A new Public Policy Polling survey shows President Obama and Mitt Romney tied among voters surveyed nationally, 45% to 45%.
In other match ups, Obama leads Rick Perry, 49% to 43%, tops Michele Bachmann, 50% to 42%, beats Sarah Palin, 53% to 40% and leads Herman Cain, 49% to 39%.
Key finding: “One big reason Obama’s doing pretty well in these match ups is the Hispanic vote. Exit polls in 2008 showed him winning it by a 36 point margin over McCain but he builds on that in all of these match ups… This is a good example of what Republican strategist Mike Murphy has described as the economics vs. demographics tension for next year’s election. The economy could sink Obama but at the same time an ever growing expanding Hispanic vote that he wins by a huge margin could be enough to let him eek out a second term. It’s certainly propping him up on this poll.”
Thank Bieber that in addition to being destructive sociopaths, Republicans are also politically suicidal xenophobes. We’d be in a world of hurt if they weren’t.
There are many white Balloon-Juice readers who are offended when I say that we would certainly be well on our way to a Franco/Mussolini-style dictatorship (or worse) if only white people could vote. Well, it’s a fact, deal with it.
Jeffro
“eke” out a second term…it’s not a mouse fer FSM’s sake
/spellnut off
Omnes Omnibus
Closer to Apartheid-era South Africa, if you ask me.
Tomjones
Also, too, if only white people could vote, dancing would be illegal. Viva la Footloose!
Ruckus
I’m not offended by the truth.
I’m offended that my lack of skin pigment puts me in the category of self-inflicting idiot.
RR
Love the “EEK!”
The Populist
I’ve been saying this too Doug. Anybody who is offended by the fact that the GOP embrace authoritarian/downright fascist ideologies and concepts needs to please wake up. If we lose this election the supreme court may change for the worse folks. WORSE. THAT is how they will control us for at least the next couple decades.
lamh34
Just in time for school, Obama’s indoctrinating our kids again
for dog lovers, check out the video titled “A Surprise Visitor”
James Hare
Not ALL of us are jerks.
Jenny
Greatest Perry video
http://youtu.be/ngiJhmoFKkw
He shoots blanks on abstinence.
The Populist
@Ruckus: I am as white as white can be. Red hair, easily burnable skin is a curse if you ask me (yes, I am being facetious).
I grew up in the 80s and can tell you that I was exposed to many cultures, many beliefs. I welcome diversity and it pains me to watch white people my own age turn into raging xenophobes and even flirt with bigotry when it comes to anybody darker than they are.
gocart mozart
Dubya Dubya II: The Perry-shing
pragmatism
LOS GLOTONES!!!!!
Svensker
This just proves the racism of all liberals.
/makewi
Spaghetti Lee
I’m sure it’s true. I wish it wasn’t. I think a sort of racially-polarized “Whites are Republicans, everyone else is Democrats” is bad for both whites and minorities, bad for politics, bad for policy, bad for everything.
Makewi
It is pretty awesome how you’ve managed to turn an issue of immigration law into an issue of racism. Actually, since every issue ends up being a question of racism to you all, I guess it’s more inevitable than impressive.
Zifnab
So is 2012 going to be a referrendum on Obama, the Tea Party, the economy, social issues, or sex and cake?
gocart mozart
@Svensker:
Nostradomus?
dude
Why would you ever think that, Doug? I mean, aside from restrictive voter ID laws, making it difficult for people who are reformed felons get their voting rights back, blocking challenges to get rid of the electoral college, openly talking about getting rid of direct election of US senators, and occasionally letting slip a desire to eliminate voting rights for women and non-property owners, what have conservative white politicians and the constituencies who make them viable done to make you think they have fascist tendencies?
Delia
So is there someplace we’re going to have to go to register as self-hating white persons?
BudP
As a gringo, just let me say yo estoy embarrasado for all of us.
Dennis SGMM
Someone needs their racism detector re-calibrated.
Omnes Omnibus
; @Delia: Democratic Party, obvs.
fasteddie9318
Hey, it’s makewi. As Chris Rock says, that train is never late.
Spaghetti Lee
I’ll also say, at the risk of being flamed, that while I lay the vast majority of the blame and Nixon and the Southern Strategy lie-mongers, I don’t think the way some liberals snicker at working-class white culture helps matters. I think the root problem, and what fueled the Southern Strategy, is that people started thinking of voting a certain way as a cultural marker, a question of personal identity, like what restaurants you eat at or how you dress, rather than as a rational decision based on the issues at hand. I think that’s a major factor in why at least 45% of people vote Republican in almost every Presidential election: Sure, you’ve got the crazy 27%, but among the rest, I think there’s a fair amount who vote Republican because that’s just what people do in their neighborhood. Getting caught voting Democrat would just be unfashionable. I think if we got people to think of voting more as an intellectual exercise instead of a cultural signifier, we’d find a lot more people willing to vote Democrat. How to do that, I’m not sure.
