working if they didn't.

The first party that comes up with anything feasible and humane that tries to address some of our real problems will be the big winner.

The US has become a corporatist state and it is destroying our country, and I am sorry to say that from the ground level, there does not appear to be much difference between Ds and Rs on these issues at the moment. GE needs to get the fuck out of the government. Fuck Zuckerberg. Until we start respecting the worker again, things will continue to get worse.

[daredtowork]

21. Too much was left up to "States Rights" too

Often it is the State screwing the worker, but the worker just sees "the ACA" poorly implemented and wants blames "Obamacare" - which is exactly what Red Governors wanted.

[Savannahmann]

6. People decide what their interests are.

The Democratic party ignored the economy. They ignored the immigration issue. They ignored foreign affairs. Republicans objected to the way that Obama was handling it all. Most people dissapprove of the President.

So what did the Democratic Party run on? The war on women. By election day the candidates were getting laughed at when they broke out the overused phrase.

The economy is not doing fantastic. 92 million people are not in the workforce, record high numbers. Record low rates of participation. http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t02.htm

Stop just swallowing the press releases. Because more than 100,000 blacks were dropped from the employment participation roles and we cellbrate the unemployment drop. We are ignoring 92 million people and expect them to vote for us.

People decide what is important to them. Political leaders are supposed to pay attention to those needs, not pretend they don't exist.

[Lady Freedom Returns]

7. Wrong!

The Dems are the ones that have pushed it this far. The unemployment drop because we pushed to get things going. It is the Repugs that are fighting to stop it.

The reason why we Dems loss is that Repukes help to push the nonsense you just quoted from their handbook!
Stuff like this makes people not want to vote. We need to literately get out with pallets, copies of the real voting records of those they THINK are helping them, and show them the truth!

[kelliekat44]

9. Well on the economy some anecdotal evidence"

In my family: 2009 unemployed and collecting unemployment insurance and some on food stamps

4 whites 3 in construction related industries; self-employed consultant
5 blacks 1 computer tech; 2 in construction related industries; 2 in health care related industries
3 Hispanics 1 in finance; 1 in retail sales; 1 free lance

All over 30

November 2014: All employed in full-time, permanent positions.

It was rough going for those with families to support but they all hung in there with unemployment and temp and part time work. The last one to get permanent job was my granddaughter who just was hired as an architect to work in San Antonio. Begins job in three weeks.

Just sayin'

[JoePhilly]

10. The GOp has the media ... the Dems only have us.

And we would rather fight each other than fight the GOP and the media.

[Lady Freedom Returns]

11. That has always been such a strange thing.

The way that CONservatives keep calling it the "liberal" media, and they have the lion's share as of late.

[Fumesucker]

13. Not at all, they are "playing the refs"

If you call something by the wrong name or label constantly enough for long enough you can get people to start saying and believing it.

Look how often people use "Democrat Party" on DU, I'm always a bit surprised when I see it because it's such an obvious slur but it's become so common that even people on DU use it without thinking.

Calling the media liberal all the time makes the media defensive and the way they respond is by stifling any liberal tendencies they might have and inflating the conservative ones.

[rogerashton]

12. It's the rich who vote against their interests.

The BGOV Barometer shows that, over the five decades since John F. Kennedy was inaugurated, $1,000 invested in a hypothetical fund that tracks the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index (SPX) only when Democrats are in the White House would have been worth $10,920 at the close of trading yesterday.

That’s more than nine times the dollar return an investor would have realized from following a similar strategy during Republican administrations. A $1,000 stake invested in a fund that followed the S&P 500 under Republican presidents, starting with Richard Nixon, would have grown to $2,087 on the day George W. Bush left office.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-22/stocks-return-more-with-dem-in-white-house-bgov-barometer.html

[roamer65]

14. For the 1 percent, this is life or death.

If the 99 pct ever all realize what's going on and unify, this country will be a repeat of France in 1789.

[JaneyVee]

16. It goes deeper than what Dyson answered...

Although he did touch on it. It goes back to the days of slavery when poor southern whites would go to war for the rich's right to own slaves in the Civil War. The same tactics are being used by today's rightwing. The only people who could afford slaves were the wealthy plantation owners, but the rich used the propaganda of class war to make poor whites feel that as long as there are people below them on the social ladder i.e. slaves, they aren't considered the bottom of the socio-economic class.

[daredtowork]

18. Out of curiosity

After observing my local elections, it seems more like poor people don't vote or are hindered by voting rather than that they "vote against their interests".

On the other hand rich people organize with their Democratic Club and their private parties and their email list and Get Out the Vote.

[Lady Freedom Returns]

20. That is where the RNC this year spent some money.

While one team ( my Team) was at work polling Mass. Another team were calling registered REPUBLICAN Voters to make sure they had a ride in Texas to the polls. And we were not the only ones getting paid to do this, and this was.

This year, from what I was able to see first hand, The Repukes got their message/ fear and terror message, to the poorer people and then got them to the polls. And in this type of election ( No electoral college) it is the bodes that were needed and the Repukes did a good job of finding a way.

They did, what we SHOULD have done more of. And we better do better in 2016! If we don't get the truth out there and help people get to the polls, Them they will once again spread their lies, scare people into voting for them, and them get them to the polls!