It was the racism, stupid: White working-class economic anxiety is a zombie idea that needs to die

[DemocratSinceBirth]

Donald Trump was supported by white voters across all demographic boundaries. Can we stop coddling some of them?



On Jan. 20, Donald Trump will become president of the United States of America. Donald Trump is an authoritarian and demagogue who meets the definition of a fascist, as I have argued on multiple previous occasions. His election, and the 60 million voters who supported him, are a threat to American democracy.

How did this happen?

The first draft of this history is being written now. In the years and decades to come, we will have the benefit of hindsight, as well as more information and context, to make better sense of Donald Trump’s victory on Election Day 2016 and its implications for American democracy and global politics.

But in the immediate present, the dominant narrative for explaining the rise of Donald Trump and his fascist movement has been centered upon the “white working class” and its purported “economic anxiety.” For a variety of reasons, this is a compelling story for the American corporate news media, the pundits and other elite opinion leaders.

http://www.salon.com/2017/01/05/it-was-the-racism-stupid-white-working-class-economic-anxiety-is-a-zombie-idea-that-needs-to-die/

[TheMastersNemesis]

1. It Has Been About Racism, Was About Racism And Will Be About Racism 100%.

No matter how you slice it the GOP fosters hatred against N**g*rs, Sp*c*, et al. And they use these pejorative words directly all the time in their private conversation. They hate government, Democrats and liberal because these entities and groups are seen as minority white hatred constituencies.

The racist souther strategy has only grown stronger over time. And Trump is the result. It is racism 100%. All other excuses are not relevant. Dig deep enough into their psyche and they are deeply and viciously racist. They cannot admit that to themselves.

[Wellstone ruled]

6. Murdoch and his Buddies have

pushed this meme since Obama became the New Guy in their White House. So glad DUers are speaking up and telling the real truth.

Attwater,Rove and Frank Luntz proved that they could get a blatant Racist elected to any office anywhere anytime by using subtle race baiting campaigns.

[Fast Walker 52]

19. I agree... all anxiety gets blamed on the "other"

Mexican, black, Muslim... none of where it belongs-- on rich turds like Trumph

[rainlillie]

37. Well said.

I'm so damn tired of people making excuses for Trump's despicable voters who voted for him. These people knew he was mentally unstable and unqualified..but told us he would "surround himself with smart people."
Knew he bragged about groping women...but told us it was "locker room talk."
They are no better than the folks back in the day who said: I'm not a bigot, but I don't want blacks moving into my neighborhood, because property values may go down.
I think it's liberal arrogance to think you can reach and reason with people who don't want you to exist. Listen to their talk radio shows.. they hate us and everything we stand for. As soon as some realize that they'll respond accordingly. If you voted for scum like Trump.. you are scum to me, regardless of why you voted for him.

[libtodeath]

2. Racism,bigotry and misogyny.

[earthside]

3. A prescription for the ultimate doom ...

... of the Democratic Party.

Nothing will more cement the triumph of the reactionary rightwing in this country than declaring war on white, working class Americans. Nothing pleases the Trumpians more than 'liberals' being active participants in division and scapegoating.

[HughBeaumont]

7. ONCE again, irresponsible, selfish and intellectually lazy voting choices don't get a pass with me.

There was absolutely NO good reason to vote for Donald Trump. NONE. Anyone who ever thought it was a great idea to make Orange Lincoln Rockwell president, SORRY; you automatically absolved your right to talk down to anyone or be exempt from the well-deserved scorn and contempt you're going to receive. That person DESERVES to get called a moron. COME on.

It's seriously time to STOP the tone trolling. It's seriously time to STOP CODDLING GROWN ADULTS.

A CEO who stiffs small businesses and cuts corners on labor was NEVER going to be your champion.

A serial and admitted sexual assaulter was NEVER going to be the champion for the 51% of white women that voted for him.

A man who has zero governmental experience is NOT going to be the sound choice to "shake things up in Washington".

Human rights? Hey, let's ask Vice President-Elect MIKE PENCE what he thinks of those!!

[earthside]

9. Nevertheless ...

... a plurality of voters in the states where it counted voted for Trump.

States, by the way, that voted by a clear majority for Barack Obama twice (Ohio, Florida, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania).

So, how are you going to persuade these folks that next time (if there is a next time) they need to reject Trumpism?

How is yelling, screaming, and name-calling going to make them realize that they made a mistake?

[wcast]

10. You can't make them realize.

Many of these small communities are still refighting the civil war. They are scared and really believe they are threatened by all minorities. I read this argument too much on DU. We Dems are supposed supposed to change our message to attract voters that will never vote for us! These people don't care about others outside of their group. And only whites can be part of their group. If a non- white grows up In these communities they are always viewed as outsiders once they become adults

We lost the election because these small communities like what Trump represented and promised! How do Dems ever embrace that?!

