Whether or not the tea baggers’ hatred of Obama seems, on the surface, to be motivated by race, it’s remarkable how much political attitudes break down along racial lines. Ron Brownstein:
Just 43 percent of whites polled approve of his job performance, compared with 74 percent of nonwhites (Hispanics, African-Americans, Asians, and others). But that gap, though formidable, isn’t much different from the one in Obama’s support during the 2008 election, when he had the backing of only 43 percent of whites but 80 percent of nonwhites.
More telling are the contrasts across the color line on deeper measures. Both whites and nonwhites worry that young people won’t match earlier generations’ living standards, the poll found. But whites are much more pessimistic about their own prospects. Two-thirds of whites believe that living standards for “people like me” won’t grow as fast as they did for previous generations. Only about one-fourth of African-Americans and two-fifths of Hispanics agree.
Whites are not only more anxious, but also more alienated. Big majorities of whites say the past year’s turmoil has diminished their confidence in government, corporations, and the financial industry. Nonwhites are also sour on the private sector but are much less disillusioned with government. Asked which institution they trust most to make economic decisions in their interest, a plurality of whites older than 30 pick “none” — a grim statement. By contrast, a majority of blacks and a plurality of Hispanics choose elected officials in Washington.
Brownstein goes on to claim that a racial divide like this is troubling, but I also wonder how accurate it is to look at race — as opposed to age and region — as the dominant factor here. The south voted very differently than the rest of the country in 2008 — Obama got between 54 and 59 percent of the vote in the other three regions and only 45 percent in the south. And this despite the fact that the south certainly has a lower percentage of white voters than the the north or midwest (I don’t have the stats at hand so I’m not sure what the comparison is with the west). As for age, Obama did 21 points better among those under 30 than he did among those over 65. That is by far the largest gap that appears in the Roper Center’s online archives. Believe it or not, the largest gap I found before 2008 was 10 points.
It seems to me that we have now is a largely southern, largely older, and entirely white block of voters who are completely politically out of step with the rest of the United States and, indeed, with the rest of the western world. I wonder how much longer the Broders of the world can continue to describe these people as the real Americans whose attitudes define our nation’s values.
Update. Aimai points out in the comments that, aside from the southerness, this is exactly the same demographic that populates the punditocracy.
Also, yes, I realize that age, region, and racial attitudes are all closely linked.
aimai
How long can Broder keep describing older white southern males as “the real america?” Until he’s a dead white male, himself, and his column is generated by a broderian program. At which point it will continue to bleat out “angry white male americans are the only real people” until the species itself has ceased to be able to oil the machine.
aimai
geg6
Well, Doug, I’d have to say that race, region, and age all go hand in hand. Anecdotally, I know few racist types who are under 30 and/or who don’t live in the south or Appalachia. It’s all connected AFAIC.
Mnemosyne
That actually makes perfect sense to me. The implicit promise of Republicans since Reagan’s days is that white people will be just fine as long as they make sure that Big Gubbmint doesn’t let all of those undeserving Others steal what’s rightfully theirs. I think it’s starting to slowly dawn on white people that they’ve been had. The Republicans screwed them and didn’t even do a reach-around like they promised.
The danger, of course, is if they (and by they, I mean we) decide to double down on Republican promises and clap even harder because, even though we’ve had 30 years of stagnation and failure by following Republican policies, this time the Tax Cut Fairy will arrive and fix everything for free if we just keep those bad people down.
jetan
I would like to take a longer look at those stats but, assuming they are spot on, I still don’t think you will ever see Broder’s definition of the Real America change. The poor schlub was the epitome of the old out-of-touch white guy way back in 1972 and it seems unlikely that he is going to vault forward in the course of the next year. For all that we enjoy the ironic take on our past in Mad Men, consider that those characters are exactly Broder’s generation and I don’t think there can be much doubt that those values still inform his world view. He sometimes must feel very much like a stranger in a strange land – Gay Marriage! Black President! Republican South! I feel kind of sorry for him when I think on it.
