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Or maybe the Republicans are better at voter suppression and that's why you don't see the poor Democratic voters?

by mulmen 4y ago

skissane 4y ago
I cited a NY Times article on how poor Americans are increasingly voting Republican. Given the overall political lean of the NY Times, I expect they'd be very happy to promote your theory if there was any evidence for it. Yet they didn't mention it, because there doesn't appear to be any.
- mulmen 4y ago
  Maybe this NY Times article isn't biased and is simply reporting on the data. I don't find "NY Times liberals" to be a compelling refutation of the assertion that the Republican party might be good at voter suppression. I'm not even claiming they are better at it but it is certainly possible and would explain the data.
  - skissane 4y ago
    > Maybe this NY Times article isn't biased and is simply reporting on the data. I don't find "NY Times liberals" to be a compelling refutation of the assertion that the Republican party might be good at voter suppression. I don’t think you understand my point about bias. Let me put it this way - the fact that the conservative majority of SCOTUS failed to endorse Trump’s claims about the 2020 elections - in spite of the fact that their own bias would lead them to be sympathetic to them - is good evidence that his claims suffer from a serious lack of supporting evidence. Or, similarly - while Fox News hosts such as Tucker Carlson have expressed some sympathy for the members of the QAnon movement as individuals, nobody at Fox News has publicly endorsed their outlandish factual claims - and if there was remotely any evidence for them, surely Fox News would have done so, which is good evidence there isn’t. This is what I am talking about here - everyone is biased, but when a person whose bias would naturally lead them to support some position fails to do so, that is in itself a form of indirect evidence against the position. And I’m sure some voter suppression happens. But, let me put it this way - no doubt some fraud occurred in the 2020 election (just like every other), but it seems unlikely it occurred on a sufficient scale to change the outcome, and there is no good evidence that it did. Similarly, no doubt voter suppression sometimes happens, but it seems unlikely it happens on a sufficient scale to change national demographic trends in voting, and there is no good evidence that it does.
    - mulmen 4y ago
      > Similarly, no doubt voter suppression sometimes happens, but it seems unlikely it happens on a sufficient scale to change national demographic trends in voting, and there is no good evidence that it does. This is where we disagree. There is longstanding evidence for exactly this. It stretches back literally centuries. There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud. There is clear, established evidence of ongoing, large scale, material voter suppression. It looks like you are not an American so consider that this is a thing in living memory here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_Rights_Act_of_1965 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_Rights_Act_of_1965 Also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_suppression_in_the_United_States#Modern_examples https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_suppression_in_the_Unite...
      - skissane 4y ago
        There is certainly a history in the US of voting suppression targeted at racial minorities, especially African-Americans. (And although I am indeed not an American, my own country also has a history of racial discrimination in voting, also within living memory–the US is less unique in that regard that you seem to think it is.) However, if working class non-Hispanic whites appear to have been switching, over the last several elections, from Democrats to Republicans – it isn't clear how voter suppression explains that particular change. Your theory suggests that working class non-Hispanic whites haven't changed their collective political allegiance at all, it is simply that Republicans have managed to selectively suppress their vote, but only of those among them who vote Democrat. I don't think that's very plausible – it isn't consistent with the observed changes in turnout figures. And a history of electoral discrimination against racial minorities isn't very relevant to that theory either, since to explain this it would require, not voter suppression against a racial minority, but rather large-scale politically-selective voter suppression against the historical ethnic/racial majority, which is a rather different thing. And, it isn't just non-Hispanic whites. The biggest swing towards Trump between 2016 and 2020 was in Laredo, Texas–27.7 percentage points. [0] And Laredo is over 95% Hispanic, indeed the most Hispanic city in the United States outside of Puerto Rico. It is also not a rich city by any measure – 30% of its population are below the poverty line. So, it looks like a significant chunk of Hispanic people in Laredo (and elsewhere in southern Texas) – many of whom would be of lower socioeconomic status – decided to switch their vote to Republican, or turnout for the first time for the GOP, in 2020. And the idea that, instead, Republicans just worked out how to suppress Democrats from voting, is inconsistent with the fact that turnout actually increased in Webb County from 2016 to 2020. [1] [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/07/upshot/trump-election-vote-shift.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/07/upshot/trump-election-vot... [1] https://www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/historical/webb.shtml https://www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/historical/webb.shtml

Or maybe the Republicans are better at voter suppression and that's why you don't see the poor Democratic voters?

by mulmen 4y ago

Or maybe the Republicans are better at voter suppression and that's why you don't see the poor Democratic voters?

