And, as we established back when you thought I was calling all white people racist (which would, you know, mean calling myself racist), you do not seem to be very good at reading things into what I say.
So, perchance, it might be a better idea to not try to read things into what I’m saying. If you don’t understand what I’m getting at, ask me to explain the bit you don’t get.
No, I am not saying ‘focus on keeping minorities happy and leave white voters to the Republicans’. What I am saying is that we do very much need minority voters, and cannot afford to alienate them by trying to specifically pander to the white vote in the Deep South. Most of the white vote in the Deep South is completely unwinnable. It doesn’t matter how much our policies would benefit them, the majority of the white vote in the Deep South is voting on tribalism, and just tribalism.
That doesn’t mean we don’t try to reach them, but it does mean that we can’t prioritize that attempt over making sure we deliver for the voters who have been reliable. Every single time we have tried—Every. Single. Time—to chase ‘moderate’ Republicans, they have gone ahead and voted for the Republicans, not the Republican-Lite offered by the Democrats. And the voters who normally turn out for us get pissed off because we’ve stabbed them in the back.
Nowhere have I said we shouldn’t try to reach these people. What I’ve said is: don’t approach this like this is because of the billionaires. Don’t assume that ‘first contact’ will make racism evaporate like puddles on a sunny summer day. It won’t. What we’re working to overcome here are long-standing cultural factors that are deeply-ingrained into a lot of these folks’ identities. Frankly, you insisting ‘oh, we just need to talk about our goals’ and ‘racism doesn’t survive first contact’ despite decades of history proving all of that to not be case… you come across as pollyanna-ish.
You don’t run into overt white racists these days? Awesome. You know who else doesn’t? Sonya Sotomayor. You think any of her co-workers is walking around tossing racial epithets about the SCOTUS offices? Like the ones who just went and intentionally ruled to suppress minority votes…
Do you think we haven’t been telling racists to sit down and shut up? Of course we have. That’s why you don’t see as much overt racism anymore. And then you get the Republican Party, and Trump especially, cozying up to overt white supremacists.
The white you know are shocked by that? That’s a good thing. But how many of them would tell you if they quietly agreed with the message, they just don’t like how blatantly it’s being delivered? Like, they hear ‘white people have been getting the short end of the stick for a while now’, and don’t like hearing it because they know it’s bullshit… but quietly, in their gut, they feel like ‘yeah, but we can’t say that’.
Because here on Long Island, in the solidly Republican NY suburbs? Yeah, that’s exactly the situation. They’re appalled by Trump’s overt racism, not his overt racism. And no, they don’t want the Democrats to treat them better. They want the Democrats driven out of everywhere. There are people living not 3 houses down from me that, if shit starts off, I know they’ll be coming for my head.
Try to reach people. Try to get them to see the truth they don’t want to see. Don’t be surprised when they insist that you must be wrong, because that’s not the truth they want to be true.
Kinda like I’m not surprised by any of what you’ve said. I’ve had this convo dozens of times with well-meaning, but naive, liberals who somehow think Democrats haven’t tried to address the concerns of working-class white voters, who think that Democrats haven’t worked their asses off to combat inflation, wage stagnation, loss of jobs, or addressed America’s infrastructure issues, despite that being literally the exact entire agenda of the last Administration. Or who insist ‘Democrats haven’t done anything about healthcare’ despite the only success story in healthcare this century being literally nicknamed OBAMACARE because it was done by Democrats, under a Democratic President.
This convo started off about people in the Deep South. Now you’re bringing Minneapolis into it. Last I checked, Minneapolis isn’t in the Deep South. They aren’t part of the culture of the Deep South. Have you noticed that Trump hasn’t felt a need to send ICE into places like Atlanta, or Knoxville?
Last week I was talking with a guy in Texas. Smart guy. Literal astrophysicist. The subject of Rene Good and Alex Pretti came up. He insisted they were involved in violent attacks on federal officers, all while claiming Ashley Babbit was gunned down with an AR-15 over a broken window, and none of the J6 guys were at all violent.
Stop thinking that a country the size of Europe is a monoculture. It’s not.
