[Discussion] Now is the winter of our discontent

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This thread is for the discussion of voting demographics that feel disenfranchised by the current US political landscape. In the run up to the election I expect that there will be a lot of focus on the right-wing Trump supporters, but my impression is that there is widespread discontent across the political spectrum. Is there? And if so, how widespread is it and what are the causes?

(Despite the immediate focus on the US political landscape, examples from across the globe are welcomed, especially if you provide context.)

(Note: not about voter suppression, ID-laws, or the like. We have a different thread for that. Talking about why a group is afraid of that fits just fine, though.)

This year in particular has seen a number of popular movements across the political spectrum that feel disenfranchised or ill-served by current politics: Bernie Sander's supporters, Black Lives Matter, and of course the elephant in the room--Trump's fanbase.

I'm curious as to how significant this is, and what the causes are. Is this a thing? How could you possibly support that thing? Why aren't you already supporting that other thing? Do you feel disenfranchised?

I doubt that this will be made glorious summer by the election of this sun of Illinois and New York, so while I hope the tenor of the conversation will change post-election, it seems like there is a lot of fault lines across the entire spectrum.

I've not been satisfied by stopping at simple explanations; e.g. "it's because of racism" may be true, but doesn't tell us why the racism is manifesting in this way, at this moment. I admit that this is largely because I want to know the whys and the then-whats, so I'm approaching this a bit academically. I expect that some of you will have much more passionate viewpoints.

Getting the elephant in the room out of the way first:

"West Virginia used to vote solidly Democratic. Now it belongs to Trump. What happened?" - looking beyond the simple answers: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...

Cracked editorial by someone who grew up in rural Illinois and looks at current conflicts through a rural/urban lens: http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-reason...

The Guardian: Liberal bias has made the media get Trump supporters completely wrong: https://www.theguardian.com/media/20...

Vox: "The press has gotten extremely comfortable with describing a Trump electorate that simply doesn’t exist." http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politi...

Intellectuals supporting Trump, in hopes of revolutionary change: https://newrepublic.com/article/1374...

"In fact, many Americans believe they’re entitled to their intolerance — believe it’s their patriotic duty to react fanatically or with bigotry to anyone who doesn’t share their views." http://nypost.com/2016/10/12/america...

An ethnographic look at the actual Appalachia, contrasting it with the mythic "Trump Country": https://elizabethcatte.com/2016/10/1...

Sociological viewpoint: "Drawing on a close reading of both history and social science literature, they identified five beliefs that — if successfully inculcated in people by a leader — motivate people to initiate group conflict. Trump’s campaign rhetoric deftly mobilizes all five." https://thesocietypages.org/socimage...

The elephant behind the elephant: white supremists and Trump: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/...

And for the flip-side: Never Trump Republicans: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/18/ma...

I'd be very interested to hear your reactions to any of these articles. (Or your own perspective, or articles from elsewhere.) Don't feel like you need to read all of them to respond, I just wanted to provide a wide spread of sources to start from. If you read just one and have a reaction to it, I'd like to hear it.

I read the Cracked article and while it provides some much needed perspective, it comes across as extremely one-sided.

Vox: "The press has gotten extremely comfortable with describing a Trump electorate that simply doesn’t exist." http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politi...

Thanks for posting this one, I've been looking for it again for a couple days. I like how it tackles why the narrative exists for both sides and why it's important to be honest about it.

I like the sources they cite and it falls in line with other sources I've seen, but I'm still curious whether this bears up to other polls.

Edit: Even without fully contradicting it. For instance, geography might be higher correlated to both racial resentment and party affiliation and may just not have been used...

sometimesdee wrote:

I read the Cracked article and while it provides some much needed perspective, it comes across as extremely one-sided.

It is, but that's not surprising given it's a Cracked article. It does lines up really well with my experience as someone who grew up in a very rural area (poor whites being more conformist or culturist than outright racist), though I agree that it's too permissive towards the people it's trying to explain.