I cited a NY Times article on how poor Americans are increasingly voting Republican. Given the overall political lean of the NY Times, I expect they'd be very happy to promote your theory if there was any evidence for it. Yet they didn't mention it, because there doesn't appear to be any.

mulmen 4y ago
Maybe this NY Times article isn't biased and is simply reporting on the data. I don't find "NY Times liberals" to be a compelling refutation of the assertion that the Republican party might be good at voter suppression. I'm not even claiming they are better at it but it is certainly possible and would explain the data.
- skissane 4y ago
  > Maybe this NY Times article isn't biased and is simply reporting on the data. I don't find "NY Times liberals" to be a compelling refutation of the assertion that the Republican party might be good at voter suppression. I don’t think you understand my point about bias. Let me put it this way - the fact that the conservative majority of SCOTUS failed to endorse Trump’s claims about the 2020 elections - in spite of the fact that their own bias would lead them to be sympathetic to them - is good evidence that his claims suffer from a serious lack of supporting evidence. Or, similarly - while Fox News hosts such as Tucker Carlson have expressed some sympathy for the members of the QAnon movement as individuals, nobody at Fox News has publicly endorsed their outlandish factual claims - and if there was remotely any evidence for them, surely Fox News would have done so, which is good evidence there isn’t. This is what I am talking about here - everyone is biased, but when a person whose bias would naturally lead them to support some position fails to do so, that is in itself a form of indirect evidence against the position. And I’m sure some voter suppression happens. But, let me put it this way - no doubt some fraud occurred in the 2020 election (just like every other), but it seems unlikely it occurred on a sufficient scale to change the outcome, and there is no good evidence that it did. Similarly, no doubt voter suppression sometimes happens, but it seems unlikely it happens on a sufficient scale to change national demographic trends in voting, and there is no good evidence that it does.
  - mulmen 4y ago
    > Similarly, no doubt voter suppression sometimes happens, but it seems unlikely it happens on a sufficient scale to change national demographic trends in voting, and there is no good evidence that it does. This is where we disagree. There is longstanding evidence for exactly this. It stretches back literally centuries. There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud. There is clear, established evidence of ongoing, large scale, material voter suppression. It looks like you are not an American so consider that this is a thing in living memory here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_Rights_Act_of_1965 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_Rights_Act_of_1965 Also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_suppression_in_the_United_States#Modern_examples https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_suppression_in_the_Unite...
    - skissane 4y ago
      There is certainly a history in the US of voting suppression targeted at racial minorities, especially African-Americans. (And although I am indeed not an American, my own country also has a history of racial discrimination in voting, also within living memory–the US is less unique in that regard that you seem to think it is.) However, if working class non-Hispanic whites appear to have been switching, over the last several elections, from Democrats to Republicans – it isn't clear how voter suppression explains that particular change. Your theory suggests that working class non-Hispanic whites haven't changed their collective political allegiance at all, it is simply that Republicans have managed to selectively suppress their vote, but only of those among them who vote Democrat. I don't think that's very plausible – it isn't consistent with the observed changes in turnout figures. And a history of electoral discrimination against racial minorities isn't very relevant to that theory either, since to explain this it would require, not voter suppression against a racial minority, but rather large-scale politically-selective voter suppression against the historical ethnic/racial majority, which is a rather different thing. And, it isn't just non-Hispanic whites. The biggest swing towards Trump between 2016 and 2020 was in Laredo, Texas–27.7 percentage points. [0] And Laredo is over 95% Hispanic, indeed the most Hispanic city in the United States outside of Puerto Rico. It is also not a rich city by any measure – 30% of its population are below the poverty line. So, it looks like a significant chunk of Hispanic people in Laredo (and elsewhere in southern Texas) – many of whom would be of lower socioeconomic status – decided to switch their vote to Republican, or turnout for the first time for the GOP, in 2020. And the idea that, instead, Republicans just worked out how to suppress Democrats from voting, is inconsistent with the fact that turnout actually increased in Webb County from 2016 to 2020. [1] [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/07/upshot/trump-election-vote-shift.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/07/upshot/trump-election-vot... [1] https://www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/historical/webb.shtml https://www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/historical/webb.shtml