Nonwhites liking white racist politicians

[Emily Lake]

Nonwhite Voters Are Not Immune to Right-Wing Populism - "From Toronto’s Rob Ford to Donald Trump, racist candidates attract nonwhite support. What gives?"

It doesn't seem like that difficult of a question. Maybe race isn't the single most important topic to everyone.

Emily Lake, are you saying that you would eagerly vote for a politician who thinks that you and your group are getting much more than you deserve, that you only got to where you are by affirmative action, that people of your group are lazy and criminal, etc.?

Speaking hypothetically... let's assume a situation where one politician believes what you've outlined above, and the other politician believes that free speech is a danger to the US, and that the first amendment needs to be re-written, and that the internet, especially social media, needs to have regulations governing what viewpoints can and cannot be posted.

Then I might vote for the first politician, simply because I view that person's views as representing less overall danger to the country and to our liberty. I might believe that the first politician has lower likelihood of implementing racist regulations, whereas the second politician has a higher likelihood of implementing censorious legislation.

Sure, I'm sidestepping your phrasing, but that's mostly because I can't imagine *eagerly* voting for any politician.

 

[TomC]

Emily Lake, are you saying that you would eagerly vote for a politician who thinks that you and your group are getting much more than you deserve, that you only got to where you are by affirmative action, that people of your group are lazy and criminal, etc.?

Speaking hypothetically... let's assume a situation where one politician believes what you've outlined above, and the other politician believes that free speech is a danger to the US, and that the first amendment needs to be re-written, and that the internet, especially social media, needs to have regulations governing what viewpoints can and cannot be posted.

Then I might vote for the first politician, simply because I view that person's views as representing less overall danger to the country and to our liberty. I might believe that the first politician has lower likelihood of implementing racist regulations, whereas the second politician has a higher likelihood of implementing censorious legislation.

Sure, I'm sidestepping your phrasing, but that's mostly because I can't imagine *eagerly* voting for any politician.

Pretty much this.

I'm gay. So I care very much about issues affecting the LGBT community. But it isn't all I care about. It isn't even my top priority, in the big picture. I care more about immigration and federal fiscal sanity and whether a politician can be trusted to govern for the good of the nation(rather than partisan or personal good).
Tom

 

[Emily Lake]

There's a flawed assumption in thinking that people of some abstract identity group must always have that identity as their highest priority and as their most important aspect of their personhood. People aren't one-dimensional. "Identity" is a complex, multifaceted characteristic that really shouldn't be stereotyped into a monolithic rallying cry.

 

[repoman]

While I am all for good treatment of LGBT people, they are not a standard constituency like factory workers, teachers, the elderly - who have worked hard in their lives. LGBT do all kinds of jobs are all kinds of races, income levels, ages. Who they bang or feel they are should not be so interesting or compelling to be fighting about.

We should try and get all of these LGBT issues handled as quickly as possible to be able to put the focus back on old style citizen power blocks. Even working class Republican voters should realize this. Takes up unneeded bandwidth.

 

[ronburgundy]

There's a flawed assumption in thinking that people of some abstract identity group must always have that identity as their highest priority and as their most important aspect of their personhood. People aren't one-dimensional. "Identity" is a complex, multifaceted characteristic that really shouldn't be stereotyped into a monolithic rallying cry.

I don't see anyone making that assumption or treating racial groups as monolithic. But it is an empirical fact that a majority of non-whites vote Dem white most whites vote GOP, and that the GOP has lots of white supremacists allied with it and policies that tend to harm the majority of some racial groups and impede the cause of racial justice. And for black Americans it has been close to 90% of blacks voting Dem for over 40 years now.

Thus, by definition, non-white and especially blacks who ally with the GOP are abnormal, and thus basing their political choices on the same factors as either most others in their racial group, or non-white in general, or even the same as other GOP whites who don't have to have other motives that outweigh the GOP being bigoted against them and likely most of the people they know and in their communities (given the high levels of racial segregation).

So, "there not all the same" is true but yet rather useless in understanding the psychology underlying these decisions. The empirical fact that non-whites are on average closer to conservatives on some key social issues is logically relevant as well, making identities that prioritize those issues over racial issues a likely part of the explanation, in addition to other factors that have been suggested.

 

[ronburgundy]

While I am all for good treatment of LGBT people, they are not a standard constituency like factory workers, teachers, the elderly - who have worked hard in their lives. LGBT do all kinds of jobs are all kinds of races, income levels, ages. Who they bang or feel they are should not be so interesting or compelling to be fighting about.

We should try and get all of these LGBT issues handled as quickly as possible to be able to put the focus back on old style citizen power blocks. Even working class Republican voters should realize this. Takes up unneeded bandwidth.

Well sure, but the modern GOP wouldn't be what it is if it was fully accepting of LGBT rights and equality. In an ideal world, there wouldn't be the current fights over LGBT issues, or race, b/c in an ideal world nothing like the modern GOP and the ideology of its base voters would exist. But for that matter the same applies to fights over other issues of basic human decency like healthy care and support for the poor, the value of education, etc..

 

[TomC]

Who they bang or feel they are should not be so interesting or compelling to be fighting about.

Do me the favor of including "marry" in your list of things queer people do...

But to get to my point, LGBT rights are mostly a done deal. Bigotry, such as SCOTUS judge Alito was referring to, isn't likely to be completely erased anytime in the foreseeable future. But the problem is that it's still being used as a wedge issue by Republicans.
As Alito pointed out, people who used to feel free to express homophobic bigotry now find that doing so has social costs. So they feel persecuted. And Republicans are exploiting that as best they can.
Tom