I have some issues with that Cracked article. I think he makes some very good points, but he entirely leaves out the racist / xenophobic angle - which is far more important than some perceived "elitism." Over half of Trump's supporters say blacks are more violent than whites, and over two thirds have a negative view of Muslim Americans. I think Wong ignores this stuff in favor of poking at city progressives, and I don't think the "hey look at all these holier-than-thou liberals" critique really holds much water.

Generally speaking I don't think most liberals use the "they are racist" card to be purely dismissive. I think most liberals - heck most people - genuinely want to believe the best about others. At the very least they are rooting for the other person to be basically decent, even if that person appears "flawed" to them. That's pretty much the founding idea of liberalism - that we're all in this together, we all deserve an equal shot, and that our diversity is a strength, not a weakness.

That Cracked article - to me - feels like a reminder that the fallacy of the middle is really, really seductive. Also, it doesn't account for the fact that people can hold seemingly contradictory lines of thinking at the same time. I have tremendous empathy for people who are stuck in the uncomfortable position of having the only people who agree with them about taxes also be blatant racists. I can even empathize with politicians who, in the process of coalition building, have to bring in people whose views they personally might find reprehensible to put policy in place they feel might actually benefit society. Politics make strange bedfellows is a saying for a reason.

I can understand that a lot of Trump supporters are in an economically hard place, and that they are angry. I'm even sympathetic to the idea of creating elaborate conspiracies as an explanation for all of the bad things that happen - the universe is a random, terrifying place where any individual doesn't have much power. Rather than believe you're just "losing" or that your ideas aren't getting traction for any number of valid / uncontrollable reasons, its more comforting to think "there's a conspiracy that prevented my clearly correct viewpoint from triumphing!" That's appealing, and I totally get why people fall into that even when the truth is staring them in the face. It happens on both sides (see also "Sanders lost NY because the DNC stole it for Clinton.")

At the same time, I can be mad as hell at people for opting to live in a fantasy world that is harmful to the reality of others. I can understand why someone would vote for Trump and empathize with them even has I'm horrified they'd dehumanize LGBT people. I can hope that things improve for his constituency while recognizing that his policy proposals are racist to their core. Trump has stated, out loud, that he enjoys committing sexual assault. Scores of people have come forward and described how he has sexually assaulted them - and those descriptions have matched with his own. Someone might opt to still support him because they feel his politics more closely align with their own, but in doing so they are making a CHOICE to turn a blind eye to all of that - and I think it is valid to be angry at that choice. And that anger doesn't mean you aren't also empathetic, nor does it mean you are being snooty and dismissive.

I think the Guardian article does a better job talking about the urban/rural divide. Instead of offering it up as a reason for why people support Trump, it talks about how the media largely ignores the existence of people that live in the same area/conditions but [i]don't/i] support Trump when talking about the kinds of people that do.

Jonathan Rothwell, a Senior Economist at Gallup, took 107,000 poll responses collected over 14 months and used a multi-variable probit regression to come up with a clearer picture of Trump supporters.

Trump’s supporters are older, with higher household incomes, are more likely to be male, white non-Hispanic, less likely to identify as LGBTQ, less likely to hold a bachelor’s degree or higher education, more likely to be a veteran or family member of a veteran, more likely to work in a blue-collar occupation, and are more likely to be Christian and report that religion is important to them. Those who view Trump favorably are slightly less likely to be unemployed and more likely to be self-employed. Labor force participation is lower among Trump supporters, but not after adjusting for age. Trump supporters are much more likely to be retired. Trump supporters live in smaller commuting zones, with lower college attainment rates, a somewhat higher share of jobs in manufacturing, higher mortality rates for middle-aged whites, and a higher segregation. Trump supporters also live in zip-copes with somewhat higher median incomes, a proxy for neighborhood level prosperity.

[Major snip]

Consistent with the above analysis, the individual data do not suggest that those who view Trump favorable are confronting abnormally high economic distress, by conventional measures of employment and income.

Controlling for a variety of demographic and geographic characteristics, Trump supporters are more likely to be self-employed, overall and among other whites, and other white Republicans, somewhat more likely to be unemployed overall but not among other whites or white Republicans, and no more likely to be out of the labor force compared to any group.