[DemocratSinceBirth]

12. We won the pop vote by 3,000,000... We lost the EC by freaking 80,000...

We can easily mitigate our losses elsewhere. We don't have to sell our souls.

[HughBeaumont]

13. Get a better ground game.

Put a progressive on the ticket to inspire the millennial/youth/progressive vote. Sorry, don't care what anyone says, Tim Kaine, while a nice guy and a good Senator, inspired nothing but Jill Stein/stay at home response. Yes, there was never a bigger "DURRRRR" between Hillary and Trump, but no one said politics are fair and not subject to inspiration.

Visit where they're from, tirelessly. President Obama understood this. He visited the Rust Belt FREQUENTLY.

Come with iron-clad data and fact-based counter arguments to their Faux narratives and conspiracy theories.

And if after all that, I STILL don't get their vote, well . . . I guess they'll just have to wait until the mass firings happen and their benefits get taken away for them to wake up.

[brush]

16. Don't worry, trump will make them realize they made a mistake. And btw . . .

don't you think a precise 80k vote swing in 3 states, just enough to swing the EC sounds very suspicious?

I don't believe for a minute that there wasn't voting machine hacking going on there. Hillary probably won those states too (as she did the popular vote) except for the hacking, not to mention all the votes not counted in AA precincts, and the AA, Latino and Asian sounding names scrubbed from the voting rolls by the repug Crosscheck program.

We don't have to cater to haters, we need to concentrate on stopping repug cheaters.

[LanternWaste]

43. It yet begs the question, how would you yourself welcome and embrace racists...?

It yet begs the question, without minimizing or reducing your ethics and convictions or party policy, how would you yourself welcome and embrace racists, sexists, bigots and xenophobes into the Democratic party and to vote for Democrats?

As you yourself wrote, "The last thing Democrats need is a slick politician as the presidential nominee who double-talks and dissembles on important issues...."

[DonCoquixote]

57. apparently getting them medical care

did not help either.

It is one thing to talk to people at the local evel and make sure initaives are pushed at the local level, aka what used to be called a 50 state strategy, but it is another to say we need to cower before people who, at the very least, were willing to fogive racism and sexism, to bare our throat so they can rip it out.

[Fast Walker 52]

20. what are you talking about? We can point out racism in a positive way as Obama did on occasion.

Problem is, he didn't do it enough. We have to address this and rise above it. If people insist on being racist, or denying their racism, then we shouldn't try to get their vote.

[Adrahil]

61. What do you say to this:

http://www.vox.com/identities/2017/1/4/14160956/trump-racism-sexism-economy-study


So what's your answer?

[Throd 2.0]

4. Let's insult it until it goes away.

[JHan]

8. To be fair..

Some of these voters had no problem voting for someone who insulted other demographics and his opponent.

In fact, he insulted them to their faces often.

[brush]

5. The coddlers here on DU need to acknowledge the elephant in the room.

Last edited Thu Jan 5, 2017, 02:57 PM - Edit history (1)

trump voters were lured and succumbed to his pied piper dog whistles.

It was racism pure and simple deep down. All the other excuses and analyses — economic anxiety and blah de blah blah blah, are just refusals to admit what's always behind repug/right wing stances — it's their ace in the hole and works nearly every time.

"Make America great again" is nothing but dog whistle for "Make America white again."

LBJ said it best in 1960: "If you can convince the lowest white man that he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket."

We saw it at trump rallies. Confederate flags everywhere, black or brown faces nowhere, except the one or two being manhandled and thrown out.

[wcast]

11. +1000

NT

[HughBeaumont]

14. + 1,000.

The Southern Strategy plays well in the Midwest.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

15. You would think we had our asses handed to us.

Drumpf lost the pop vote by 3,000,000, and won the EC by 80,000 votes. To our eternal dismay Drumpf pulled the political equivalent of a Royal Flush and he needed the FBI and FSB to put its thumb on the scale.

We can easily mitigate our losses elsewhere without selling our souls.

[HughBeaumont]

17. In a way, that makes it even worse.

It's similar to the Failure Fuhrer's usurpation of our voting process - Like Bewsh, Trump had help in all the right places, particularly the lapdog media that chronicled his every move while ignoring whatever message Hillary had. And LIKE Bewsh's hair-thin victories, the 2016 election was suspiciously close enough to steal AND leave supporters with serious questions on (this time) foreign involvement in a Democratic election. I'm really suspicious that polling in SEVERAL swing states turned out to be incorrect in their predictions. That's a major red flag.

