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> That was back when Democrats talked about class a lot more than they did about race. Democrats took on race as an issue in the early 1960s, leading the Repub

> That was back when Democrats talked about class a lot more than they did about race. Democrats took on race as an issue in the early 1960s, leading the Republican's 'Southern Strategy'. White blue collar workers only shifted to the GOP in the last 10 years, I think, especially for Trump.

ars 2y ago
To me it seemed like the Democrats changed, not the blue collar workers. A lot of it is race, Democrats started essentially calling all White people racist, i.e. blaming all white people for generational racism. Tons of people who were not racist did not appreciate that - personally I believe it's why Hillary lost, her "basket of deplorables" comment lost her a lot voters.
- shrimp_emoji 2y ago
  At this point, to me the Democrats seem more racist than the Republicans. All you hear from the latter is oldschool liberal egalitarianism, whatever the sincerity; the former are obsessed about race and make everyone else obsessed by proxy with, for example, how they cast white guys as the antagonists in every piece of media.
  - corn13read2 2y ago
    They did start the kkk… not a shock that it’s part of their party. So glad I’m not in America!
    - int_19h 2y ago
      You should probably look up what a "Dixiecrat" is, and where they (and their voters) ended up eventually.
  - int_19h 2y ago
    Lee Atwater has this to say about Republican politics of 1980s: "All that you need to do to keep the South is for Reagan to run in place on the issues that he's campaigned on since 1964, and that's fiscal conservatism, balancing the budget, cut taxes, you know, the whole cluster. ... You start out in 1954 by saying, "Nigger, nigger, nigger". By 1968, you can't say "nigger" — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now, you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this", is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "Nigger, nigger". So, any way you look at it, race is coming on the back-burner." I would say that the present state of the Republican party is very much in line with that, except that race didn't ever truly come onto the back-burner; somehow they're still talking about "those people" all the time. So, Republicans are the party of white people who are proud that they are white (and annoyed that they can't show their pride openly anymore), while Democrats are the party of white people who feel guilty about it (and annoy everyone else by trying to make everyone aware of how badly they feel about it).
    - ars 2y ago
      "blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that" He's "not" saying that, and then he goes and says that. He's point being that Republicans are most concerned with economic things, but because he things a better economic policy hurts blacks, therefor Republican are racist? Or, maybe, they just want a better economic policy, and they don't view everything through the lens of race? (i.e. color blind) While Democrats in contrast do view every decision through that lens. > somehow they're still talking about "those people" all the time. And "they" being Democrats or Republicans? Because I see Democrats talking about race far more than Republicans. Your last sentence tells me you view everything through the lens of race, but not everyone does that.
      - 2y ago
  - wolverine876 2y ago
    > Republicans. All you hear from the latter is oldschool liberal egalitarianism That seems very hard to reconcile with Donald Trump, overwhelmingly popular party leader, as well as many, many other Republicans who express hatred to contempt and create legalized discrimination against many groups, LGBTQ+ people and immigrants for example.
Loughla 2y ago
White blue collar workers switched during Reagan.
rayiner 2y ago
> Democrats took on race as an issue in the early 1960s, That’s a weird way of framing a law that got only 60-40 support among democrats in Congress but 80-20 among republicans. But it was more of a “Mad Men/Lucky Strikes” situation: https://youtu.be/8Nvf4BteCR4?si=snxZFKB1HmaljUmR https://youtu.be/8Nvf4BteCR4?si=snxZFKB1HmaljUmR. Once both parties supported the civil rights act, the had to campaign on different issues. Democrats turned to a more academic and activist view on race, focused on using government to undo the effects of past discrimination. Legal equality having been achieved, republicans turned to social and religious conservatism. The more important piece of the puzzle is economics. In the 1950s, Ohio had a median income 57% higher than North Carolina. Illinois was 75% higher than Georgia. That gap started to close dramatically in the 1970s and 1980s, opening the door to republicans coming into the south on a pro-business and deregulation platform. It’s not a coincidence that nearly all of Toyota’s manufacturing facilities in the US except one are in what are now low regulation red states.
- matthewdgreen 2y ago
  That's a weird and extremely sanitized view of what happened. A more accurate explanation is that the Democratic party was a coalition of (mainly) Northern progressives who supported integration, and Southern "Dixiecrats" who were opposed. Following the Act's passage, the Southern coalition switched en masse to the Republican party. Many of these voters continued to oppose racial (and "legal") equality for many years, and in some cases are still do. Even as recently as last year, Alabama had a Congressional map struck down by the US Supreme Court for violations of the Voting Rights Act -- and the Alabama legislature then proceeded to ignore the decision and write a new map with exactly the same deficiencies [1]. [1] https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/alabama-defies-voting-rights-act https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/alab...
  - rayiner 2y ago
    > Following the Act's passage, the Southern coalition switched en masse to the Republican party. Except the switch didn’t happen until decades later. Virtually no Dixiecrat switched parties. And Carter won every southern state except Virginia in 1976. He did better in Alabama than in New York. Reagan and George H. W. Bush muddy the analysis because they won everywhere, including deep blue states. But Reagan did better in wealthier, more educated southern metro areas in the south than in presumably more racist rural areas. Clinton won a number of southern states in the 1990s. Republicans didn’t win a majority of southern congressional seats until 1994. Apart from it making no sense to say Dixiecrats protested Democratic support for the civil rights act by switching to the party that not only supported it more, but supported all the previous civil rights acts, that narrative ignores the actual issues that mattered to voters in the 1980s and 1990s. Abortion, foreign policy (patriotism), and economic policy became defining issues during that time. And on all those fronts, ”new south” voters were more aligned with the Republican position. Put differently, democrats support for segregation was keeping southern democrats in the party. It was preventing what would otherwise be ideological sorting of a voting bloc that was already more religious conservative, patriotic, and was benefiting economically from deregulation as industry moved from northern states to southern states. > Many of these voters continued to oppose racial (and "legal") equality for many years, and in some cases are still do. Nobody opposes legal equality. Many republicans oppose what we now call “equity”—taking race into account to produce racially even results. If you look at “racial resentment” tests, for example, the fundamental difference in attitudes that appears is that liberals have a special sympathy toward black people, while conservatives have equally unsympathetic attitudes towards everyone: https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/renos/files/carneyenos.pdf https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/renos/files/carneyenos.pdf. Your Alabama example illustrates the point. Alabama is trying to draw a map favorable to republicans for the same reason Maryland draws a map favorable to democrats: https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/marylands-extreme-gerrymander https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/mary.... Alabama isn’t trying to disadvantage black voters, just as Maryland isn’t trying to disadvantage white voters.