Higher household income predicts a greater likelihood of Trump support overall and among whites, though not among white non-Hispanic Republicans. In other words, compared to all non-supporters or even other whites, Trump supporters earn more than non-supporters, conditional on these factors, but this is partly because Republicans, in general, earn higher incomes, and the difference is no-longer significant when restricted to this group. The measure of household income reported imputes the midpoint of income brackets that respondents identified themselves as being in.

Using an alternative measure of income, suggests Trump supporters earn more than even other white non-Hispanic Republicans, conditional on education and other factors. The alternative income measures imputes within self-reported brackets using the median incomes of people in the same state, income bracket, and age group, based on data from the IPUMS-CPS 2015 Annual Social and Economic Supplement. Trump supporters earn significantly higher household incomes in all segments using the CPS-imputed data.

On the other hand, workers in blue collar occupations (defined as production, construction, installation, maintenance, and repair, or transportation) are far more likely to support Trump, as are those with less education. People with graduate degrees are particularly unlikely to view Trump favorably. Since blue collar and less educated workers have faced greater economic distress in recent years, this provides some evidence that economic hardship and lower-socio-economic status boost Trump’s popularity.

Some caveats are needed even here, however. Relative to service workers (the lowest paying occupational category), business owners are more likely to support Trump, and managers are neither more nor less likely. Sales workers are more likely to support Trump, and clerical workers somewhat less likely. Manufacturing/production workers are most exposed to trade competition, and are more likely than service workers to favor Trump, but they are less likely to support Trump than other blue collar occupations where trade competition is largely irrelevant, because the services are provided on-site (e.g., transportation, electrician, and repair services).

Speaking to less obvious economic relationships, race, ethnicity, and religious categories are hugely predictive of one’s view of Trump. Hispanics and blacks are roughly 20 percentage points less likely to view Trump favorably than non-Hispanic, even controlling for income, education, and many other variables. Likewise, Muslims, Jews, Mormon, and atheists are all unlikely to view Trump favorably. Gays and lesbians are also less likely to view Trump favorably.

Rothwell's analysis also found other interesting tidbits about Trump supporters.

  • People who view Trump favorably are significantly more likely to identify as conservative or very conservative compared to those who do not view Trump favorably.
  • Republicans who favor Trump are also significantly more likely than other Republicans to oppose trade and immigration.
  • People with a favorable view of Trump report far greater economic insecurity than those who do not.
  • Very affluent Trump supporters (with household incomes above $200,000) constitute 8 percent of all who hold a favorable view of him in the database. Those same people report almost the same level of economic insecurity as lower middle class Americans who do not like Trump.
  • Working age males (ie under age 65) who view Trump favorably earn higher incomes than working-age males who do not. They also are more likely to be employed full time.
  • Ranking all respondents by income decile reveals that Trump support is lowest among the poor and very rich and highest in the middle deciles.
  • People living in zip codes with disproportionately high shares of white residents are significantly and robustly more likely to view Trump favorably. A one standard deviation in the racial isolation index predicts a 2.9 percentage point increase in Trump’s popularity.
  • County population density is a robust predictor of lower ratings of Trump, and the bachelor’s degree share of the population also has a very large and robust correlation. A one standard deviation increase in the share of people above age 25 with a bachelor’s degree, predicts a 3 to 4 percentage point decrease in support for Trump, depending on which sample is considered.

It sounds like that captures a big part of the disconnect (OG's lengthy post).

Perhaps it could be restated as a general finding that Trump supporters do not face micro economic uncertainty (i.e. they are not living with their finances on a bubble); rather it is more of a macro economic uncertainty, more in line with ideas like the next generations will be less prosperous or that the sector of the economy they are currently active in (e.g. steel production) will fall apart.

So... Republicans support Trump?

Duh.

It's kind of the way the polarization of the parties and Fox News have been going for years. Instead of logical arguments, they start from the point of supporting a Republican, and then justify that however they can.

With a big helping of Republicans=Christians so god is on our side and we must be right thrown in.

The only difference in this and the last 3 or so elections is that instead of dog whistling the racist, homophobic, theocratic parts, Trump is outright saying them.

