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by Kivhala » Wed Jul 19, 2017 10:00 pm
by Korhe » Wed Jul 19, 2017 10:01 pm
Nouveau Yathrib wrote:http://prospect.org/article/winning-some-middle-road-working-class-whites
American NSers (particularly those of you who are more supportive of Trump and the GOP), what do you think about this expose on WWC political opinions? Would you say this is an accurate characterization of your or your relatives' political views? And for those of you who are more left-leaning, how do you think the Democrats should better reflect the political and social interests of this voter bloc in coming election cycles?
I've seen a lot of alt-right and nativist accounts pop up in the last year or two and wonder how much of that is coming from the "white working class".The most important characteristic of these middle-of-the-road white male workers is that they approach politics using a fundamentally distinct cognitive framework from that of white workers who hold a firm conservative or progressive ideology. In Molyneux’s Prospect article, he uses the term “white working-class moderates” as a succinct way to characterize these Americans—but it is worth noting that this is not how they generally would describe themselves. They themselves tend to describe their approach to making political decisions as using “practical common sense,” or “my personal philosophy.” They see themselves as trying to “think for myself” to “make up my own mind,” “do my own thinking” or “see both sides” of an issue. When analyzing a political topic, they will often use a distinct “on the one hand, on the other hand” mode of thought.
Observing the groups there were three significant patterns that emerged:
I. These white workers were overwhelmingly cultural traditionalists—but their comments illustrated the fact that there is a fundamental difference between cultural traditionalism and conservatism.
II. “Common sense,” "middle of the road” white workers do indeed respect and endorse core traditional cultural values, but they also endorse a more unexpected social value—a deep and genuine belief in “tolerance.”
III. In an ironic twist, the admirable trait of “common sense,” “middle of the road” white working-class support for tolerance becomes also a demand that liberals should be tolerant themselves and respect white working-class values as well.
IV. “Common sense,” “middle of the road” white workers don’t see politicians as divided into left or right. They see them as all part of a single corrupt and parasitic new ruling class. Their hostility constitutes a modern form of class consciousness.
As Guy Molyneux said in his Prospect analysis of this same focus group data:
"These voters agree that the economic system is “rigged” as populists like Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders like to say, but with a crucial difference. It is rigged not only to the advantage of those at the top. The men in the focus groups complain that the rich and the poor get taken care of today, while those in the middle get left behind."
This view was perfectly summarized by one participant who said: “The left cares about the poor, the right cares about the rich. Nobody cares about us.”
Regarding the poor and minorities, there is a combination of genuine concern and willingness to help those who are genuinely in need, along with an intense fury and contempt for the lazy, the dishonest, and the criminal.
The participants expressed this dichotomy in many ways:
"If you’re in a wheelchair, yeah, we’ll help you. But if you’re able-bodied there’s no reason you’re not working.
My mom is 70 years old. She has congestive heart failure. She has all kinds of health problems. She cannot work. She has not been able to work for 15 years. … So yeah, she lives off $900 a month in assistance. She gets $16 in food stamps. But I have a friend who has never worked a day in her life but has five kids and also gets $900 a month in food stamps. That is not fair."
by Lowell Leber » Wed Jul 19, 2017 10:01 pm
Diopolis wrote:Catochristoferson wrote:
Only 40% of the voting white working class. The majority of people.in this country do not vote.
I don't know where I saw this, so take it with a grain of salt, but IIRC the average died in the wool Trump supporter was someone with a steady job with limited advancement opportunities but a liveable wage, in an economically depressed community. People like county sheriff deputies, janitors, fast food management, etc. Their gripe wasn't what they made- it was the limited opportunities for anything more than that, the lack of opportunities for their friends and family to have similar positions, and the destructive effects on their communities from it. They weren't blaming heroine use in New York, they were blaming it in their next door neighbors.
So, basically, these people were slightly luckier members of the working class in rural, disadvantaged areas. They're pissed because their kids have no choice but to go on disability to make ends meet, that drug use is running rampant- there's something to the distinction between moral conservatives and moral traditionals, after all- and that no one seems to care about problems in their communities. Transgender bathrooms don't cause them anger because they care how you pee. They cause anger because it looks to them like focusing on incredibly minor or even imaginary problems of people who seem slightly... Confused(if even your four year old granddaughter can tell the difference between man and woman, why can't some college educated city boy?)... Instead of real, actual problems that affect regular, hardworking folk.
It's these same people who vote most consistently out of the working class, and who largely inform the votes of those less well off.
by Nouveau Yathrib » Wed Jul 19, 2017 10:13 pm
Korhe wrote:Nouveau Yathrib wrote:http://prospect.org/article/winning-some-middle-road-working-class-whites
American NSers (particularly those of you who are more supportive of Trump and the GOP), what do you think about this expose on WWC political opinions? Would you say this is an accurate characterization of your or your relatives' political views? And for those of you who are more left-leaning, how do you think the Democrats should better reflect the political and social interests of this voter bloc in coming election cycles?
