To be clear, no one is saying there weren’t any legitimate economic grievances in Trumpland, nor is anyone claiming that the economy played no role whatsoever. The point, however, is that it wasn’t the major motivating factor for most Trump voters — or, at least, that’s what we learn when we bother to study those voters. Race trumped economics....
The Intercept
Top Democrats Are Wrong: Trump Supporters Were More Motivated by Racism Than Economic Issues
Mehdi Hasan
Top Democrats Are Wrong: Trump Supporters Were More Motivated by Racism Than Economic Issues
Mehdi Hasan
"Other surveys and polls of Trump voters found “a strong relationship between anti-black attitudes and support for Trump”; Trump supporters being “more likely to describe African Americans as ‘criminal,’ ‘unintelligent,’ ‘lazy’ and ‘violent’”; more likely to believe “people of color are taking white jobs”; and a “majority” of them rating blacks “as less evolved than whites.” Sorry, but how can any of these prejudices be blamed on free trade or low wages?"
ReplyDeleteI'll tell you how, as good jobs get scarcer and scarcer, of course that's going to exacerbate existing racial tensions. We're tribal creatures after all. Only a fool would expect race relations to improve while there is increasingly cutthroat competition for shittier and shittier jobs. So many whites are working their ass off, and just don't see themselves as privileged. It's true they don't have the extra hardships that minorities face (and man do in fact have the racist belief that somehow minorities have the advantage, thanks fox news), but that doesn't take away from the fact they're working harder and harder to get less and less.
Racial tensions certainly benefit the elites, keeping your opposition divided is a strategy as old as time. And this is the Democrats fault, the last 30 years of PC and identity politics has been terrible. Instead of an exploited worker, you're a cisgender, african-american, unmarried, insert-your-10-favorite-buzzwords-of-the-day blah blah blah go-hide-in-your-safe-space. Much of America is sick of having the coastal elites stick fingers in their eyes and lecture them about how racist and sexist they are (even though many are sexist and racist).
"Their view is backed by a detailed Gallup analysis of interviews with a whopping 125,000 Americans, which found that Trump supporters, far from being the “left behind” or the losers of globalization, “earn relatively high household incomes and are no less likely to be unemployed or exposed to competition through trade or immigration.”"
People don't live in isolation, there does exist a thing called community. Regardless of whether they themselves have a good job, they've still seen their communities devastated, their school deteriorated, their neighbors impoverished and their children having increasingly poor educational and economic prospects. They're still working their asses off harder and harder just to stay in the same spot.
"the calls for higher wages and better regulation are morally and economically correct. What they are not, however, is some sort of silver bullet to solve the issue of racism", Of course they're not a silver bullet, but it's probably one of the most effective methods there is.
Anything, anything at all, to keep clean the hands of the people running the capitalist gang-bang. We can not put the system in question. Of course race is a huge problem, but to pretend that race isn't intimately entangled with economics is just silly.
Nice rant, Joe. It sounds like you have been successfully divided and conquered.
ReplyDeleteThanks Six. Indeed, a rant it was. You're right, I've been successfully divided and conquered. Afterall, I was trying to be intersectional ya know.
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