My biggest problem has always been this - just the fact that more than 60,000,000 people thought "President Donald Trump" was a great idea in the first place SCREAMS of a serious void in education, reasoned dialogue and logic; one that I believe began fomenting with Sarah Palin's hate-rhetoric in 2008 and snowballed glacially from there.

[erpowers]

63. Do Not Forget About Voter Suppression

It is likely that there were enough votes thrown out on election day and enough people kept off the voter rolls to hand Trump an electoral college win.

[uponit7771]

26. +1, Obama wasn't running against an overt racist in 2008 and 2012.

[raging moderate]

51. Correct.

Last edited Tue Jan 10, 2017, 04:17 PM - Edit history (1)

I went door to door in small-town Illinois. And now I find the same thing here in small-town Maryland. A strange tendency to conveniently overlook huge crimes from anybody on the far right, while clinging to any accusation against anybody on the left. A deep and unacknowledged fear of anybody different. A willingness to believe whatever self-serving lies are dreamed up by the propaganda mills of the white billionaires. An exultation in scapegoating anybody who isn't one of them.

[raging moderate]

52. Over 50% of voters with incomes below $50K voted for Clinton.

So the right-wingers whining about liberal elites are mostly just privileged bullies frustrated by efforts to protect people whom they consider to be their lawful prey.

[hunter]

18. It's the insecure affluent white guys we have to worry about.

The sort who don't want to let women and minorities into their clubhouse.

The Democratic Party needs to stop pandering to this minority and become the party of everyone else.

[Ron Obvious]

21. So the same people who enthusiastically voted for Obama became racists in the last 8 years?

I'd say this attitude is exactly why Democrats keep losing elections.

Remember that Trump got a million fewer votes than Romney, whereas Clinton lost 5-8 million voters from Obama.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

24. Ninety three percent of

So the same people who enthusiastically voted for Obama became racists in the last 8 years?

Ninety three percent of Obama voters voted for Clinton.

Remember that Trump got a million fewer votes than Romney, whereas Clinton lost 5-8 million voters from Obama.

Votes

Hillary Clinton 2016 65,844,954
Barack Obama 2012 65,915,795

Donald Drumpf 2016 62,979,879
Willard Romney 2012 60,933,504

What is 5-8 million votes among friends ?

[Ron Obvious]

25. You realise the population has grown since 2008?

US Population, 2008 304.09 million
US Population, 2016 323.64 million

The difference is almost 20 million people. The 5-8 million refers to percentages of the voting public and is a projected figure.

[pnwmom]

27. None of those new voters voted for Obama. So what's your point? n/t

[Ron Obvious]

29. Think about it.

Do you think the 20 million population growth since 2008 has increased or decreased the percentage of the white electorate?

My point is that a country that is now noticeably less white than it was in the 2008/2012 populations that elected and re-elected a black man was considerably less inclined to vote for Clinton than it was for Obama.

You may blame misogyny if you like with those numbers, but I'd say racism is a complete non-starter for assigning blame.

[pnwmom]

31. Think about it. Voter suppression was targeted at minority voters.

The voting rights act got dismantled in 2013, after Obama's second election. He would have had fewer votes, too, if that had happened before one of his runs.

So Hillary had to contend with a level of voter suppression that Obama didn't. Not surprisingly, she got fewer votes in some heavily Democratic areas.

[Ron Obvious]

39. There was very little enthusiasm for Clinton

Something I even noticed in liberal Seattle. On the day of the election, I noticed virtually no Clinton bumper stickers and yard signs, only a few Trump ones, and more Sanders' than either of them.

When have you ever seen so few bumper stickers and yard signs for the Democratic candidate in this area?

[pnwmom]

48. Garbage. I live in liberal Seattle and I noticed plenty of enthusiasm for Clinton,

talking to actual people.

But I didn't put up bumper sticker and yard signs because I was AFRAID of vandalizing Trump voters. I'd never felt that way about the supporters of a GOP candidate before.

And your post doesn't address my point: that we know about the voter suppression that has been allowed since 2013, and the millions of voters that were impacted this election.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

32. "... but I'd say racism is a complete non-starter for assigning blame..."

Are you denying that there are reams of data that suggest racism plays a part in people's votes. The author I cited cites just such data.

[Ron Obvious]

36. Then what explains the difference between 2008 and 2016? n/t

[DemocratSinceBirth]

42. Did President Obama win by universal acclamation?

Some people voted for him. Some people voted against him and for some of those people racism played a part in their vote.