pika
“Race” isn’t the only strand, but to people familiar with antebellum America and the fugitive slave narratives, the similarity of “then” and “now” is eerie. Fugitive slave narratives often had to be prefaced with letters (most often by white men) testifying to the black fugitive author’s veracity: that s/he was telling the truth, that s/he could actually write, that s/he was not simply a pawn of radical white abolitionists. (These beliefs were given weight both socially AND legally and were not merely a matter of “the South.” ) So, when people say supposedly ‘ideological’/supposedly non-race-y things like “Obama is lying! He’s purposely misleading America” or “Obama didn’t write his books–Bill Ayers did!!!!!” or especially, Obama isn’t a natural-born citizen and isn’t providing the proof of his birth in any way the birfers recognize, the “race” thing is impossible not to see. It’s a sad legacy of white cooptation of the Modern Civil Rights movement’s gains that so many in America still see “race” and “racism” as matters of personal feeling rather than fundamental to the political and intellectual fabric of the nation.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
Here in East Bubbaville, Flyover Country (ie, the second reddest county in Misery), the latter is dead on. These people will always continue to believe and quadruple down.
There’s a reason that 1/3 of this country has always been inherently conservative. Perhaps as the demographic changes really take hold (and the Dems don’t totally fuck things up–don’t hold your breath on that one), that might shrink down to maybe 1/4, but these people and their beliefs, no matter what happens to them and how many facts you lay in front of them, will survive in goodly numbers long after we’re dead and gone.
pika
@pika: In the last line, it should have read “than AS fundamental to the political and intellectual fabric of the nation.”
Napoleon
That racial divide between people who vote Dem and people who vote Rep has been there for 35 – 40 years. That suddenly troubles Ron B.?
geg6
OT, but has Harry Reid finally found his inner sadist? Because if this isn’t about whipping, I don’t know what is:
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2009/10/coy-by-digby-princes-prerogative-is-to.html
Pangloss
If you look at the regional and demographic breakdowns on the Research 2000 weekly approval poll over at the Great Orange Satan, it shows only 27% approve of Obama in the South, as opposed to 82% in the Northeast and over 60% in the Midwest and West. Since the South is about 23% African-American (and African-Americans nationally approve of Obama at 87%), it means that probably less than 10% of White people in the South approve of Obama. And Obama’s approval rating excepting the South is now around 66%. Coincidence?
Kiril
Both whites and nonwhites worry that young people won’t match earlier generations’ living standards, the poll found.
This has already happened. Gen X was the first modern generation to do worse economically than their parents. Furthermore, it was clear that this would be the case 20 years ago. The so-called slacker generation will spend the majority of their lives paying for the short-sightedness and excess of the baby boomers.
Brick Oven Bill
Here is the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education data, with appropriate links.
Race is a very important aspect of sociology, and anyone who denies this is not dealing with reality. When you look at the data though, it is interesting. The median black household income is 60% that of the median white household income.
Racism! People cry.
But racism is not in fact the case. Quite the opposite. If income is normalized for intellect, blacks make 500% more than whites. A black household producing a 1000 SAT student makes in excess of $200,000. The average white household producing a 1000 SAT student makes $40,000.
srv
It’s almost as if those people who have been running the country for the last 30 years are unhappy with the outcome.
ericblair
@jetan: He sometimes must feel very much like a stranger in a strange land – Gay Marriage! Black President! Republican South! I feel kind of sorry for him when I think on it.
I don’t. It’s not some immutable law of the universe that at some date you have to turn your mind off and vow that from that day forth you will never learn anything new or change your views. It’s a choice.
I get this bleating from some of my older relatives and I don’t buy it: they took the lazy, comfortable way out long ago. Whether it’s figuring out the DVD control or dealing with a Black! Man! in the White! House! they can suck it up and deal with it like adults. They’ve been on this Earth for twice as long as I have, and I have to explain everything to them?
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
I think what we are seeing is a return of sectionalism to the heart of American politics. The 20th Cen was different from the late 18th and 19th Cens. because from roughly 1912 – 2004 the Dems and the GOP were switching places with each other in terms of their relationship with long standing regional cultures in the US, and so ideology became more important as an signifier while the parties were adrift in terms of their sectional association. But now we’ve more or less finished that process and thus sectionalism is becoming more important again, keeping in mind that the regional cultures in the US have a complex geographic distribution because of the way the interior and western parts of the country were settled.