Sometime in late 2015 / early 2016, I was having a heated but civil political disagreement online with someone in my fantasy baseball league. This was on his wall, and one of his friends entered the conversation, but instead of engaging with any of the ideas in the thread, he threatened me with violence. This, naturally, derailed the conversation... But the person I was initially talking to didn't moderate or intercede. So I sent a PM to him.

Even though we had wildly different takes about most things political, he was someone who I thought of as reasonable. He agreed that the threats were out of line and said he'd talk to his friend. Nothing changed, and the guy kept showing up in threads I was in, and continued to threaten me with bodily harm. So I took matters into my own hands and blocked him.

What I find striking now is that it took my prodding to get the aforementioned reasonable person to take action against the crazy violence threatening guy - even when the violent guy was undermining the reasonable person's arguments. When he finally did take action, it was not in public. It was a private conversation, and it clearly did nothing to alter the behavior.

I've been thinking about this episode a lot lately as I watch mainstream Republicans waffle and equivocate in the face of Trump and his supporters and their threats of violence. As I do, I find that I'm angriest at the initial person I was talking to, whose misguided sense of tribalism prevented him from ejecting a crazy person from what could have been a nuanced adult conversation. When given the choice between supporting a person he disagreed with but who respected him, and a psychopath who respected nobody and whose only rhetorical trick was threatening to physically harm others, this "reasonable" guy balked.

He could have moderated his wall, he could have taken steps to prevent the conversation from going into the gutter, but he didn't. It was his wall, he could have easily deleted the offending comments as they added nothing to any conversation, or he could have blocked the person who was out of line.

Inaction is a choice, and in this case it was a telling one. Months later, this "reasonable" individual decided to use a manipulated screenshot of me as an example of how liberals hate freedom and are pro-censorship. Because this guy is conservative journalist, he has some followers, so I was suddenly beset on Twitter with right wing trolls. I did a lot of blocking that day (including the "reasonable" person.)

As alarming as I find all of Trump's rhetoric, and the bubbling violent impulses of his supporters, I find I'm most distressed at the mainstream Republicans who won't even attempt to shut it down. Because they don't see an uncontrollable mob - they still see a potential weapon to use against their political adversaries, and they are hesitant to give it up. The idea is supposed to be that you put your idea forward, others put their ideas forward, and in the ensuing intellectual fight a compromise or effective policy is created. But these guys don't care about the compromise or the effective policy - they aren't even really interested in properly advocating for the ideas. It feels like they just want to be in power. And that's why there could be blood.

Wow.

That's somewhat how it feels with Duterte and his fanatics right now. His fanatics, of course, include the likes of Marcos supporters would like nothing more than the death of their perceived enemies, by any means necessary.

He has now played his most dangerous card. He's proclaimed himself Chinese and is taking loans from China, while failing to push our national interests during the visit. Most alarmingly, he is threatening to cut economic and military ties with the US. That kind of talk doesn't sit well with many, many Filipinos, and it now looks closer than ever before that there will be an ouster, or worse, civil war.

In a way, this was a long time coming. The "peaceful" revolution of the 1980s failed to exterminate the Marcos agenda, so it was just a matter of time before it came back. It's probably time to deal with that as a country now, one way or the other.

For what it's worth, I've tried to be that reasonable guy who didn't tolerate violent rhetoric from allies. It doesn't gain you a lot of support around here. Lots of fanatical god-worship. Very little rational discussion.

I heard Duerte is talking about cutting ties with the US. Good luck on that front, dude.

sometimesdee wrote:

I heard Duerte is talking about cutting ties with the US. Good luck on that front, dude.

Well, unless we want to invade again, I see no particular reason why he can't succeed.

A reddit comment claims he said this, but doesn't link to a source, so it may be bad info:

President Duterte, possibly, wrote:

“Your stay in my country was for your own benefit. So time to say goodbye, my friend,” he said, as if addressing the U.S.

“I will not go to America anymore. I will just be insulted there,” he added, before once again referring to U.S. President Barack Obama as a “son of a whore."

“What kept us from China was not our own making. I will charter a new course,” he said.