Jeffro
Also, Michael Gerson over at WaPo is just a festival of babbling idiocy in defense of Bachman and Perry today. His argument is that they’re not all THAT Dominionist, with a healthy slice of false equivalence on top.
Calouste
@Makewi:
It is pretty awesome how you’ve managed to mention immigration law when the post doesn’t mention immigration at all, just race.
Hint: quite a few Hispanics are natural born US citizens.
yeahyeahwhatevs (Studly Pantload, once upon a time)
But – but – the Hispanic/Latino community is livid at Obama over his deportation policies! And besides, he’s going to deport too many for there to be any of that population left to vote for him by Nov ‘012! I read it on Kos!
All seriousness aside, the only reason any of these clowns are polling w/in 10 pts of Obama is because a) they’re restless about the economy, and b) they don’t really know any of said clowns that well at this point.
Except for Palin, whom they do now know about, and look how she’s doing. Q-E-fuckin’-D.
RossInDetroit
It’s ironic that while immigrant groups, Hispanics, African Americans and Muslims all far exceed white Republicans in actual religious service attendance, the GOP is the one that’s trying to impose religion into government. If only they practiced what they preached.
Davis X. Machina
@Spaghetti Lee:
I don’t think that’s ever not been the case, going back to Whigs (middle-class, do-gooding, religious) and Democrats (tops and bottoms, irreligious or Catholic…)
Lolis
Amen, us whities should be forced to take an intelligence test to see if we are worthy of our voting rights.
Judas Escargot
Not every issue: There’s also classism, corporatism, nepotism, nativism, cronyism, dominionism and fascism to consider. We’re busy people here.
Racism is but one of the nasty, nasty little pieces of the GOP puzzle.
Dollared
Ruh-roh.
That hispanic vote is scary, but give the Catholic Bishops and Karl Rove 16 more months, and we can turn it around.
And of course, Marco Rubio.
If we’re counting on latinos to save us, we are not in a good position.
NonyNony
@Calouste:
And the Hispanics who are voting in a Presidential election? They’re citizens.
Funny ain’t it, how he tries to turn something that is about demographics of American citizens into an issue of immigration.
Why, it’s almost as if the word “immigration” is some kind of dog whistle that means something different to right-wing trolls than it does to normal people. Hmmmmm…..
Omnes Omnibus
@Spaghetti Lee: There are some serious cultural divides in this country. Even among the comparatively well-off and well educated, there are those who aspire to a faux-redneck sensibility*. Those are the cultural pool from which the GOP gets a lot of its middle management.
Marginalized for stating documented facts
We’re already well on our way to a Franco/Mussolini style dictatorship as it is. And no, by that I don’t mean “because Obama is a Kenyan-mooooslim-soshulist-Maoist-dictator.” Obama is doing what he can to slow the deterioration of the rule of law, but the collapse of democracy has become systemic.
America has become so radically militarized that teachers now call SWAT teams in when children misbehave in the classroom. That’s insane. America has become so contemptuous of the rule of law that we don’t even think about impeaching the president of the United States when he orders people tortured (and I’m talking about the drunk-driving C student and his torturer sidekick Cheney).
America has become so corrupt that the solicitor general of the United States is now a former RIAA lawyer and Wall Street thieves hand themselves gigantic bonuses for wrecking the world economy, and no one in the White House or on capitol hill proposes sending ’em to assrape prison.
America has simply stopped believing in democracy and the rule of law. That’s mostly what I despise about obots — they yearn for a magical leader, a majestic man on a white horse to save us…the Germans had a word to describe that attitude of being tired of the hard work of self-governance and being impatient with the incessant annoyances of partisanship and rancor that go with democracy.
The Germans called it Fuhrerprinzip. The leader-principle.
Americans have gotten weary of the hard work of governing themselves and now pine for superhuman leaders to save them. Dubya became an action figure, Obama gets touted as a superman who plays “11 dimensional chess.” In the end, the way things are going, we’ll wind up begging for a coup. And the colonels in mirror sunglasses in JSOC in the Pentagon E-ring will eventually oblige us.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Makewi:
When your side calls for a wall across the Canadian boarder then you claim the immigration issue isn’t about race. Funny how it’s the little brown people who are always the illegal ones, isn’t Makewi? Because we all know how those Mexican peasants are always the first pick by employers for the collage education required jobs you Tea Tards work at.
General Stuck
There is no more important voting bloc currently in our politics than the Hispanic vote. The only other rival to that, would be the evangelical vote, that will not bother to vote unless the GOP candidate is baby jeevus certified.
The republicans can almost not be able to win, without at least 40 percent of the Hispanic vote, and the fact that this early on they are breaking to Obama with a bad economy, denotes some anger that will both motivate Hispanics to get out and vote in higher numbers, and vote for Obama and democrats.
All the other results of polls right now is way to early, other than to denote Obama is holding his own, despite raging anxiety and anger about the economy, where in about every category the public just say no to every question asked in polls to register that anger and anxiety. And most importantly, the bulk of the base is still firmly in his corner.