DougJ or John:
O/T but in the “We’re so Screwed” thread inkadu asked a thoughful question about Soviet history which I felt deserved a substantive reply, but my attempt at forming an answer is still stuck in moderation. Could you please release it? kthxbai
Tonal Crow
@Brick Oven Bill: Two things:
1. Huff, “How to Lie with Statistics”, http://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728
2. Haedrich, “Pie: 300 Tried-and-True Recipes for Delicious Homemade Pie”, http://www.amazon.com/Pie-Tried-True-Delicious-Homemade/dp/155832254X
Seanly
I may be way off base, but maybe most non-whites answer that way because they don’t feel that their current standard of living is all that hot. Fewer minorities have as far to fall as most white people.
Us white folks have been in charge, but the pie is now being taken away. The sad thing is that the pie isn’t being given out to more people, it just gets kept tighter & tighter by a few real elites.
I got to benefit from my race and the status of my well-educated middle class parents and from where my maternal grandfather went to college. Much of that was based on the status quo.
And now the status quo is changing. I make more than either my mother or father or grandparents ever did – not even including my wife’s salary. My TV, computer, Xbox and two vehicles are much more in material goods than my recent ancestors had at my age. Yet I am poorer than they were. Some of it was due to using easy credit a bit much and I look forward to getting out from under that. However, a significant portion of it is that what I make now is devalued from 25 or 50 years ago.
I blame the decline of the middle class not on the same things as the wingnuts & Paulites, namely taxes being too high, but on the opposite. Our public schools fail us, our inadequate infrastructure is failing us, our broken healthcare system is failing us. Maybe if we had shared the pie with the minorities earlier we could have all succeeded more.
Or maybe I’m just a self-hating cracker…
srv
@Kiril:
We’ll work out something with the hard-working green card folks running the boomer’s nursing homes.
Split the inheritance 50-50. No panel needed.
Sarcastro
And this despite the fact that the south certainly has a lower percentage of white voters than the the north or midwest (I don’t have the stats at hand so I’m not sure what the comparison is with the west).
As of the 2000 census the south has a marginally higher percentage of white voters than the west does:
Northeast: 82.8%
Midwest: 87.2%
South: 76.8%
West: 75.8%
http://www.census.gov/prod/2001pubs/c2kbr01-4.pdf
socratic_me
I am not usually one to jump all over BoB’s race baiting. However, noxious BS like his “If income is normalized for intellect…” schtick really is offensive and isn’t something that I find in any way defensible. Intentionally misreading data by picking arbitrary numbers that support one’s hypothesis (and completely ignore the reasons for the discrepancy suggested by the study’s authors) just in order to pass off claims of racial inferiority is immensely repugnant. Can we possibly make at least his worst overreaches like this go away?
kommrade reproductive vigor
Well people are still holding Reagan up as the Last RealAmerican(R) Hero so … Forever.
And a word about the study Prick Oven Bill quotes: He drops that turd into a thread when ever he’s too bored to think of a new comment about trains or fuel made from potato skins. What say we skip to the part where someone points out that he’s an illiterate schmuck and the study doesn’t say that at all?
geg6
@socratic_me:
That’s why I finally had to break down and go with cleek’s pie filter. I hate his racism and misogyny so much that his over-the-top insanity ceased being funny and endearing.
freelancer
just popping in for some drive-by snark and an Rstate Link:
http://www.redstate.com/gamecock/2009/10/14/how-limbaughs-embodiment-of-mlks-dream-changed-my-life/
Brick Oven Bill
Those are hard numbers from the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education Tonal Crow. The phenomenon is called ‘social promotion’, and I have witnessed it first hand.
The race-based programs hurt all in the end though. When you put an unqualified minority in a visible position of responsibility, and they perform poorly, this is observed. In one of my particular instances, it almost killed a whole bunch of people.
Achievement should be based on merit. The best we can do as a society is offer equal opportunities, not equal outcomes. Striving for equal outcomes eliminates the incentive to produce, and in the end usually creates great big piles of bodies.
Let us look back at Madison’s Federalist 10, for guidance:
“The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to a uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object of government.”