(this was, apparently, in some kind of public address to Chinese officials.)

Again, I don't know if that's a quality source. It sounds newspaperish, but that's not exactly a high bar to clear.

Ah, here's a better source, the Washington Post:

The Washington Post wrote:

“I’ve realigned myself in your ideological flow,” Duterte told his Chinese hosts while suggesting he could eventually reach out to Russian President Vladi­mir Putin for talks on a three-way alliance, according to the Reuters news agency.

“There are three of us against the world — China, Philippines and Russia. It’s the only way,” Duterte added.

So, yeah, kind of a big deal.

I dunno, considering the Filipinos in the US and U.K., it could get economically messy.

This is the part where I personally consider disenfranchised, and honestly, nearly all Filipinos functionally are. Our Congressmen and Senators - even the City Councillors only advance their personal or faction agendas. They don't listen to constituents. They consider it either naive, or beneath them. For their part, people here who have their Congressmen or Councillors listen to their feedback or input rarely participate actively, and will abandon their chosen champion almost at the slightest challenge. It doesn't encourage representation; it's a broken dynamic from both represented and representative.

So right now, there's a fair bit more grumbling than most Western media would pick up, and if it manages to show itself, it's not going to be in reasoned discussion because no one is reasonable and and no one will accept discussion or compromise. The ridiculous part is that the same people who say they don't want war are the ones fueling the headlong rush into civil war.

For what it's worth, that language toward China and against the U.S. is pretty tightly aligned with the anti-imperialist stuff that was a central focus (and perhaps most consistent part) of Mao's agenda.

edit: eh, this was interesting, but not sure if it really contributes to making the world a better place : D

PRRI published their 2016 Values Survey today.

It provides a little peak into why both campaigns seem to have been talking about two different Americas this entire election cycle: one where there's hope for the future and one where everything's a hellscape.

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/0aOvQEp.png)

Americans are divided about whether American culture and way of life have changed for worse (51%) or better (48%) since the 1950s. This assessment has been relatively stable over time, though there are notable differences based on political affiliation, race, class, age, and gender.

Democrats take a decidedly more positive view about the cultural changes that have occurred over the last 60 years. Roughly two-thirds (66%) of Democrats say American culture has generally changed for the better since the 1950s, while roughly two-thirds of Republicans (68%) and a majority of independents (55%) say American society and way of life has only gotten worse. Supporters of each presidential candidate are divided along similar lines. About seven in ten likely voters supporting Donald Trump (72%) say American society and way of life has changed for the worse since the 1950s, while seven in ten likely voters supporting Hillary Clinton (70%) say things have changed for the better.

There are profound differences in views about the direction the country has taken since the 1950s by race, ethnicity, and class. A majority (56%) of white Americans say American society has changed for the worse since the 1950s, while roughly six in ten black (62%) and Hispanic (57%) Americans say American society has changed for the better. Class differences among whites are pronounced. A majority (56%) of white college-educated Americans say American society is generally better now than it was in the 1950s, while nearly two-thirds (65%) of white working-class Americans say things are now worse.

White Christians are more likely than members of other religious groups to say recent changes in American culture have been, on balance, bad for the country. No group has a dimmer view of American cultural change than white evangelical Protestants: Nearly three-quarters (74%) say American culture has changed for the worse since the 1950s. Nearly six in ten white mainline Protestants (59%) and white Catholics (57%) also believe the American way of life has taken a turn for the worse over the past 60 years. In contrast, at least six in ten religiously unaffiliated Americans (66%), members of non-Christian religions (66%), Hispanic Catholics (65%), and black Protestants (60%) say American society has mostly changed for the better since the 1950s.

Thoroughly depressing.

I'd be interested to see how that's changed over time. Is it a this-election thing, or a longer trend? If you asked the same question in 2004, how would the answers change?

Gremlin wrote:

I'd be interested to see how that's changed over time. Is it a this-election thing, or a longer trend? If you asked the same question in 2004, how would the answers change?

The Great Recession really f*cked with a lot of white people.

