Democrats and Rural Voters

Mina said:
No. They're just a developing economy.



That would cause the deepest recession in history, followed by enduringly depressed quality of life in this country.



Nobody wins trade wars.



So is central Africa. Most wealthy nations didn't get there by way of natural resources (the exception being countries so small that just having one particularly in-demand natural resource has made them temporarily rich). Generalized prosperity tends to come about when a nation moves from a resource-extraction economy to a value-added economy, by way of developing a highly skilled workforce.



Environmentalism exists to try to stop us from polluting the world to the point that quality of life nose-dives.
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they're a technocratic slave state.
 
Stupid is as stupid does,
and if rural Americans continue to vote in direct opposition to their own economic best interests,
they deserve not only all the misery that they bring down upon themselves
but even more, because they're hurting others as well.

First of all, stupid voters vote for people that they intuitively like rather than trying to understand policy and voting for that.
They know that they're fucking morons, at least subconsciously, and they fear people with greater intellectual acuity than their own; thus they vote for other fucking morons.

Another thing that makes rural voters so fucking useless is their susceptibility to religious superstitions.
If these fucking country preachers want to spread right wing politics from their pulpits, the government should remove their tax exempt status and seize their assets.

Right now, world culture is being toxified by two extremely malignant groups, Muslims and Christians.
Both of them eschew humanism in favor of superstitious nonsense, and in the process, bring civilization down.

I think that if this planet and humanity has one great leader left in it, it will be the person who marshals the power to eradicate religion once and for all.
If draconian measures are required to do it, than it this one particular case, the end obviously does justify the means.
 
Mina said:
For those who have so little going for them as employees that they can be out-competed by someone who doesn't speak English and only had the benefit of a third-world education, workers of that sort can depress wages. The solution, though, isn't to protect the uneducated and unskilled from competition, but rather to help them gain more education and skills.
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reminds me of Clinton to the coal miners "just learn to code" (computers) :palm:

Many cant go back to school,or dont want to refugees and asylees are eligible for all welfare benefits for the first seven years they reside in the U.S., after which their eligibility is greatly reduced
of course young kid get it, and I think their parents can gets basics as well

but there is also the costs such as education and medical that is dumped on the states
https://www.brookings.edu/research/welfare-benefits-for-non-citizens/
 
Mina said:
No. They're just a developing economy.



That would cause the deepest recession in history, followed by enduringly depressed quality of life in this country.



Nobody wins trade wars.



So is central Africa. Most wealthy nations didn't get there by way of natural resources (the exception being countries so small that just having one particularly in-demand natural resource has made them temporarily rich). Generalized prosperity tends to come about when a nation moves from a resource-extraction economy to a value-added economy, by way of developing a highly skilled workforce.



Environmentalism exists to try to stop us from polluting the world to the point that quality of life nose-dives.
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all wrong.

it would be a renaissance of american productivity and self reliance.
 
cawacko said:
I was hoping you would chime in.

Not that this board should be taken all that seriously but I do think certain attitudes here are representative. For example, look at how certain right wing posters here speak about black people. That they are mostly criminals and thugs etc. Now I think a good argument can be made that conservative policies are beneficial to the black community but that aside, is it surprising they don't vote for the party with people who openly say that/think that about them?

And then you have Democrats and rural working class whites. How many here call them uneducated, racist, flyover country trailer park scum. Again, is it shocking they don't rush out to vote for Democrats with that attitude?
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Exactly my point.
 
Mina said:
Mott the Hoople said:
As someone raised in the country I can tell you right now that reason rural folk don’t vote Democrat is because Democrats have done little to nothing for rural folks. Not economically or in a civic manner.

Yet they definitely have. For example, who pushed through minimum wage hikes? Child tax credits? The recent infrastructure investment plan? The Affordable Care Act?

Be specific. Can you think of a particular bill that would benefit rural people that Democrats opposed and Republicans supported?



I think that comes closer to the truth of the matter. Democrats can fight all day long for policies that will help rural people, but if they don't emotionally support notions of white superiority and structures of white supremacy, they're going to have trouble with rural whites.



I think both parties are elaborately respectful towards rural people. You never hear any major politicians talk about rural areas with the contempt Republicans regularly use when talking about urban areas. But on social issues,, you're likely right. Republicans, for example, are friendlier to theocratic initiatives, land that plays well in rural areas. If you think the governments proper role is to punish gay people, force women to carry unwanted pregnancies to term, and promote the Protestant faith in public schools, then Democrats have little to offer there. The Democrats may have a very big tent, but they haven't been inviting those particular initiatives into it. The GOP may be a small-tent party (which is why they lose with Blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans, Arabs, Indians, immigrants, gays, and pretty much any religious minority). But their tent has ample room for theocrats.



In what sense is the standard of living worse than 50 years ago?
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Ok, show me where that infrastructure money is being spent and how.

Major infrastructure projects are famous for by passing rural and small town area and thus limiting their potential for economic development. We base funding our educational systems at the State level in which wealthy communities have excellent schools and rural communities schools are starved for funding.