Zimbabwe is a good example of what happens when the faculties of men are not protected. There were inequities of wealth that were resented, and eliminated. Now people are starving in what used to be the breadbasket of Africa.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
James posted a link to this article by James Vega in a previous thread, and it sounds about right to me. We are seeing a 21st Cen. Know-Nothing movement arise on the Right which is fueled as much by aniexty over the effects of globalization and a multicultural society as it is about older forms of racial bigotry. A lot of the teabagger hatred and contempt seems to be anti-urban and directed against cosmopolitanism. Pre-1914 Germany strikes me as a parallel, although there were similar volkish movements both in England and the US at the same time.
different church-lady
Well, I would agree that Obama has done a very poor job at representing and defending the fears and delusions of non-whites in this country.
Colette
I know BoB is a spooftroll, but I’d bet cash money that he’s read the first of these. And thanks to cleek, it’s clear that he actually wrote the second. Well done, BoB! Pie for everybody.
Mnemosyne
@freelancer:
If that was written by a white guy, I will pee my pants laughing.
Colette
Also, of course SAT scores map perfectly to intelligence. Therefore, since I got a 1540 (on the old 1600-max scale) on the SAT, I am clearly more intelligent than all of you. Unless, of course, you can scan and e-mail me your certs showing higher SAT scores. Be sure to include your birth certificates and receipts for every bag of Nacho Cheese Doritos you have ever consumed.
freelancer
@Mnemosyne:
Not to be racist, but, are black people allowed to post on Redstate?
Notorious P.A.T.
Sssh! We’re not allowed to say anything that might possibly impugn religion in America! Religion is goooooood!
Notorious P.A.T.
The SAT is *not* an intelligence test, you stupid cracker.
aimai
Pika, upthread. What a great post. Spot on.
aimai
Notorious P.A.T.
That is *not* what affirmative action is about. For your own stake, stop posting about things of which you know nothing.
John S.
I got a 1420 on the old scale, but I was high as a kite when I took the test.
My stoner friends thought my score was teh awesome for obvious reasons.
Notorious P.A.T.
I don’t remember exact numbers, but California is already majority non-white.
DougJ
I don’t remember exact numbers, but California is already majority non-white.
Oregon and Washington are pretty white. And also I don’t know which states are in the west as opposed to the midwest or south. Which is Texas is in for example? (Houston is southern, El Paso is western, in my book.)
ericblair
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: We are seeing a 21st Cen. Know-Nothing movement arise on the Right which is fueled as much by aniexty over the effects of globalization and a multicultural society as it is about older forms of racial bigotry. A lot of the teabagger hatred and contempt seems to be anti-urban and directed against cosmopolitanism.
A characteristic of this new movement is that it is carefully shaped to make sure that the actual elites are not blamed for any of society’s ills. You hear a lot of grumbling about the bank bailouts, but it doesn’t really seem to go anywhere with them since the natural outlet for this anger is in a prohibited direction. They’ve managed to construct a safe narrative about it being all the nasty gummint’s fault for making the banks lend money to brown people, but it doesn’t exactly resonate.
I agree that a lot of the words are anti-urban and anti-cosmopolitan, but they are sworn to defend the most urban, cosmopolitan New York elite that exist.
Brick Oven Bill
I have lived affirmative action up close and for years Notorious P.A.T. Unqualified people in positions of responsibility might not be what it is supposed to be about, but it is what it produces.
Huffington Post: Half of Zimbabwe’s Population Teetering on Brink of Starvation:
“Once considered the “breadbasket of Africa,” Zimbabwe is now struggling to feed its population. It is estimated that nearly half of Zimbabwe’s 11 million people are teetering on the brink of starvation.”
Haiti is another example. Haiti used to be the richest society in the West Indies. Now the survival of its people is completely dependent on the good will of the international community.
Hugo Chavez funded Danny Glover to produce a movie on the glorious Haitian revolution. One of the smarter progressives obviously put the kabosh on that particular project.
Napoleon
@DougJ:
I thought the south since it was a CSA state.
MikeJ
With all the bleating that nobody who criticizes Obama is ever, ever a racist, I’ve been wondering: what exactly would count as racist? Is there anything that anybody could do or say that was anti-Obama that would cause a wingnut to say, OK, *that* guy is a racist.”
DougJ
I thought the south since it was a CSA state.