In 2006, several years before recession ravaged America's working class and drove so many of Marcia's customers away, a Harvard University economist named Benjamin Friedman addressed the American Economic Association. His topic, based on a book he had just published, was "Moral Consequences of Economic Growth." Friedman laid out a simple explanation for why people, faced with similar economic circumstances, react so differently.

Vast evidence, Friedman said, suggests that people judge their standard of living not in absolute terms, but in comparative ones--specifically, they compare how their families lived in the past and how the people around them live. So no matter how rich a country may be, he said, it will never be immune to "seeing its basic values at risk whenever the majority of its citizens lose their sense of forward progress." Two years before the height of the financial crisis, Friedman worried aloud about how earnings had failed to keep pace with inflation in recent years. "If we continue along our current trajectory," he said, "many of the pathologies that we have seen in the past, in periods of economic stagnation"--for instance, rising anger directed at immigrants and minorities--"will once again emerge."

In Detroit, Dave Miller and his friends wrap their anger in a code word: "subsidation." It's a 50-cent synonym that rests on the tongues of Macomb County's white working class like sour milk. They don't use the "N" word. For a five-figure salary and overtime, Dave protects lives and property in a black neighborhood, but he will talk your ear off about "welfare cheats" and the essential unfairness of affirmative action. "It's a generational apathy," he says, "and they keep getting more and more [apathetic] because they don't have to work."

Dave and his family know whom to blame for their economic plight. They blame white neighbors who borrowed to buy big houses they couldn't afford and then walked away when the payments grew too expensive. They blame a government "welfare state" that punishes workers like Dave and rewards minorities. Dave's in-laws blame Dave's generation for spending too little time with their kids and too much money on Christmas presents. Some family members even blame themselves: Dave's sister-in-law, Lauri Angeleri, recoils in shame at signing her children up for state health benefits when her husband lost his job. "When I filled out that form, I felt this big," Lauri says, holding her thumb and finger an inch apart. "I never thought I would have to take a handout. It was humiliating."

Dave's mother-in-law, Carol Angeleri, typifies the family's worry about the future. "Our grandchildren," she says, "are going to have a terrible time."

That's the sense of stagnation that white working-class families across the country feel in the wake of the Great Recession, says Erin Currier, project director for Pew's Economic Mobility Project. Latino immigrants have, in the past half-century, seen their families race from poor villages toward the middle class.

African-Americans have won major gains in civil rights. Those groups can say, "I'm in a better place than my parents were," Currier says. "Their optimism is reflective of major social and economic changes that maybe other people"--white people--"take for granted."

That's certainly how Marcia Soto Rochel feels. Every morning, she, her sisters, and a niece gather in the kitchen of one of Marcia's sisters. They drink hot water with herbal supplements and protein shakes, watching Mexican television and talking through the world's problems. Marcia will tell you she doesn't trust banks or the government, and she says she worries that Americans don't manufacture anything anymore. But she never points fingers. Too many Americans are angry, she says. Too many live in fear of losing their good life. "When you are afraid, I can do with you what I want," Marcia says. "And I am not afraid."

Broadly speaking, polls show that working-class Latinos and blacks are far less likely than whites to blame their economic struggles on the government--and more likely to support government intervention to bolster the economy. In the Allstate/NJ Heartland Monitor poll, pluralities of blacks and Latinos said that government "must play an active role in regulating the marketplace and ensuring the economy benefits people like me." A plurality of whites, on the other hand, agreed with the statement, "Government is not the solution to our economic problems; government is the problem."

That divide helps explain the country's increased political polarization. It also illuminates a hurdle for President Obama's reelection campaign. Pessimistic whites are deserting a president who explicitly views government as an economic tool, not a hindrance. To replace lost white voters in his electoral coalition, Obama likely needs to increase his appeal to minorities--particularly Latinos--whom many whites see as undeserving recipients of government support.

Conservative Whites are going to resist all government attempts to provide them a safety net until they are so far down that they would be looking up at it. And by then, their worst nightmares will have come true.

All those narratives seem to have one thing in common: they all blame someone else.