The data suggests race plays a role in voting:

To quantify this double standard in deservingness we embedded an experiment in a new HuffPost/YouGov survey. We asked half of our respondents if they agreed or disagreed with the following statement: “Over the past few years, blacks have gotten less than they deserve.” The other half of the sample was provided with the exact same statement, except we changed “blacks” to “average Americans” — a group that psychology research shows is implicitly synonymous with being white.

http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/tabsHPDeserve20161207.pdf

Are you denying that racism exists and affects decision making including voting?

[Ron Obvious]

46. So the racists were nevertheless MORE likely to vote for a black man?

C'mon!

[DemocratSinceBirth]

47. President Obama didn't win by universal acclamation.

Not everybody who voted against Obama was racist. But almost every racist voted against Obama with the emphasis on the world almost. Some racists will vote/do business/sleep with a black guy if there is something in it for them. I assure you a lot of Islamophobes will let a Muslim give him or her some food if he or she is starving.

[etherealtruth]

56. Actually the analysis disputes the idea that "Obama voters" voted for trump

Take Michigan for example. A state that Obama won in 2012 by 350,000 votes, Clinton lost by roughly 10,000. Why? She received 300,000 votes less than Obama did in 2012. Detroit and Wayne County should kick themselves because of the 595,253 votes they gave Obama in 2012, only 518,000 voted for Clinton in 2016. Mote than 75,000 Motown Obama voters did not bother to vote for Clinton! They did not become Trump voters – Trump received only 10,000 votes more than Romney did in this county. They simply stayed at home. If even a fraction of these lethargic Democrats had turned out to vote, Michigan would have stayed blue.

Wisconsin tells the same numbers story, even more dramatically. Trump got no new votes. He received exactly the same number of votes in America’s Dairyland as Romney did in 2012. Both received 1,409,000 votes. But Clinton again could not spark many Obama voters to turn out for her: she tallied 230,000 votes less than Obama did in 2012. This is how a 200,000-vote victory margin for Obama in the Badger State became a 30,000-vote defeat for Clinton.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/omribenshahar/2016/11/17/the-non-voters-who-decided-the-election-trump-won-because-of-lower-democratic-turnout/#13e3590740a1

Additionally, only a little more than half of eligible voters bothered to vote

Voter turnout this year dipped to nearly its lowest point in two decades.

While election officials are still tabulating ballots, the 126 million votes already counted means about 55% of voting age citizens cast ballots this year.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/11/politics/popular-vote-turnout-2016/

[brush]

60. Ahhh . . . vote suppression. Ever heard of it. The repugs spent big money to stop AA votes.

[etherealtruth]

62. Uhh yes ... that simply furthers my point that Obama voters did NOT vote for tRump ... ?

[brush]

30. Missing the point

80 thousand votes in 3 states, just a precise enough number to swing the EC?

Come on, that is suspicious as hell, not to mention trumps last minute trip to Wisconsin, a long-time blue state.

IMO that is very sketchy. Did he get some sort of assurance?

Non-paper trail voting machines are easy to trip votes from one candidate to the other

Remember, he was the one claiming the election would be rigged.


Do I have to mention the repug Crosscheck program that scrubs AA, Latino and other POC-sounding names off voting rolls, not counting provisional ballots foisted quite often onto POC voters, broken voting machines not fixed in AA areas (75,000 votes not counted in Detroit because of broken machines), easily hacked voting machines with no paper trail, caging, closing polling places in minority areas, shutting down early voting, voter ID laws.

All of that help repugs to steal it. It wasn't any Democratic attitude.

What we have to now is put up a sustained, concerted effort to exposed and combat their cheating.

[Ron Obvious]

34. Campaigning was done with an eye on the EC and the current rules

Which is why money and energy was spent in those places where it would make a difference.

Without the EC both candidates would have concentrated on NY, CA, FL, and TX and every other state would have been ignored and the popular vote outcomes would have been different as well.

As for cheating, Russian hacking, etc: prove it. I'm perfectly willing to be convinced.

[brush]

38. I don't have to prove it. 17 intel agencies and the FBI have all reported that the ruskies hacked

So you're with trump in dismissing our intel agencies?

[Ron Obvious]

44. Sorry, that really smacks of desperation

If the situation were exactly the same, but with the D and R reversed, I can only imagine the howls of outrage here after this intelligence report. Can you look deep within yourself and see that the Freepers and us would EXACTLY reverse position if that were the case?

Again, anybody who claims Russian hacking: prove it! I don't take anything on faith on the assertion of our intelligence agencies.

[brush]

59. Okay, take trump's position. Nobody cares.

Do you know more than the generals too like trump?