Yeah, that’s my guess too.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@ericblair:
That’s why I think Wilhelmite Germany is a better analogy than pre-1914 USA or England.
MikeJ
The government has no power to do anything excpet execute people. Southern.
Shawn in ShowMe
I’d prefer to hang out with those Cobain-worshipping, latte-drinking, Kerouac-reading, bike-crazy treehuggers over Real Americans anyday.
kommrade reproductive vigor
@MikeJ: If a bunch of knuckledraggers put on white robes marched around the White House while waving nooses, some of them might but they’d soon be drowned out by bobbleheads screaming that the constant waving of the race card (you may have missed it but apparently it happens all of the time) means that no one will think this is as racist as it really is.
Anne Laurie
Whomever’s writing the BoB spoofs this week must be tired, because the angling-for-another-timeout is getting waaay too obvious.
John T
Anybody else have really mixed feelings about this?
flavored coffee lover
B.O.B, put the crack pipe down. Seriously. Your fingers are burning and starting to smell up the site. You cannot bake pizzas in this state.
freelancer
@Anne Laurie:
Department of Redundancy Department.
John T
@45, I think Elliott Smith has taken Kurt Cobain’s place in the suicided rock celebrity pantheon here in the Pacific Northwest.
MikeJ
@Shawn in ShowMe:
I’ve spent time in Ho-hum-bia in your state. You’re welcome to be a refugee up here, but I say that as a transplant. People who were born here won’t be so welcoming, but I think we outnumber them now.
licensed to kill time
@Anne Laurie:
Indeed. BOB seems to channel Michael Savage “I wuz robbed, robbed I tell you! by those unqualified blackity-black/browns coasting on affirmative action! ”
He adds in his own seasonings: They can’t even run a country right unless the superior white man does it for them! Natural Law! The Seven Liberal Arts! No Gunpowder! ARRRglebargle wordsalad blenderrific swill (peeks to see if Daddy’s mad enough to send him to timeout) THRILL!
Yawn.
Shawn in ShowMe
Shawn in ShowMe
MikeJ
What are the main objections of native Wash/Oregonians to the transplants?
MikeJ
Everett to Tacoma is pretty much one town now, many of us just don’t care that much about hydroplane racing, techies came in and made lots of money at the same time Boeing was trying to screw machinists, hippies came in and did heroin in the streets (never mind that the term “skid row” originated in Seattle 100 years ago, it was probably transplant loggers who swooped in and took all the high paying jobs that caused skid row.)
Just basic “you’re not from here.”
AnotherBruce
You’re welcome to be a refugee up here, but I say that as a transplant. People who were born here won’t be so welcoming, but I think we outnumber them now.
I don’t know. People were welcoming to me when I moved to Seattle, including the natives. Of course that was a couple of decades ago. There was some resentment about “Californians” that moved to here back then, but I think that’s mostly gone away.
ilsita
@pika:
Your post reminds me of the Captivity Narratives, which were ostensibly written by women rescued from the savages, rescued and restored. The narratives were always (similarly) lorded over by some clergyman (usually Cotton Mather), and served to reestablish the ex-captive’s place in society. The narrative was a way for her to redeem herself and prove that, not only was she able to remain white, but that her faith was strengthened.
Anyway, those narratives are my point of reference, and I see what you see. You can’t just go mingling among the rest of the world without accepting the burden of proof.
Ugly.
MikeJ
@AnotherBruce: I came here from the other Washington. I talked to a recent transplant from Minneapolis about six months after moving here. He said, “Have you noticed how clerks in stores treat you here?” I said, “yeah, they just go on and on and on about ‘how was your day?’ and wanting to chitchat and bullshit and all I want is a goddamned cup of coffee. I hate that.”
He of course thought they were much ruder and more standoffish here than they were in Minnesota.
kay
Is anyone surprised that that the judge who forgot to read Loving is insisting this is about his rights?
Christ. Everything is about them.
He’s not there to stamp a seal on a form. He’s there to make a statement on the welfare of any prospective children this couple may or may not have. Can you imagine the ego? My rights.
gbear
I wonder how many people fall outside of the ‘people like me’ demographic. I know I don’t. I’m just like me almost all of the time.