ars 2y ago

To me it seemed like the Democrats changed, not the blue collar workers. A lot of it is race, Democrats started essentially calling all White people racist, i.e. blaming all white people for generational racism. Tons of people who were not racist did not appreciate that - personally I believe it's why Hillary lost, her "basket of deplorables" comment lost her a lot voters.

shrimp_emoji 2y ago
At this point, to me the Democrats seem more racist than the Republicans. All you hear from the latter is oldschool liberal egalitarianism, whatever the sincerity; the former are obsessed about race and make everyone else obsessed by proxy with, for example, how they cast white guys as the antagonists in every piece of media.
- corn13read2 2y ago
  They did start the kkk… not a shock that it’s part of their party. So glad I’m not in America!
  - int_19h 2y ago
    You should probably look up what a "Dixiecrat" is, and where they (and their voters) ended up eventually.
- int_19h 2y ago
  Lee Atwater has this to say about Republican politics of 1980s: "All that you need to do to keep the South is for Reagan to run in place on the issues that he's campaigned on since 1964, and that's fiscal conservatism, balancing the budget, cut taxes, you know, the whole cluster. ... You start out in 1954 by saying, "Nigger, nigger, nigger". By 1968, you can't say "nigger" — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now, you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this", is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "Nigger, nigger". So, any way you look at it, race is coming on the back-burner." I would say that the present state of the Republican party is very much in line with that, except that race didn't ever truly come onto the back-burner; somehow they're still talking about "those people" all the time. So, Republicans are the party of white people who are proud that they are white (and annoyed that they can't show their pride openly anymore), while Democrats are the party of white people who feel guilty about it (and annoy everyone else by trying to make everyone aware of how badly they feel about it).
  - ars 2y ago
    "blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that" He's "not" saying that, and then he goes and says that. He's point being that Republicans are most concerned with economic things, but because he things a better economic policy hurts blacks, therefor Republican are racist? Or, maybe, they just want a better economic policy, and they don't view everything through the lens of race? (i.e. color blind) While Democrats in contrast do view every decision through that lens. > somehow they're still talking about "those people" all the time. And "they" being Democrats or Republicans? Because I see Democrats talking about race far more than Republicans. Your last sentence tells me you view everything through the lens of race, but not everyone does that.
    - 2y ago
- wolverine876 2y ago
  > Republicans. All you hear from the latter is oldschool liberal egalitarianism That seems very hard to reconcile with Donald Trump, overwhelmingly popular party leader, as well as many, many other Republicans who express hatred to contempt and create legalized discrimination against many groups, LGBTQ+ people and immigrants for example.