The wingers have been in campaign mode nonstop since 2009, and since capturing the House, in negative campaign mode. Which usually forces down your opponents overall approval, but also forces down the negative campaigners approval also.
The worst thing Obama could do right now, is enter into a angry grudge match with the GOP, which is what they are trying to draw him into. They are better at that than dems, because they are for nothing coming from the government, so they can lie and scaremonger at will. Dems and Obama have to remain about that fray at all costs. But do it in a way that engages the nutters, but gives them little of what they seek
We will see more right wing extreme posturing that should reach a crescendo when dems and Obama re introduce immigration reform late this year, or early next year. Which I hope is what happens. This could anger some white voters, but my feeling is, the anglos that are going to vote for the wingers, are going to no matter what Obama does.
We are the alliance of a multicultural society, and that should be our values, and I think Obama and dems will latch onto that, which is not only the best politics, but the right thing to do. And let the chips fall where they may.
I know it disappoints the left activists, all that fight stuff, whatever it means, but that also is a good thing, AT LEAST FOR ELECTORAL POLITICS, and the fact it puts a smile on my face.
jron
@Omnes Omnibus:
As a white southerner myself I’ve said many times that I’m thankful we’ve still got a high percentage of black voters down here or we’d never elect anyone decent.
Dollared
@BudP: I hope that is Spanish pun intended.**
** “embarazado” would be a pregnant guy.
Dollared
@Omnes Omnibus: This. Republican means you drink Budweiser, love your wife, know your way around a tool box and a a tackle box, could change your own oil if you have to, and generally aren’t a sissy.
It’s a lifestyle brand.
yeahyeahwhatevs (Studly Pantload, once upon a time)
@NonyNony:
I submit that there are no right-wing trolls, here. Nor left-wing trolls. There are only people who get their kicks trying to piss off others. Some present as right leaning, some as deranged Naderites, but in all instances, their desire to be the loud, smelly farts on the elevator of life trumps any alleged ideologies.
And then there’s derF, whom I’m still supposing is nursing the psychological brusing of having been shaken down by Cole (not Juan) for his lunch money when they were kids.
LanceThruster
It was largely due to minority vote suppression that allowed for Bush to steal the presidency.
Tom Q
@yeahyeahwhatevs (Studly Pantload, once upon a time): Agreed. On the economy: if things come around just a bit by this time next year — I’m not talking boom time; just moderate job growth through Sping and summer — Barack will out-lap this pack like you’ve rarely seen. A deeply sour economy is literally the only GOP hope in 2012.
Dennis SGMM
@Spaghetti Lee:
Good observations. Seems to be that a goodly portion of the electorate has devoted itself to one team (Or tribe). For them, and the like-minded pols whom they elect, it’s no longer a matter of what might be good for the nation, it’s a matter of beating the other side. Thus the Republicans’ pivots from issues that they favored when the Dems take up those issues.
licensed to kill time
@BudP:
May I just point out that phonetically, in Spanish, you just said you are pregnant for all of us.
/have made the same mistake o.O
eta: didn’t see dollared’s comment
Omnes Omnibus
@Dollared:
The Czech stuff?
There’s that pesky divorce, yeah, still.
Pretty much., but I don’t really like to fish.
Don’t want to, but I could.
IMHO, yes.
Of course, that’s the part they don’t really get.
Chyron HR
Michele Bachmann, 50% to 42%
Sarah Palin, 53% to 40
Herman Cain, 49% to 39%.
Republicans aren’t racist, they just think there’s something about Cain that makes him inferior to Palin and Bachmann.
(They’re pizzaphobes, obviously.)
RandyH
If not for the Latino vote in Nevada, Sharron Angle would have beat Harry Reid.
Derf
Not sure what the point is for this post. Other than to stop fapping over Huntsman for awhile.
Or maybe to concern troll about the meaningless number that puts Romney in a dead heat. Anytime Obama’s numbers slide a bit the firebaggers all seem to slither out of the cracks in the floor.
ant
Texas has a majority of Latinos. White people are the minority there.
But yet, Republicans whoop our fucking ass there. Every time.
Also, too, I wonder how much gas prices are driving Obama’s numbers down, relative to unemployment.
clayton
White male Texan here — and life long liberal — I take the talk radio types seriously — they hate on people of color day in and day out — I also know that there are a few Republican types who are trying to recruit darker people based upon their suppose “conservative” values.
I really wish that liberals would quit conceding that. Sure there are very conservative blacks. That doesn’t mean they see the Republican view in a good light. Sure there are conservative Hispanics, but minus the Cubans and you get people who are more likely to unionize and want social justice.
Ruckus
@The Populist:
I grew up in the 50s and 60s, I also have skin about the color of a pale refrigerator and have never understood what is supposed to be wrong with people who don’t look or sound like me. I have since I was a little kid enjoyed talking/visiting/living with people who don’t have the same skin color, culture, language, whatever than me. It makes the world so much more interesting and fun. The thing that I liked the most was to find out as a kid that no matter what the superficial characteristics are, we really are the same. So many try to make themselves different and therefore better but they always fail at that.
jefft452
“…some liberals snicker at working-class white culture helps matters. I think the root problem, and what fueled the Southern Strategy”
Working-Class white does not equal Southern white
lamh34
@Dollared: I have a friend who is Mexican American, and another friend who is Puerto Rican, and I asked them both would it matter to them if having an “Hispanic nominee say a Cuban on a ticket” would it make them more likely to vote for that ticket. They both said no.
