Very interesting points. FYI @DukeTrout spun the conversation off here.
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Commenting purely on the thread title: some racists are redeemable. Some are not. And it’s hard to impossible tell from afar and beforehand.
Responding to what seems to be a deleted comment by @wrybread
But I think I have a solution! Something everyone can agree upon: I’ll start an exchange program. In the country will be an “Adopt-A-L-bt-rd” campaign, and in the cities will be “Adopt-A-H-ck”. And peace will be upon us, one cultural exchange “student” at a time. Just in time for the holiday season.
Such a programme, one-way of course (as it would be in reality as with anything involving American conservatives), is a central plot point in Philip Roth’s insightful alternate history novel The Plot Against America . It is the primary expression of the proto-fascist Lindbergh administration’s anti-Semitic agenda. It does not go well for anyone.
You are getting a little closer to understanding what I’m talking about when I say that racism and white supremacy – as powerful and present as they are – aren’t the primary drivers. They’re characteristics not of “economic anxiety” (as the MSM likes to paper them over with) but cultural anxiety (as those Republicans pushing “culture wars” over the past 30 years have all but admitted).
In the end, just about every liberal or progressive policy or initiative – no matter how innocuous, no matter how demonstrably beneficial it might be them – is immediately seen through the lens of “it’s a threat to my culture and way of life”. White supremacy is a key aspect of that, but at its base it’s deeply grounded in a very provincial, anti-intellectual, and patriarchal (i.e. sexist and anti-democratic) culture that’s nearly intractable in the short term.
That culture is not specifically rural, nor is it unique to the U.S. – you’ll find it anywhere right-wing populism is crawling from under the paving stones. It’s particularly bad in the U.S., and especially in its rural areas, because the Republicans have spent the last 40 years actively entrenching that culture to retain power and thus serve their real constituents (corporations and ultra-wealthy individuals). The most powerful tool they had in that effort, one they’d been using since the Civil Rights era, is the promotion of white supremacy (see the Lee Atwater quote in my comment above).
(one of the ironic aspects of this is to see people so deeply anxious about preserving their own cultural identity also so disdainful of what they term “identity politics”. It’s probably one of the main reasons that “Identitarianism” hasn’t taken hold as a descriptor for the racist conservatives in the U.S. like it has in Europe)
That is why it’s a waste of time and energy for the Dems to reach out, and why it’s dangerous for them to try to continue betraying their core values in that effort (the Third Way has been bad enough). The only path I see to redemption is young people from those communities getting exposed to more diversity when they go off to college and then returning to their communities as positive exemplars of a more cosmopolitan and open-minded outlook.
But that’s a long, slow, organic process that meets a lot of resistance from inside the culture and that is actively sabotaged by conservative politicians who live outside the culture in a number of ways. It can’t be rushed and isn’t something we can or should expect any party to enable in the short term. That’s all the more true of the Dems if it requires that they move further right (something that only benefits Republicans and AynCaps).
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Any person who continued to stick with the Republican party after it abandoned any semblance of platform or principle beyond “we must support Trump” doesn’t get to shake everything that goes with that label.
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Fox and Sinclair and OANN and Newsmax keep pandering
smearing Democrats as literal baby-eaters no matter what they do
and the rubes keep voting Republican?
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Think of it this way. If you were hiring people at your workplace, and someone came in wearing a MAGA hat, and laughed at your mask mandate, would you hire them?
Now, imagine the environment in rural, red counties where the exact opposite is true. If you walk in wearing a N95 and a Biden t-shirt and have a pro-choice bumper sticker, what are the odds of gainful employment, and an intact paint job, do you think?
Abortion, taxes, prayer in schools, one nation under god, restrictions in hunting, logging, mining, gun control, the “welfare state”, drug decriminalization, LGBT rights, globalization, etc., etc., I could probably go on for an hour.
They vote Republican because their churches tell them to. Their bosses tell them to. The state and local party machinery tell them to, there being basically no rural, local Democratic party machine in these areas. They vote for Republicans because they are taught from birth that pinko commie Democrats are evil, and there are basically no voices in their lives to balance the message.
Racism is there, and it is a major problem. If you completely removed all racist ideals from the equation though, they’d still be Republicans.
This is especially true when the ultimate goal of Progressives is to create a society that isn’t just better for them, it’s better for everyone, including Republicans. The only thing they would have to give up is the constant feeling that they are inherently superior to others.