Loughla 2y ago

White blue collar workers switched during Reagan.

rayiner 2y ago

> Democrats took on race as an issue in the early 1960s, That’s a weird way of framing a law that got only 60-40 support among democrats in Congress but 80-20 among republicans. But it was more of a “Mad Men/Lucky Strikes” situation: https://youtu.be/8Nvf4BteCR4?si=snxZFKB1HmaljUmR https://youtu.be/8Nvf4BteCR4?si=snxZFKB1HmaljUmR. Once both parties supported the civil rights act, the had to campaign on different issues. Democrats turned to a more academic and activist view on race, focused on using government to undo the effects of past discrimination. Legal equality having been achieved, republicans turned to social and religious conservatism. The more important piece of the puzzle is economics. In the 1950s, Ohio had a median income 57% higher than North Carolina. Illinois was 75% higher than Georgia. That gap started to close dramatically in the 1970s and 1980s, opening the door to republicans coming into the south on a pro-business and deregulation platform. It’s not a coincidence that nearly all of Toyota’s manufacturing facilities in the US except one are in what are now low regulation red states.

matthewdgreen 2y ago
That's a weird and extremely sanitized view of what happened. A more accurate explanation is that the Democratic party was a coalition of (mainly) Northern progressives who supported integration, and Southern "Dixiecrats" who were opposed. Following the Act's passage, the Southern coalition switched en masse to the Republican party. Many of these voters continued to oppose racial (and "legal") equality for many years, and in some cases are still do. Even as recently as last year, Alabama had a Congressional map struck down by the US Supreme Court for violations of the Voting Rights Act -- and the Alabama legislature then proceeded to ignore the decision and write a new map with exactly the same deficiencies [1]. [1] https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/alabama-defies-voting-rights-act https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/alab...
- rayiner 2y ago
  > Following the Act's passage, the Southern coalition switched en masse to the Republican party. Except the switch didn’t happen until decades later. Virtually no Dixiecrat switched parties. And Carter won every southern state except Virginia in 1976. He did better in Alabama than in New York. Reagan and George H. W. Bush muddy the analysis because they won everywhere, including deep blue states. But Reagan did better in wealthier, more educated southern metro areas in the south than in presumably more racist rural areas. Clinton won a number of southern states in the 1990s. Republicans didn’t win a majority of southern congressional seats until 1994. Apart from it making no sense to say Dixiecrats protested Democratic support for the civil rights act by switching to the party that not only supported it more, but supported all the previous civil rights acts, that narrative ignores the actual issues that mattered to voters in the 1980s and 1990s. Abortion, foreign policy (patriotism), and economic policy became defining issues during that time. And on all those fronts, ”new south” voters were more aligned with the Republican position. Put differently, democrats support for segregation was keeping southern democrats in the party. It was preventing what would otherwise be ideological sorting of a voting bloc that was already more religious conservative, patriotic, and was benefiting economically from deregulation as industry moved from northern states to southern states. > Many of these voters continued to oppose racial (and "legal") equality for many years, and in some cases are still do. Nobody opposes legal equality. Many republicans oppose what we now call “equity”—taking race into account to produce racially even results. If you look at “racial resentment” tests, for example, the fundamental difference in attitudes that appears is that liberals have a special sympathy toward black people, while conservatives have equally unsympathetic attitudes towards everyone: https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/renos/files/carneyenos.pdf https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/renos/files/carneyenos.pdf. Your Alabama example illustrates the point. Alabama is trying to draw a map favorable to republicans for the same reason Maryland draws a map favorable to democrats: https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/marylands-extreme-gerrymander https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/mary.... Alabama isn’t trying to disadvantage black voters, just as Maryland isn’t trying to disadvantage white voters.