Even in your own post you believe that rural communities are predicated on white nationalism which indicates to me you’ve never lived in one. Which would make you part of the disconnect and not part of a solution. You want rural and small folk to abandon their culture for your obligatory paradise.

As for the economic growth for working and middle class one only has to look at the tremendous increase of their productivity and wage growth has been stagnant for them for those fifty years. How does that affect their standard of living? They can’t afford home ownership, they can’t afford to send their kids to college without incurring crushing debt, they can’t afford to participate in social development and thus can’t build social capital which correalates to building financial capital.

But that doesn’t matter to you because by proxy to you by being rural you’ve put them into your identity box that they are just a bunch of ignorant hick racist white nationalist hicks.

My experience in actually living in rural communities is that they tend to be more egalitarian than urban communities where folks are purposefully segregated by socioeconomic status.

Blaming these folks for the sins of the past is just simply another form of bigotry.
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Mott the Hoople said:
Ok, show me where that infrastructure money is being spent and how.

Major infrastructure projects are famous for by passing rural and small town area and thus limiting their potential for economic development. We base funding our educational systems at the State level in which wealthy communities have excellent schools and rural communities schools are starved for funding.

Even in your own post you believe that rural communities are predicated on white nationalism which indicates to me you’ve never lived in one. Which would make you part of the disconnect and not part of a solution. You want rural and small folk to abandon their culture for your obligatory paradise.

As for the economic growth for working and middle class one only has to look at the tremendous increase of their productivity and wage growth has been stagnant for them for those fifty years. How does that affect their standard of living? They can’t afford home ownership, they can’t afford to send their kids to college without incurring crushing debt, they can’t afford to participate in social development and thus can’t build social capital which correalates to building financial capital.

But that doesn’t matter to you because by proxy to you by being rural you’ve put them into your identity box that they are just a bunch of ignorant hick racist white nationalist hicks.

My experience in actually living in rural communities is that they tend to be more egalitarian than urban communities where folks are purposefully segregated by socioeconomic status.

Blaming these folks for the sins of the past is just simply another form of bigotry.
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^ This.

And yet city folk come here and buy up our land (because the cities pay more than our cost of living) to retire and then bitch about the way we live.
 
ThatOwlWoman said:
Sounds like the Maine person was making up shit to justify voting for the bankrupt and corrupt IMPOTUSx2. I'd bet you anything that she never paid any attention to Clinton's campaign, and got all her "facts" from Fox. Typical low-info Trumpanzee.
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Agree. I live in a rural area of a Blue state. Some pretty dumb individuals around here that simply parrot Fox talking points with absolutely no knowledge of any hot button issue.
 
Mina said:
Exactly. I'd love to show up at her door with a transcript of each of the convention speeches and ask her to circle the parts in each talking about working people. She'd find that she'd circled a one-sentence line from Trump, and about half of Hillary Clinton's speech. But, rural Maine is extremely ethnically homogenous. It's the kind of place they make racist jokes about French Canadians, because that's about as much diversity as you can find in the area. And when you live somewhere without Black people, or Hispanics, or Muslims, it's not hard to get frightened about them, when a fearmonger like Trump goes to work on you. His vision of urban America descending into a violent, multi-ethnic chaos is tailor made to win the votes of the low-information voters.
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There is no understanding how uneducated people vote. Collins was behind by double digits in Maine polling just before the election, and she won comfortably.

That probably says more about the fact that polling should be ended due to the ease at which a rather small group can skew it.

Obama was correct. Many people tend to be single issue voters.
 
Althea said:
There is no understanding how uneducated people vote. Collins was behind by double digits in Maine polling just before the election, and she won comfortably.

That probably says more about the fact that polling should be ended due to the ease at which a rather small group can skew it.

Obama was correct. Many people tend to be single issue voters.
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what you call education is mostly brainwashing.

you're actually the idiots for thinking totalitarianism is cool.
 
archives said:
They got a lot of “working class” areas in rural America?

Admittedly, Clinton was an awful campaigner, was back in 2008 and again in 2016, plus just being a women she was against it from the jump, but Trump didn’t campaign on issues, his focus was scapegoating such as China plus appealing to the bitterness and hate many felt because the America they wanted no longer existed
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Actually, he lied quite a bit about issues that affect the working class. He promised to 'raise taxes on his friends. They aren't going to like me'

He claimed that he would bring jobs back here. He didn't. He claimed that he 'would have health insurance that is much cheaper, and much better coverage...it will be so easy'.

Basically, he lied about everything. If people were stupid enough to believe him, that's on them.

The election was more about those who refused to vote, despite being warned that the Supreme Court was at stake.
 
Mina said:
The NYT has an article called "What Democrats Don’t Understand About Rural America" looking at why Democrats are failing to win with rural voters:

In the story, a rural woman in Maine said that she'd been
undecided between Clinton and Trump until Election Day but voted for Trump because, at the Republican convention, he talked about regular American working people and Clinton didn’t at her convention.

So, is that true?

