Posted on 01/22/2016 6:07:21 AM PST by Citizen Zed
Why did the white working class abandon the Democrats?
The conventional answer is Republicans skillfully played the race card.
In the wake of the Civil Rights Act, segregationists like Alabama Governor George C. Wallace led southern whites out of the Democratic Party.
Later, Republicans charged Democrats with coddling black "welfare queens," being soft on black crime ("Willie Horton", and trying to give jobs to less-qualified blacks over more-qualified whites (the battle over affirmative action).
The bigotry now spewing forth from Donald Trump and several of his Republican rivals is an extension of this old race card, now applied to Mexicans and Muslims -- with much the same effect on the white working class voters, who don't trust Democrats to be as "tough."
(Excerpt) Read more at m.truthdig.com ...
Think about it. Every gain for queers, feminists, blacks, "the poor," illegals, etc. has come at the expense of heterosexual Christian white male Americans. In becoming the champions of the fringes, Democrats forsook the bulge of the bell curve.
Their only hope is that the freak show they've cobbled together has enough numbers to offset their losses.
The reason “the white working class” abandoned the Democrats is that most “white working class” people hate commies.
Thanks! Coincidentally I was just dusting a bookcase and noticed that the nice old binding of volume one of Emerson’s Writings in two volumes is starting to crack and separate. This is the volume including The Conduct of Life. So I put it aside to repair, and will read that essay when the glue dries.
He has it backward. Democrats abandoned the white working class, among others.
“In the wake of the Civil Rights Act, segregationists like Alabama Governor George C. Wallace led southern whites out of the Democratic Party.”
Puzzling statement, considering that the man went to his grave as a Democrat in the year 1998. In 1976, he endorsed Carter, that is a fact. I do not the have a statement or document as proof, but I would not be going on a limb that Wallace supported Reich’s own boss, Clinton, in the 90’s.
Excellent. Thank you.
“Robert Reich
Stopped reading right there. A very small man in so many ways”
Not a very small man, but a Very Nasty Little Hateful Man.
Correct.
The most privileged person in the USA is a black person with an IQ of 100 (average) or more.
They cannot be fired, get into great schools, and don’t have to pay.
It’s irked me since I went to MIT -— which used to have higher standards for Jews and Asians than whites — something I became aware of while working in the admissions department. The first thing they ask me to do was to screen applications to put suspected Jews in a different pile by looking at Jewish-related extra curriculars. (I was intentionally bad at my job.)
The test score difference between blacks and white admitted was two standard deviations lower. Blacks and Jews/Asians three.
Race is likely the least of the issues, but it keeps the blacks voting Democrat, which is the purpose of all the endless charges of racism.
The real issues are the attacks on the valuesof the working class; the 2nd amendment, gay rights and the economy.
Fascinating bit of prose there. Bump to read it more fully later.
Check out the movie "Fight Club". It explores what happens when working men become so alienated from society, that they become prepared to let it all crash down, and laugh.
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