Retief
The approval number itself seem very artificial to me. Sure it can measure the general mood of the country and supporters and opponents like to point to the significance of it’s every move, but I’m just not convinced there is much information in it. Speaking as a hard core Obama supporter myself, I’m not all that pleased with his job performance. He should be doing a lot more. I know he was always a centrist but how many times does he have to watch the republican scorpion sting the frog to death before he gets the picture? If I was asked the question though, I’d say that I approve, because the “or do you approve of his opponents” part is implicit in the question.
ericblair
@kay: Is anyone surprised that that the judge who forgot to read Loving is insisting this is about his rights?
No. Any Perpetual Victim is guaranteed to abuse any authority they are given, since even in position of power they still insist they’re the victim.
kay
@ericblair:
It’s always about them, and their rights.
Who raises such thoughtless self-centered people that his “right” to expound his crackpot theory trumps their real right to expect that he do his goddamn job, and follow the law?
.
Jay C
@Brick Oven Bill:
So if the first part of your thesis is true, then can we reasonably posit that you are a destitute pauper, on the edge of starvation through spending the bulk of his welfare check on a broadband account to post nonsense at Balloon Juice?
AFAIC, the evidence is overwhelming…….
lamh31
OT,
But, BWHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAH!!!!
Good lord,
David Gergen just shut this GOP strategist down with a sharp knife ya’ll.
The repub was going on and on about how it’s a shame that the feds are “paying” people throught organization like Americorps and such to “volunteer” thereby drawing away “volunteers” from local and state orgs. David Gergen asked to respond to that and asked the strategist
“Terry, how do you feel about the all VOLUNTEER ARMED FORCES, where the gov’t pays people who VOLUNTEER to defend the country?”
The rethug just stuttered!!!
AnotherBruce
@Jay C:
This is more than more than nonsense, this is flat out ugly racism. I wish Cole would get rid of this guy.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@socratic_me:
“Can we possibly make at least his worst overreaches like this go away?”
Yes, I agree. I really don’t give a shit what that dipshit posts as I rarely ever read it but this one caught my eye and I also find it extremely offensive. He seems to like to slip this shit through at times just to see if anyone is actually reading his shit or to maybe test his limits here. Maybe he is trying to post shit like this in the hopes that it will slide and someone can claim it is an acceptable view here because nobody contested it. Whatever the reason, it is nothing but racist drivel.
Stormfront eats that shit up BOB, go where you you can be among your brethren.
ilsita
@AnotherBruce:
No doubt.
Here’s the College Board website where the stats come from. There’s no legitimate way to draw these conclusions from the stats offered here.
bellatrys
@geg6:
You don’t get out very much, do you?
someguy
Most of us middle class whites only have what we have because we were born white. If we were born some other race, we’d be working as janitors or shoeshine boys for white Republicans because, face it, most of us have mediocre levels of ability and a piss poor work ethic. Yeah, my standard of living is going to drop now that we have equality and I can’t live off the backs of black and hispanic labor. And my kids are going to actually have to compete if they want anything in life instead of having success lavished on them just because they’re white and come from the right neighborhood – they won’t be able to follow daddy’s easy path in life. But I’m cool with that. Only a real asshole would have a problem with the coming equality.
The Operative
I’m skeptical of attempting to classify the diversity of perspective based on something as superficial as racial demographics instead of their actual opinions. Just as I’m skeptical of the needless racialization of white peoples supposedly sudden dissatisfaction and distrust of the economy and the government. Why is it presumed that this exists because they’re white instead of because of them likely being more invested in a stock market, or 401k’s that proved to be a terrible long term model to imbue this much faith in? Skin color is almost entirely peripheral to the make-up of near anyone’s opinion on the topic of Obama or Obama’s job performance. Skin color is not what inspires opinion; and if that’s not what insipid polling breakdowns like this assume, then what, exactly, is the point of the distinction they’re trying to make?
Brownstein’s article isn’t really a telling or informative treatise on the relations between political perspective and race. It’s simply a more subtle variant of the correlation implies causation fallacy. The accuracy of looking at “race” as a factor exclusively, predominately or even peripherally is misguided because it presumes an innate primacy to race that implies that it has some innate responsibility for your thoughts. I find this infinitely more “troubling” than the artificially determined “racial divide” because it undermines and essentially writes off the prospect of observation, information and autonomy guiding general opinion and simplifies it by focusing on the superficiality of race.