We have the transcripts telling us exactly what each candidate said at the convention. Clinton spoke of "working people" four times, Trump once. For Trump, it was a one-liner about how his (slum-lord) father taught him to respect working people. For Clinton, those four references were part of the main section of her speech, which served as its central theme, talking about the struggles of working people and what the government could do to help:

"I’ve gone around our country talking to working families. And I’ve heard from so many of you who feel like the economy just isn’t working. Some of you are frustrated – even furious. And you know what??? You’re right. It’s not yet working the way it should. Americans are willing to work – and work hard. But right now, an awful lot of people feel there is less and less respect for the work they do. And less respect for them, period. Democrats are the party of working people. But we haven’t done a good enough job showing that we get what you’re going through, and that we’re going to do something about it. So I want to tell you tonight how we will empower Americans to live better lives. My primary mission as President will be to create more opportunity and more good jobs with rising wages right here in the United States… From my first day in office to my last! Especially in places that for too long have been left out and left behind. From our inner cities to our small towns, from Indian Country to Coal Country. From communities ravaged by addiction to regions hollowed out by plant closures..... Whatever party you belong to, or if you belong to no party at all, if you share these beliefs, this is your campaign. If you believe that companies should share profits with their workers, not pad executive bonuses, join us. If you believe the minimum wage should be a living wage… and no one working full time should have to raise their children in poverty… join us. If you believe that every man, woman, and child in America has the right to affordable health care…join us.... And yes, if you believe that your working mother, wife, sister, or daughter deserves equal pay… join us… Let’s make sure this economy works for everyone, not just those at the top.

Again and again she spoke about working people -- her own mother working as a house maid at age 14, hard-working immigrants, those with hopes of starting a small business who can't get bank loans to finance their dreams, and the working people Trump had stiffed over the years, as he regularly refused to pay his bills in full, forcing contractors to negotiate or litigate to get paid what he owed them. Then she went through a long list of specific plans, all built around the needs of working people.

Trump, by comparison, was five pages into his speech before he even got around to talking about jobs. His speech focused first and most on "violence in the streets and chaos in our communities." Time and again, it was about "terrorism and lawlessness." His promises were focused not around economic ideas for working people, but rather "appointing the best prosecutors and law enforcement," while fighting immigration.

So, I think we can say with confidence that the interviewed rural woman was lying about why she chose to vote for Trump. As a simple matter of FACT, Hillary Clinton spoke far more extensively about working people than Trump did. Trump ran on fear -- fear of Black people running wild in inner cities, fear of Hispanic immigrants, and fear of Muslim terrorists. Fear of the unfamiliar was the core theme of his speech, and that's what won over the rural voters.
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While I didn't (and would NEVER) vote for Hillary or Trump, it's nice to see people are on their toes in keeping the so-called "liberal biased" MSM on their toes. Thanks.
 
Mina said:
I think this shows an unfortunate thing about the corporate media:

The NYT let themselves be used as a soap box from which to smear Hillary Clinton, with the idea she lost because she failed to talk about working people at her convention. That talking point harmonizes with the groupthink of corporate media types.... but, as anyone can see just by reviewing the conventions, it's simply not true.

Trump didn't run on the economic troubles of rural people or the working class. He ran on cultural wedge issues and fear of crime, terrorism, and immigrants, specifically. The corporate media is utterly committed to this idea that Democrats lose because they ignore the economic troubles of white blue collar people. But the simple fact is they don't actually ignore those things. They talk about them far more often and in greater detail than the Republicans, while proposing a lot more policies focused on addressing those things (minimum wage hikes, child care subsidies, infrastructure investment, and so on).

What Democrats don't do as much or as well as Republicans is play to xenophobia and bigotry, and that makes a big difference among undereducated voters, especially white, rural ones. It's considered gauche among corporate media types to acknowledge the role of that fearmongering in elections, since they're committed to this vision of white, working class, small-town people as pillars of salt-of-the-earth decency. So, the media types just keep gravitating back to these "Dems neglect the working class" talking points, no matter how much they rely on clearly factually incorrect statements like those they trumpeted in the NYT article.
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Remember, these were the jokers who bought and sold the BS about Iraq hook, line & sinker.
 
cawacko said:
I don't have to read that to know the answer. You sit there and call them deplorables then act surprised that you don't get more of their vote? It's really not different than Republicans and the rhetoric they have used about groups who votes they don't get in large numbers.

It seems human nature to me that if you don't think there is a lot of difference between two groups that voters would lean towards the one who at least gives lip service to caring (or doesn't speak negatively about you).


Edit: I don't Mott doesn't post all that frequently anymore but he's had excellent answers to this in the past
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You endorse and parrot the BS of Alex Jones, Fox News, Mike Savage and the like, then support a bigoted con man like Trump and you don't think you're deplorable?

So lying is what, revenge? GMAFB!
 
dukkha said:
and thn she didnt campaign in the "workin people districts"
what really cooked her goose was her message - not much of anything except 1st woman

Trump talked about brownfields, bringing back jobs etc.
Oh and China -trump messgae went directly to malign trade practices by China
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red state voter suppression and gerry mandering were a major player, remember.
 
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