It think that so many people like to group “Hispanics” together as one “nationality” like what is done with African Americans, but what doesn’t seem to be taken into account, is that a large number of African Americans, such as myself, can trace their family history in America back to slavery. For many AA, beyond genealogy studies (which can be damn expensive), the vast majority of us ONLY know of America as our “nationality” (this of course excludes people born of African immigrants, who by nature of being born to an immigrants can trace their history beyond America’s shores). IMHO, this is why AA voters while not a monolith, tend to voter in similar patterns to one another because we have “shared experiences” with other AA. Hispanics are not as easy to group together as some might think.
The Hispanic population in America is comprised of many different countries/nationalities. Do not make the mistake of calling someone who is Dominican a Mexican, or calling someone from Puerto Rico a Cuban, for every South American country there is, there is just as likely an Hispanic demographic that is represented, so Hispanic to me is just a catch all used by people who either don’t care or wants to ignore the real nuances that are within the Hispanic community.
All that is to say, that just because there is a “Cuban” on the GOP ticket, doesn’t mean that a Dominican or a Puerto Rican or Costa Rican voter will vote for them.
NonyNony
@yeahyeahwhatevs (Studly Pantload, once upon a time):
This is probably true. I think most trolls on the internet are like that. Actual wingers of either type wouldn’t waste so much time pointlessly trading insults in a backwater internet forum.
I think Fred has some kind of crush/stalkerish devotion to Cole more than a psychological bruising. But I suppose either explanation is good.
Or possibly Fred is just DougJ trying out some new material. It’s also possible that 100% of long-term trolls here are just DougJ providing us with some entertainment.
Dennis SGMM
@Dollared:
Have rebuilt engines and entire cars. When I have access to an engine lathe and a vertical mill I even machine the parts for them out of bar stock. I’ve been married to the same woman for 33 years and we still delight in each other’s company. I enjoy catch-and-release fly fishing and metallic silhouette target shooting.
The double-chinned Republicans who trumpet these accomplishments are bereft of them.
ant
@Derf:
Elie
@Omnes Omnibus:
Totally agree.
White folks are the guardians of the fascist corporatists — POOR white folks. (and so many thought that black folks were stupid)
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@Dennis SGMM: You close enough to machine a pinon gear for my 66 fleetside? :)
Omnes Omnibus
@Dennis SGMM: I bet you read books, listen to a variety of music, and enjoy “odd” foods, and maybe even have traveled and speak a foreign language too.
Elizabelle
@Spaghetti Lee:
Your comment 23 is very thoughtful.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@Omnes Omnibus: Brown Water Navy guys were all very suave and sophisticated. . . and had really nice cameras!
Omnes Omnibus
@Raven (formerly stuckinred): Moocher. When the Galtian Revolution comes, you will be one of the first ones up against the wall.*
*The weapon will jam and they won’t have anyone to clear it for them, so you should still be pretty safe.
ruemara
@BudP:
You’re pregnant? Congratulations!
otherwise, you’re vergüenza or avergonzado
RossInDetroit
@Dennis SGMM:
Makes my heart swell to read that. Used to be a fairly common skill but today when you have to whittle out some component on a Bridgeport there’s nobody left to appreciate what that means in terms of skill.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@lamh34: When I was in the Army in the 60’s the Ricans and Chicano’s hated each other. The Cubano’s were so happy to be getting a chance to kill commies they left their focus there.
Mnemosyne
@lamh34:
Anthony Bourdain has a great essay in Kitchen Confidential where he talks about all of the arcane knowledge you need to have in order to run a kitchen, and one of the things is that you need to Know Your Latinos, because putting a Nicaraguan who fled from right-wing death squads to work next to an anti-communist Cuban is asking for bloodshed.
Josie
@ruemara: Actually, you have verguenza or are avergonzado.
/nitpicker
Maura Cavaleri
I am a moderate, southern, white woman living in North Carolina. But I am a practicing Christian. I chose the democrats because they attempt laws and changes that benefit those who are most in need. They are the champions of the underdog or the forgotten. So while my fiscal views may lie more towards the center than the average liberal, my conscience as a believer says that at the end of the day, i must go with those who are trying to lift people up.
The Republicans down here have attempted to move Hispanics and AA’s thru the churches and I believe the going forward this will be where they put their focus.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@Omnes Omnibus: One must know one’s limitations. Old Hugh Manateee (sp) helped me tear into the differential when I thought I had bad wheel bearings. When it turned out it was a broken pinion gear tooth I buttoned it back up and decided to run it till it goes.
RossInDetroit
@Derf:
Of course you don’t. This is varsity level reading. Practice here for a while and when you’re sure you understand that, then come back and give BJ another try.