Which isn’t to undermine the complexity of race, so much as it’s an attempt to contextualize my objections to pieces like this. You don’t learn anything about the forced disparity of black and white voting patterns by asking who they voted for, you learn by asking WHY they voted for their chosen candidate. Articles like Brownstein’s – and to a lesser extent, DougJ’s – exacerbate the issue of race by attempting to simplify it. Sure, you can find a correlation between white, southern, old people voting x way, but barring evidence – which is not available – any conclusions you make based off of that are assumptions, not informed observations. Ultimately, it has to be understood that race isn’t what inspires racial relations. Race is simply an easily observable proxy that thoughtless people mistake for the things that comprise the most substantive racial differences: i.e culture, history and economic class.
Martin
It’s all about the south. Seriously.
Net approval:
North +72
Midwest +31
West +24
Nation +16
South -42
Don’t even look at race/party/etc. trends. They’re all swamped by regionality. Republicans in the north are reasonably happy with Obama (Net +72 is 86 approve/14 disapprove – unheard of). Republicans/independents in the west and midwest are so-so about Obama (Net +31 is 66/34) But republicans and independents in the south hate the guy. Looks like his approval among Democrats is even iffy (Net -42 is 29/71).
Fox News has gone all-in on the south and struck some cultural nerve there against Obama. Cut them loose and Obama would have ~70% approval in the entire rest of the country. Is it race? Yeah, it’s race. Maybe not directly – but certainly part of that protect ‘southern heritage’ Bible/race/social status thing that they have going on.
Again, the socialism calls have nothing to do with economics and everything to do with equal social status for gays, blacks, the poor, etc. They hate that shit down south.
someguy
And yeah, it sucks that Goldman Sachs and their buttboys in Congress are going to have all the money and power, but somebody’s got to tell the rest of us what to do, and the rest of us are going to have equality, and that’s worth something.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
That Texas Teabagger on Tweety’s show contradicted himself within two minutes. He said that he voted for Bush in 2004 and then less than two minutes later he says that he didn’t.
The delusional fuckers are always right and trying to argue with them is almost akin to arguing with a toilet except for the fact that the toilet is actually useful. This Texas Teabag fuckwit is mouthing off his “TAX CUTS!/FREE MARKETS!” bullshit as the solution to everything. They don’t care about anything other than a black man is leading the country and they are pissed.
Tweety is tearing him up but he could be doing a much better job with the ammo this idiot is handing him. Rachel would have this guy on the floor, whining and bleating like the goat he is.
bellatrys
I mean, I really *don’t* think that Justin Barrett just spontaneously generated out of thin air in a random location, and I doubt very much that six years more or less is the crucial determining factor in making him what he is.
But then, I eventually figured out how the code goes up heeah, when people make snide remaahks about “turning into Lawrence” and Daachista/Rawksbree – it’s the same one that was used by syndicated columnists in the days of St. Ronnie of Cali and Bush I (of MA, CT & ME extraction) when talking about “urban” and “inner city” and “welfare queens” to a mainstream national audience…
CalD
I don’t think those numbers rule out the possibility that most disapproval of the president among white folks is ideologically driven. I’ll bet that if you look at the ratios of self-described conservatives among whites vs. others, you’d likely find similarly lopsided numbers. But you’d still have to be an idiot to believe it’s not a racial thing (too) for a lot of people.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Martin:
That’s what I was saying above. We’ve gone back to the 19th Cen pattern of sectional politics. The outliers come in because “the South” is not just the geographically coherent set of states which joined the CSA in 1861, but also their cultural diaspora which can be found in varous places, from down-state Illinois to rural Oregon and many places in the anarcho-libertarian mountain west.
Brick Oven Bill
Expanding on Martin’s comment.
You will notice that the red part down south takes the form of a crescent. This crescent follows an ancient seashore, where vegetation would have been heavy. This heavy vegetation decayed over the millennia, fertilizing the ground. This fertilized ground provided excellent earth for the growth of cotton.