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I’m fine with giving them an opportunity to walk away from the racism and start on the journey of self-redemption. But until that happens I’m gonna keep calling them out for what they are.
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OK, that’s simply not true. You’ll have to go through @navarro on that one. You’re also not considering all the kinds of rural voter or area. Look at New England. There are whole states that are rural, and they went to Biden. We have rural counties near me that lean heavily Dem. Hint: when you’ve got concentrations of higher-end agriculture, like wineries; or where there is a concentration of affordable retirement for people like nurses and teachers; well, there you go.
Over half of that list is made up of racist policies. Half of the rest are bigoted policies. Yet that’s somehow supposed to be an argument that, taking away the racism, they’d still be Republicans? What would be left?
ETA: Take Vermont for instance. 88% rural, 94% white. Not only voted for Biden, but chose Bernie Sanders as their Senator. The whole premise of “rural = Republican” falls completely apart right there. See also: Maine, New Hampshire.
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To me, this notion that Dems aren’t reaching out is right up there with both-side-ism.
Dems: we want everyone to have access to health care, education, clean water. We want to tax the super-wealthy on annual income over $1M to help pay for the roads, schools and hospitals we all use. We want those in power to be held accountable when they destroy the commons for internalized profits. We want every citizen to be able to vote.
Repubs: fuck you, libtards.
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Especially when one tests the idea that rural voters see all liberals and progressives as wanting to take away their guns.
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All three are essentially bullshit causes covering up racism, bigotry and gullibility.
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“Gun rights” has a heavy racist component to it. Playing up fears of minorities and playing to fantasies of protection from the hordes of “others”.
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Regulations like ones concerning property rights of others, clean air/water/soil/food, workplace safety, anti discrimination laws… it’s not working people with legitimate concerns annoyed over these. It’s their employers who look to treat everyone and everything as their property. Regulatory power is how voters flex political muscle over those who can “buy government”.
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Mistrust of the government is a bullshit euphemism. This is distrust of the efforts by people they consistently elect. What they really mean is opposition to stuff like anti discrimination laws and excuses for corrupt privatizing efforts
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When the majority of people live in cities why pander to niche rural concerns? Without gerrymandering and the electoral college the GOP would be done.
“Gun rights” is a hyped issue the NRA promotes, but nobody is discussing banning hunting rifles, and plenty of Democrats own guns too. If people in coal country would rather go on welfare than accept jobs in a solar panel factory then you can’t really hope for inroads for Democrats there. And if you can’t get them to vote for a national health care system because they’re more worried about regulations and building permits then what is there to debate?
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Yep. You never hear the Fox “news” crowd up in arms when a Black man gets shot for reaching for his “gun” (phone). Or when a Black man gets shot after telling a traffic cop that he has a gun in the car and is permitted to carry it. Or asking why a Black woman was humiliated in her Chicago apartment when cops rampaged in because a (assuming Black) neighbor had an “illegal” firearm. Why was a firearm illegal? (I mean, I get it, but the silence of the 2nd amendment folks is deafening).
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Only if that initiative carries with it the obvious subtext of “suck it up you racist hick”. Reasonably enough, really.
The Republican party very explicitly tries to meet their needs. It might fail, but it’s at least explicitly trying. Even if it’s all marketing, it’s better than what the Democrats are doing, which is telling them that they’re all a bunch of brainwashed racist hicks.
Case in point. It’s amazing to me that you don’t consider the possibility that having a gun when you’re outside the immediate reach of the police has some legitimate use, even if that use is only peace of mind. It really isn’t possible for someone living in the city to criticize that in my opinion. And all the fear mongering of the NRA doesn’t change that.
I’m again and again reinforced in my thinking that Democrats misunderstand Republicans far more than Republicans misunderstand Democrats. I’m only half joking when I say that I think the only way out of this is a cultural exchange program.
This is a rural vs urban issue rather than one of parties no?
The party of trump wants to exploit that friction for as long as they can. Some day the ever expanding cities will absorb rural 'murica. Not soon enough IMO.
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When I say that the Republican Party has abandoned the idea of having any platform or principle beyond fealty to Trump I am not being facetious. The Republican National Convention declined to adopt a platform for 2020, instead stating the RNC “has and will continue to enthusiastically support the president’s America-first agenda.”
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