Dennis SGMM
@Raven (formerly stuckinred):
That requires a specialized piece of equipment known as a gear hobber and a heavy duty one, capable of hobbing a hypoid gear (Which is, I believe the type used in your Chevy) at that. The steps involved in hobbing the gear, stress relief, finish machining and hard facing a hypoid gear is a very specialized part of the machining trade. I could probably pull it off with a heavy 3-axis CNC mill equipped with a slaved rotary head on the table but the calculations it would require for me to program the thing would be a bear.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@Dennis SGMM: There’s a big pick and pull not to far away. I’ll drive it till it goes. thanks!
Evolved Deep Southerner
@Makewi: Look. It’s a post on demographic effects on the election. How in the FUCK do you imagine that won’t involve race in some way?
Keith G
Like President Hugo Chavez?
WTF?
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@Evolved Deep Southerner: What’s up Dawg?
Dennis SGMM
@Omnes Omnibus:
Yeah, I lived in Japan and in Vietnam. Also just about anywhere that had a far from everything Navy base. I prefer books to television and the only other languages I speak are German and Spanglish.
Elie
@Maura Cavaleri:
You make a very excellent and important comment. I hope that your point is taken seriously. I take it seriously though I think that overall, urban hispanics are probably still not going to see republicans as their friends — no matter what.
Elie
@Maura Cavaleri:
I would add that the President’s immigration reform will put the spotlight on the Republicans, making it pretty hard to on one hand say that they support hispanics while wanting to deport or prevent them from becoming citizens. There’s praying and then there is reality. Hard to pray with a boot on your neck.
September 19th
Kill Whitey!!!
Dennis SGMM
@RossInDetroit:
Thank you. We loves us a good Bridgeport. It’s my hands-down choice for a make-anything machine. I very much miss the focus, problem solving, and the meditative aspects of model maker-level machining.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@Dennis SGMM: So, were you a machinist in the Navy. The more I read about WWII destroyers the more I am amazed at the skills they had on ships.
Lockewasright
I am a white guy and I agree completely with your assessment.
As for there not being a word for wolverine in spanish, you could just say: Football team that ALWAYS loses to the Buckeyes.
Caz
And how do you explain the 90%+ approval rating among blacks? Is that not racially motivated? It’s always the white people who are racist in their voting, right? When is the last time a white candidate got 90%+ of the white vote? Never.
RossInDetroit
@Dennis SGMM:
My wife is a Toolie, a CAD designer. I was ‘her machinist’ for 7 months. I have machines I built parts for in a half dozen auto parts plants. Immortality, until the next model change-over.
Yeah, for a certain type of person it’s tremendously satisfying to make a complex, precise part appear out of bulk stock .005″ at a time.
When I was bored I used to make billet ashtrays for the workbenches out of scrap for the hell of it.
Dollared
@Raven (formerly stuckinred): @lamh34: You’re making a perfectly valid point, and a Cuban would probably be the worst choice among latinos (well, perhaps an Argentine, but there aren’t many of those around). But Rubio probably flips Florida for any Republican, and Rubio would be better than any anglo VP candidate in any number of swing states with large Latino populations – New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada. Remember, all the Republicans have to do is get 40% of latinos – not all of them. So get the Bishops to work the churches, and get Rubio on the ticket, and that 40% target is do-able.
Keith G
@Caz:
A. They understand the importance of maintaining our social infrastructure.
B. They just want to piss people like you off.
Dollared
@Dennis SGMM: And I thought a Bridgeport was a pretty good IPA. But then, I’m a Democrat…
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@Dollared: Sounds like you know more about it than I do.
Dollared
@Dennis SGMM: Agreed, but it’s not about being able to do any of those things, it’s about wanting to.
It’s a lifestyle clothing brand. Sort of like wearing a $300 Orvis fishing jacket to go to your kid’s soccer game.
Ruckus
@Dennis SGMM:
You could do that on a mill but using a hob and finishing on a grinder if the finish needs to be better than production level, would be much, much more efficient as well as faster. EDM could also work but the speed would be even slower.
Mnemosyne
@Dollared:
Uh, Mexicans aren’t any too fond of Cubans, and that’s mostly the ethnicity of the Latinos you get in those states. In fact, most other Latinos aren’t too fond of Cubans because Cubans get special immigration privileges that people who fled the wrong kind of death squads in Central America didn’t get.
So, no, you’re not going to get floods of Mexican-Americans or Guatemalan-Americans voting for Rubio because he has a Latino last name, and there aren’t anything near enough Cuban-Americans in those states to swing things.
Dennis SGMM
@Ruckus:
That’s why I mentioned a hob first. EDM is great except that, depending on the alloy you’re using, it will surface harden the material – sometimes far more than you’d want it to. These are hypoid (curved tooth) gears so there’s the additional problem of obtaining the proper latitudinal profile of the teeth. If it was a straight cut gear then you could do it on a Bridgeport with a rotary table (Assuming that you had a really good heat treater).
And Another Thing...