The myth of "welfare cheats" is the most annoying to me. It's not true and it's never been true. In any population you can find a few people who will take advantage, but most people on welfare are busting their ass to get off it. Meanwhile, state legislatures are passing laws that prevent people from buying steak and seafood with food stamps.

White folks are going to be a minority before long (they already are in many areas), and I just wonder if there won't be a reckoning.

Robear wrote:

Conservative Whites are going to resist all government attempts to provide them a safety net until they are so far down that they would be looking up at it. And by then, their worst nightmares will have come true.

The GOP has put a lot of effort into demonizing anyone who uses a safety net for a very long time, telling conservative whites that they are actually "hard-working" "real Americans" who don't need "government handouts". Accepting help when you're down means you're just add bad as "those people".

And, yes, everything in quotes is thinly veiled racism. People have been sold the idea that we live in a just works where hard work gets you a good life 100℅ of the time, and I'm not shocked people just can't turn that off and suddenly seek assistance. Blaming someone else is much simpler.

MilkmanDanimal wrote:

The GOP has put a lot of effort into demonizing anyone who uses a safety net for a very long time, telling conservative whites that they are actually "hard-working" "real Americans" who don't need "government handouts". Accepting help when you're down means you're just add bad as "those people".

And, yes, everything in quotes is thinly veiled racism. People have been sold the idea that we live in a just works where hard work gets you a good life 100℅ of the time, and I'm not shocked people just can't turn that off and suddenly seek assistance. Blaming someone else is much simpler.

Rugged individualism doesn't require a racist outlook in and or itself. The confluence of those two ideas is what's been sold to the right. It requires a large dose of cognitive dissonance and/or wilful ignorance of the realities of American life.

Jonman wrote:
MilkmanDanimal wrote:

The GOP has put a lot of effort into demonizing anyone who uses a safety net for a very long time, telling conservative whites that they are actually "hard-working" "real Americans" who don't need "government handouts". Accepting help when you're down means you're just add bad as "those people".

And, yes, everything in quotes is thinly veiled racism. People have been sold the idea that we live in a just works where hard work gets you a good life 100℅ of the time, and I'm not shocked people just can't turn that off and suddenly seek assistance. Blaming someone else is much simpler.

Rugged individualism doesn't require a racist outlook in and or itself. The confluence of those two ideas is what's been sold to the right. It requires a large dose of cognitive dissonance and/or wilful ignorance of the realities of American life.

Does Hard Work Guarantee Success?

Most Americans express doubts about whether a key element of the American Dream—working hard is enough to get ahead—still holds true. A majority (57%) of Americans say hard work and determination do not guarantee success for most people, while 42% say it does. While this skepticism is widely shared among the public, there are key political, racial, ethnic, and class divisions.

More than six in ten (62%) Democrats and 58% of independents do not believe hard work alone is enough to guarantee success. Fewer than half (46%) of Republicans agree with this pessimistic view. A majority (54%) of Republicans disagree with the idea that hard work does not always yield success.

Skepticism about the connection between hard work and success spans racial and ethnic divides. More than six in ten black (65%) and Hispanic Americans (63%) and a majority of white Americans (54%) agree hard work is not a surefire path to success for most people. Nearly six in ten (58%) members of the white working class agree that hard work doesn’t always result in success. White college-educated Americans are divided in their views; nearly half (49%) agree, while a similar number (50%) disagree.

OG, I completely agree that rugged individualism is a fantasy. My point is that it's a key plank in the right's platform, and one that doesn't necessitate racism as founding assumption. Your (as usual) excellent Google-fu merely shows the disconnect between the ideological standpoint of the right as a group, and the ideology of the electorate.

And for the record, this isn't a criticism of the right per se - the left's ideology is just as much founded on unrealistic principles too. And that's not a bad thing - I honestly think that political ideologies should be unrealistic paragons to strive for, in the same way that I think we should be working towards zero traffic fatalities, unrealistic as that is.

There is also disagreement as to what constitutes hard work. For example, many seem to think that a minimum wage job is not hard work and is just something a high school kid does in the summer for a bit of extra spending money. Hence we don't need to pay a living wage because they're not doing anything particularly hard.

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