Check this out:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

[DemocratSinceBirth]

45. That is the consensus of seventeen intelligence agencies.

As for cheating, Russian hacking, etc: prove it. I'm perfectly willing to be convinced.

That is the consensus of seventeen intelligence agencies and President Obama. If you believe Sarah Palin, Sean Hannity, Julian Assange, and Donald Trump that Russia wasn't the source of the hacking there is nothing I can do to disabuse you of that notion.

[Ron Obvious]

54. I thought you said it was racism? n/t

[DemocratSinceBirth]

55. You brought up the Trump/Palin/Assange/Hannity suggestion that the Russian hacking was apocryphal.

I merely disabused you of that sentiment.

[NobodyHere]

22. So racism is why America elected a black person

And yet didn't vote for a specific white person?

[HenryWallace]

23. aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh, Wrong, but thanks for playing!

Barack Obama one the prior two Presidential elections, he has incredibly high approval ratings. He's right, had he been able to run, he would have won!

These Asses are always with us! They don't explain the results, something else does.

(Hint: Me thinkst he does protest too much!)

[stonecutter357]

28. K&R!

[ananda]

33. Agree .. to a point.

Yes, the racism was the major factor determining the white vote
for Trump.

However, this is NOT why Clinton lost the election.

The election was treasonously and criminally stolen by Trump and
the Reeps.

[Aristus]

35. I never believed that horseshit anyway.

Oh, the poor, oppressed, downtrodden, neglected, forgotten white working class! Why have we been so mean to them? Why have we not addressed their concerns? Oh, the hand-wringing! The pearl-clutching!

To hell with all of them.

They hate President Obama because he's black and a Democrat. For no other reasons.

[JCanete]

40. But Racism itself isn't just about Racism. There is a very good psychological reason why

people come to think of others evil or sub-human. It makes it acceptable to steal from or exploit these people for personal gain. And from on high, the tactic of defining groups in this way has been an effective strategy of keeping not just that minority down, but everybody. There is power in creating inequality. Thus divide-and-conquer scapegoating of people of color and immigrants, and directly tying them to any real or perceived economic strife white people in these communities are feeling.

I ask you this. Is racism or is it not a symptom of a greater illness? It might be where the worst harm is caused...it might be the infection that kills the host who contracted AIDS, but if we're going to solve it, we can't just try to treat the symptom.

[mcar]

41. Racism and sexism

All the talk about "economic anxiety" is so much codswallop.

[Orrex]

49. You're only saying that because they hate people who aren't white.

And I say "fuck that" to the argument that they aren't really racist.

Results supersede intention, so whether or not they're "actually" racist, they have cast their lots with the racist and racist-enabling candidate, full stop. Their intention is irrelevant; the result is now the issue.

If I didn't intend to broadside their car, I doubt that they'd say "you're not a car-hitter, because you didn't mean to hit my car."


Fuck it. Racists every last one of them. Or--just as bad--cowardly enablers who lacked the integrity to make a statement against racism.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

50. Me ? The author is saying racism was a motivating factor in Drumpf's election.

I largely agree with the author.

[world wide wally]

53. Ok, all you racist white assholes who need a more "loving" message to not vote Republican.

Just think about your health care, your social security, your personal taxes, the deficit you claim to care so much about for the sake of your children, your opposition to corruption in government, and your beloved fed patriotism to the USA.
You just voted against all that so what if we buy you an ice cream cone and kiss your sorry asses. Then will you vote for us?
Pretty please with a cherry on top?

Is that better?

[Lithos]

58. B/S

Salon and every other website which publishes political things have articles all over the place about what happened, so pick whatever you believe in. People were racists, people voted against their best interests, Hillary was a bad candidate, etc. And of course any armchair pundit can write a two page article which naturally summarizes one of the most complicated elections in very simple terms.

As Einstein said, "Make things as simple as possible, not simpler" This is yet another example of the latter part of Einstein's dictum. It's too simple and it of course misses the mark just like the "economic anxiety" one did as well.

What this article fails to explain is why voters who supported Obama shifted away from Hillary to vote for Trump. Another thing this article fails to explain is why we're seeing the same pattern as the UK and Europe.

The racism being described has always been present at pretty much the same level and were not those who voted for Obama. Ie, it's background noise and does not explain the "what's changed", or better stated "what failed to change".

So, to find out why Trump is now the President Elect you have to answer - the "what's changed" and "what failed to change" questions.

I think what you're going to find is the "center" in American politics at this time is different, just like it is in Europe. I think you will also find the "Third Way" of the Clinton era with the hallmarks of Neoliberal economics, moderate Social platform, and business first attitude is now in tatters and destroyed because it no longer appeals the same way it once did. Same thing is happening in Europe.