@yeahyeahwhatevs (Studly Pantload, once upon a time): Well done.
fuckwit
as for self-hating white men, nothing beats this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stupid_White_Men
It was a great book, very entertaning, and prescient too.
We white men should own up to what we’ve done, apologize for it, do our reparations (ahem, pay taxes), and cut all this fearmongering and move on. Seriously.
South Africa had a ‘truth and reconciliation’ commission. When has the USA done that? When have white people actually apologized for slavery? The Mexican-American war? The genocide of Native Americans? Instead white teabaggers hide in their white suburbs and cower before the threat of black people coming to take their Subarus or Mexicans taking their jobs or their tax money being used to feed poor people.
I’ve had it. We should own this, apologize, and then let’s all put this shit past us. We’re one country and if we can’t survive with a minority with all the power and money living in terror of their coming demographic irrelevance.
lamh34
@Dollared: Rubio refuses to even discuss immigration. As VP, he will be almost assured to receive a question about immigration in any debate. The Dem of cours will be on the “right” side of the debate in the eyes of many Hispanics.
Rubio is not gonna be able to divert from the GOP line on immigration. And if GOP voters who are still majority white think the Rubio already being non-white himself is also “soft” on immigration, I don’t see them being enthusiastic voting for Rubio, so all the GOP will have to rely on in FLA are those Hispanics who may vote for Rubio, but wouldn’t that also take for granted that non-Cuban born Hispanics in FLA would vote for Rubio regardless of his immigration paralleling the GOP talking points?
If immigration is their “issue”, then why would they vote for someone for some type of ethnic solidarity, particularly since they may not even be Cuban-born and probably don’t even consider themselves ethnically similar.
honus
@Dollared: I’m a Democrat and I do all those things, except drink Bud. Real redneck republicans drink Natural Light, anyway.
Jaywillie
Sinclair Lewis wrote in one of his books that when fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross. If I had to describe the modern conservative political philosophy, I would call it a marriage between Randian objectivism (ie selfish, nihilist bullshit) and Dominionism (ie biblical bullshit rooted in fantasy), or, more succinctly, the American brand of fascism (that might not be entirely fair to fascists).
Elie
@fuckwit:
No matter how “right” or correct something is, if your frame of existence is different, the reconciliation is painful.
Many whites — even those without overt racism, I think kind of accepted the reality of white superiority. Though most relinquished that idea and examined it, many did not – could not due to their educational/informational levels or for other reasons. It is very hard to give up the notion of your superiority — esp if that was critical to your accepting a whole bunch of other stuff you did not like. Blue collar whites always had the notion that no matter how screwed they were, they were still “better” than blacks or browns. To shake that notion makes them have to face the other reality that the leg attached to that foot on their neck is WHITE. Once they accept that, then a whole lot of stuff changes in this country. I don’t expect that they will give it up easily though…. the Confederacy was white boys fighting for having the boot on their neck and they have been loyal to it to a man and woman for a long long time. Only another one of these folks can maybe get behind how to flip that.
GeneJockey
Well, yeah. Obviously.
Thank you, nonwhite folks!!
RossInDetroit
FYWP. Where do my comments keep going??!!11elebentyone
Dennis SGMM
@lamh34:
Just a side note. “Cubano” is a pejorative among LA Latinos.
electricgrendel
Those people who are offended by that pretty obvious statement obviously haven’t been paying attention. I am white and vote party line Democratic, and have since my first vote in 2000. But seriously- white people as a voting demographic fucking scare me. We’d be up shit creek if only they voted.
So- in closing let me say: thank you, nonwhite people. You’re basically the only thing standing between America and full on batshit crazy.
Lockewasright
@caz – The point is, even when there are only whites from which to choose, whites tend to vote for the civil rights hating, war monger, corporatist right.
Mnemosyne
@Keith G:
The US and Venezuela are not the same country. The two countries have very different histories and cultures. Deciding that a native Venezuelan and a Venezuelan-American must think and believe exactly the same thing because of their shared DNA is, well … you know.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@Mnemosyne: pendejo?
Elie
@Elie:
..and let me add that sadly, a few black people — like black republicans, have completely had their brains rearranged in ways that cannot be explained by anything except the worst self denial and hatred any person could have for themselves. I cannot explain it as a black person, so how could I expect whites to explain white folks who cannot grasp what the “Man” is doing to them?
I tell you what though, its pretty creepy to see.
cynickal
@Spaghetti Lee:
I think you’re off. Look at how the general population of Democrats supports Unions.
You’d have to ignore the largest supporters of the Democratic Party to claim Democrats look down on the working class.
Elie
@cynickal:
I think that you are misunderstanding what Spaghetti meant.
There is a class of “liberals” who are concescending and critical of poor and working class whites. It is not universal, but you see it sometimes in critiques of white working class as being “stupid”.
C’mon now, you have seen it, right?
Anyway, I think spaghetti was trying to say that when you want to bring along folks, its hard to do that if they sense your contempt. Its not what folks SAY, per se, but how they make you FEEL. So if you have a political strategy that would want to attract working class people, it is a challenge if you communicate contempt of who they are in your attitudes.