General Winfield Stuck
@Brick Oven Bill:
Expanding on BoB;s bullshit.
Cotton that weren’t gonna pick itself. And the rest is very sad history. We fought a war to make them whites stop stealing Africans to pick their cotton pickin’ cotton, set the slaves free and technically equal. The white slavers spent 100 years trying to run off the people they stole, since they couldn’t use em as mules no more. And now they cry about us calling them evil racists cause they bring guns to a black presnits pol events, and carry KKK signs and such.
I say Fuck em sideways with their own raspy petards. Plow that red crescent under with ridicule and dare the ornery cocksuckers to secede, again.
Brick Oven Bill
More seashore politics.
Dr. Loveless
@Brick Oven Bill:
This pie script rocks my world.
On topic: The older I get, and the father away I get from all the “Lincoln preserved the Union” fairy tales I heard in grade school, the more convinced I get that we should have just let the fuckers secede. Except that if we had, they probably would have just joined the Axis in the 1930s and we would have had to fight them anyway.
RobZ
@Kiril:
The idea that the circumstances of the average citizen started dropping noticeably just 20 years ago is pretty damn unobservant.
Brick Head Bill
Don’t let the liberal media tell you how to think and feel. If you have hate in your heart, let it out. If you don’t like Will and Grace, that doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you. Means there’s something wrong with WILL! He’s a homosexual. White power!
Anne Laurie
I don’t think the Axis would have taken them. But the rest of us, the collectively sane states, would still have a failed state full of violent religious maniacs sharing our longest border. The so-called “Scotch Irish” are my peeps, blood & cultural relatives, and I can assure you that trying to isolate those troublemakers is a fool’s task. Without the relative permeability of the Mason-Dixon border, Jesus-stan would be nastier and more dangerous than an Afghanistan run by an IRA/UDF cabal, with the addition of pellagra and a full spectrum of subtropical infectious diseases.
matoko_chan
OT but its coming……
the epic steel cage death match between Charles and Mega-Malkin.
i feel it.
Dr. Loveless
@matoko_chan:
Over Newt Gingrich, at that. Yowza.
Two wingnuts enter, one wingnut leaves …
Wile E. Quixote
Brick Oven Bill (Just daring Cole to give him another seven day time-out for spouting racist bullshit. What do you suppose he gets out of this?)
Yeah, because that never happens anywhere else, you know like having the completely and totally unqualified son of a one-term president become president of the United States after justices appointed to the Supreme Court by his father appointed him to the Presidency in the most transparently political case evah!. Nope, it’s just that damned affirmative action that does it.
I’ve had it with BOB’s racist bullshit and general fuckwittery, it’s not amusing any more, can someone tell me about this “pie” script? Does it work with Safari?
Wile E. Quixote
@freelancer
I have to say that I’m unimpressed, not only with BOB’s racism and fuckwittery but also with his construction and culinary skills. Look at this the, crude, ugly stone age oven (Jesus, Bill that is one fugly piece of shit. What, did you get the plans for that from Sunset magazine’s Big Book of Fugly Shit for Your Back Yard) and this shitty looking so-called “pizza”. I’ve made better pizza with Boboli and an electric oven, and I didn’t have to crap up my yard with a fugly, looks like it was built by Fred Flintstone, oven.
Wile E. Quixote
@DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
If you go to his website, where you can see pictures of his shitty looking brick oven and his entirely unimpressive looking pizza. You can also see where he brags about being given timeouts.
Wile E. Quixote
@Anne Laurie
This is why we need to build a time machine and go back to 1861* and give the Union Army nuclear weapons.
*We also have to kill Hitler on the way back to 1861 because building a time machine and not using it to kill Hitler is a total dick move.
Wile E. Quixote
@someguy
I’m going to start buying Goldman Sachs stock so I can own a piece, a very small piece, but a piece nonetheless, of Congress and the Executive.
David Moisan
@bellatrys:
I get ya in Salem. The French, Irish, Eye-Talians and Poles grew up in Salem.
Now we say, “isn’t it a shame the French people are out of the Point (poor tenement neighborhood)”. We talk about “North Lynn”.
Makes me think some old French-Canadians should have been stopped at the border before they went down 114. Or that the Polish were brown peoples.