Anyway, Spaghetti can prob speak for himself but its less about who says they are this or that, than what people sense about what people REALLY think/feel.
El Cid
Actual fascism requires too much discipline and coordination, among an authoritarian movement aiming for national greatness.
These people aim more for a 1970s style South American sub-fascist junta, where the repression is strong, but everything else can fall to shit outside the gleaming city centers for the super-rich and the raw materials and primary product exploitation.
Ruckus
@Dennis SGMM:
You’d be amazed what can be done with an EDM. With the proper parameters the surface doesn’t change nearly as much as used to be thought.
Dr. Psycho
@Jeffro: I’m sure the @Jeffro: I’m sure the Repub party will be eeking lots if Obama can beat their crashing of the economy.
El Cid
@Elie:
Besides having seen it myself plenty of times, there has been a great deal of academic research on class bias within liberal, aid, and non-profit organizations. There also has been a lot of work to address and fight this in liberal and worker activism, yes, always, but now as well.
gex
@Spaghetti Lee: I always thought that it was the right that sets up these culture wars to their advantage. It started with educated elites. You add lattes and arugula and so forth. Kerry wind surfs? Pansy. You need snowmobiles like Palin. So on and so forth.
I really think that these things are a product of right wing campaigning as they always seem to benefit from any kind of culture war.
Elie
@El Cid:
yes, thanks El Cid
I can remember how liberal young folks and hippies spoke about union and working class folks back in the 60’s (back when I was a young liberal). Damage done with that split the union from the Democrats during the Reagan years and beyond… not saying that it was all one way and that there wasn’t some validity to the feelings — just that it destroyed a very powerful political coalition responsible for legislation and governance that forwarded all working class and progressive interests so a profound tragedy. Dunno how to fix that except with time and amplifying situations like Wisconsin and Ohio.
Amanda in the South Bay
@Dollared:
It also means (if you’re a baby boomer Republican) that you most likely spent the 60s getting deferments or joining the Guard/Reserves.
It also means that if you’re an under 40 Republican and you weren’t already in the military, and you were all “lets kick some Muslim ass!” back in 2001-2003, more than likely you didn’t join the military after 9/11.
Just sayin.
pluege
Thank Bieber that in addition to being destructive sociopaths, Republicans are also politically suicidal xenophobes. We’d be in a world of hurt if they weren’t.
this is one of the stupidest statements I’ve ever read.
If republicans weren’t insane, politics might be able to work,
the government might be able to work,
we might have had a huge jobs program implemented in 2008,
we’d be building super trains, repairing bridges and sewers,
we’d being doing something about green energy,
unemployment would be down to 7% and falling,
we might have a public option in healthcare (although we could have had that despite republicans – thanks obama you prick),
bush tax cuts on the wealthy would have been repealed and many corporate welfare subsidies would have ended,
there would not have been the insane debt ceiling hostage taking,
Guantanimo would be closed and we wouldn’t be having Military Commission monkey trials,
Elizabeth Warren would be heading the CPB, obama would have had many more judge-ships and his Fed Board Member approved,
social security, medicare, and medicaid might not be threatened (although could still be from obama),
and on and on, not the least of which we could have real debate about the huge amount of problems needing fixing instead of endless insane interludes into republican/conservative/plutocrat psychopath distopia.
I’ll trade getting rid of the almost useless obama for all of that any day.
pluege
@pluege:
…of course we could have had much of that if obama wasn’t such an incompetent stooge hell bent on making republicans relevant and destroying the democratic party.
Elie
@pluege:
It is a terrible thing when your anal glands are swollen and need to be emptied. Can you do that in the privacy of your own home?
Thanks for playing.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@Elie: Since the fucking unions supported the goddamn war they deserved to be “spoke about”. Fuckin pigs.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
.
.
@Elie:
Why are you opening your mouth when his “anal glands” need to be emptied? This can’t be a coincidence.
.
.
Heliopause
No, not offended, just wondering what your fucking point is. What do you suppose the white to non-white voting ratio was from Roosevelt to LBJ?
Elie
@Raven (formerly stuckinred):
That may have been, but your comment illustrates my point exactly. As I said, there was some justification on both sides. That said, the long game was that that attitude hurt us profoundly — all of us interested in the long game for the working class and liberal causes. The Republicans strategically exploited the rift. We never healed that breech and it cost us big time, electorally and policy wise.
Doncha think its time to let that shit go? Those folks – union folks were conservative for sure even as we were very radical — we both had points…
But what we need now is to put that stuff to the side. The folks from the 60’s on both sides are retiring or dead. Life must go on with the interests of the living here and now — not yesterdays’ shit.
sb
@Elie: Well played.
OzoneR
Serious question, who was the last Democrat to win the white vote? LBJ?
And Another Thing...
@pluege: Looks like you’ve spent a lot of time studying “stupid.”
DKF
If you didn’t mean this ironically, you’re a complete numbskull, Dollared. The most morally upright and incredibly able people I know are liberal Democrats. If I were stranded in deep wilderness in the dead of winter the people I’d trust the most to get me the hell out of there alive just happen to be liberals. Most conservatives I know are helpless without guns, power tools and internal combustion engines. Not that I and my liberal friends can’t handle manly Republican technology as easily as we can build rainproof shelters with our bare hands out of pine boughs.
Ruckus
Is pluege the plural of spluge?
magurakurin
@BudP:
you’re pregnant?
Elie
@Uncle Clarence Thomas:
Your old man told me he enjoyed it and learned how to swallow it from you… is he a liar?
Svensker
@gocart mozart:
Why yes, I am, aren’t I.
Hal
So is this because voters don’t know enough about Romney yet, or because they’re learning more about him?
khead
130+ posts and no one has mentioned that Francisco Franco is, in fact, still dead?
What the hell is wrong with you folks?
fasteddie9318
@Dollared:
There are a lot of typos here, like “Budweiser” where you meant “thousand-dollar champagne at lunch with CEOs,” “wife” where you meant “the woman who beards for you when you’re not trolling Craigslist for pre-op transsexuals with auto-erotic asphyxiation in a latex Batman suit fetishes,” and “could change your own oil if you have to, and generally aren’t a sissy” where you meant “bitch and moan when anybody else receives any federal government assistance but shriek like a banshee for your handout if you so much as pull a hangnail.”
Comrade Mary
You know what’s depressing on a personal basis? Finding out that an American relative, always conservative and Christian, is way more conservative than ever and is either convinced of the usual right-wing stories about Obama or thinks the topic makes for great deadpan joking.
dollared
@fasteddie9318: Sadly, only about 50,000 people nationwide have those experiences.
It’s the 30 million other people, who should vote Democrat but they like the macho Republican image, that are destroying this country.
Mnemosyne
@Heliopause:
Since Roosevelt’s progressivism benefited white people almost exclusively and the fleeing of white voters to the Republican Party was the result of LBJ’s attempts to treat minorities as equal citizens, I don’t think your point is quite as clear as you think.
When voting for Democrats benefited white voters, the majority of them voted for Democrats. When it started to look like non-white voters would benefit from Democratic policies, whites started voting for Republicans instead. The numbers are pretty indisputable.
OzoneR
@Caz:
Is there a Democrat who doesn’t have a 90% approval rating among blacks?
Marc McKenzie
@The Populist:
Well….it’s the same argument I tried using on friends who were insistent on voting for Nader in 2000. They told me flat out that they felt that the Supreme Court didn’t matter and it wasn’t a big deal.
Fast-forward a few years, and we have Roberts and Alito, and surprise! We get Citizens United! Wheee! See, the SC really doesn’t matter anymore!
You don’t think Obama is good enough, fine. But put him next to the GOP toxic stew and he’s head and shoulders above ’em.
There’s a lot more at stake next election than some PL’s wounded pride about not getting their ponies. Just saying…
Marc McKenzie
@Marginalized for stating documented facts:
“In the end, the way things are going, we’ll wind up begging for a coup. And the colonels in mirror sunglasses in JSOC in the Pentagon E-ring will eventually oblige us.”
Hmmm…and lemme guess, we end up in a Starship Troopers-esque world?
Look, I understand that things are troubling (or look troubling), but throwing up your hands and screaming “WE’RE F***ED!!! LET IT ALL FALL!!” ain’t gonna help. Perhaps if we, I dunno, actually got organized and go into the trenches we might turn things around. But walking off waiting for the big collapse is the worst thing to do.
But that’s just my 2-cents.
Big Baby DougJ
@OzoneR:
Harold Ford?
dollared
@Elie: Well put. The good news is tht today, we could have a complete merger between social and economic liberals. We all should get on that train.
Chris
@Comrade Mary:
I know what you mean re that last part. Have an uncle who recently thinks it’s hilarious to snark on facebook that “you’re obviously a racist” whenever someone says something critical of Obama. Like, twelve times a week.
Chris
@Spaghetti Lee:
Considering the timing of when those Southern and union voters switched party affiliations, I’d say the snickering of a few college students isn’t the main problem.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@Elie: hell no,
Heliopause
@Mnemosyne:
Northeastern whites have voted for the Dem Presidential candidate the last five times.
Midwestern whites went for the Dem in ’92 and ’96.
Western whites went for the Dem in ’92 and ’08.
One more time, what’s your fucking point about whites?
jefft452
DKF
“Most conservatives I know are helpless without guns, power tools and internal combustion engines”
Yep, they are helpless with those things too
When they wanted to create the “Joe the Plumber” character, they couldn’t find a licensed plumber (and a plumber’s license doesn’t make you the Einstein of plumbers, it tests for bare minimum competency)
It didn’t even have to be a plumber, any job they might be portrayed in a beer or truck commercial would do. “Joe the Welder” would have fit the RNCs purpose just as well
But the best they could come up with was a 40 yr old welfare bum who finally got a job as apprentice go-fer at a plumbing company