I've seen a lot of alt-right and nativist accounts pop up in the last year or two and wonder how much of that is coming from the "white working class".
It's not just white working class Americans. I believe that most Americans who aren't part of the radical left or radical right believe just about everything on here.
by Telconi » Wed Jul 19, 2017 10:19 pm
The Florence Union wrote:Telconi wrote:
Get to the point please.
Unions are inherently socialist as they fight to resist capitalist bourgeoisie oppression upon the working man. The working man does all of the work and produces capitol, should not the working man deserve a better wage and condition and not be worked to death. There must be equality! The working man does all of the work, therefor the working man shall own the work!
The Soviet Union was founded upon unions, both workers, soldiers, sailors and those weird Ukrainian anarchists who got turned on (bless Nestor Makhno). Of course Stalin fucked this shit up. The Spartasict uprising and those German leftists who started the German Civil War of 1918 and 1919 were all in Unions or the nucleus was a union.
Soviet is basically Russian for Council.
by Kash Island » Wed Jul 19, 2017 10:23 pm
by The Florence Union » Wed Jul 19, 2017 10:38 pm
Telconi wrote:
Well I understand that, but I highly doubt any significant membership in US labor unions is long term looking to overthrow the government and seize the means of production. It's an inherently capitalist relationship, the union is as much a firm as the company is, they simply control a needed resource (people).
FNN Headlines: Lying Deaf Polemos spreads fake news!..Chancellor Agrees to meet with Generalissimo Polemos...Hunterian Rebellion in Baden-Württemberg...Soviets take Kiev
by Telconi » Wed Jul 19, 2017 11:06 pm
The Florence Union wrote:Telconi wrote:
Well I understand that, but I highly doubt any significant membership in US labor unions is long term looking to overthrow the government and seize the means of production. It's an inherently capitalist relationship, the union is as much a firm as the company is, they simply control a needed resource (people).
Well the modern US labor Unions are a joke. They are a shadow of what they once were. The great Western Federation of Miners and the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters of the early 1900's were the pinnacle of the US labor Unions.
by Kash Island » Wed Jul 19, 2017 11:07 pm
Telconi wrote:The Florence Union wrote:
Well the modern US labor Unions are a joke. They are a shadow of what they once were. The great Western Federation of Miners and the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters of the early 1900's were the pinnacle of the US labor Unions.
They're a joke because they pretend like they're some sort of grassroots socialist revolutionary red guards. If they would just get back to doing what they do, which is leveraging collective bargaining and labor controls to get better pay and benefits for their workers, they'd be fine.
by Kvatchdom » Wed Jul 19, 2017 11:17 pm
Kash Island wrote:Telconi wrote:
They're a joke because they pretend like they're some sort of grassroots socialist revolutionary red guards. If they would just get back to doing what they do, which is leveraging collective bargaining and labor controls to get better pay and benefits for their workers, they'd be fine.
Yeah they became all communist/socialist and it's very off putting.
by Nouveau Yathrib » Thu Oct 12, 2017 12:52 am
Looking at these issues more closely, we can see that the Obama to Trump voter looks very much like Romney to Trump supporters on attitudes toward African-Americans, feelings on immigration, and attitudes toward Muslims. Interestingly, the Obama to Trump voter is not as conservative on moral issues, and looks like a Clinton voter on concerns about inequality. However, the Obama to Trump voter is in the middle (on average) on the role of government in the economy.
However, we already knew Obama to Trump voters were populists. Perhaps more interesting are the Obama voters who supported neither Clinton nor Trump. For the most part, they are more conservative than Obama to Trump voters, though slightly more disaffected about the nature of the political system. Though many on the far left argue that Clinton would have won had she been more progressive and excited more Sanders voters, the data here suggest that Clinton may have lost some Democratic voters because her campaign was too left leaning, particularly on the identity and social issues, but perhaps also some issues of government intervention as well. Again, these averages mask a certain degree of variation, so one should be cautious of overgeneralizing.
A Final Note On Immigration
Since immigration is emerging as a dominant issue, it is worth asking in a little more detail what impact it might have on the future of the party coalitions. Already, we saw that in 2016, many of the party switchers appear to have been motivated by identity issues. Obama to Trump voters were much more conservative on identity issues than Obama to Clinton voters, and Romney to Clinton voters were much more liberal on identity issues than Romney to Trump voters.
Are there still voters whose political beliefs are at odds with the candidate they supported in 2016? It turns out there are.
As we might expect, almost all the anti-immigration Clinton supporters are in the populist quadrant, torn between their economic liberalism and identity conservatism. Presumably, they will continue to be torn, and much may depend on how they break.
The misplaced Trump supporters are mostly a mix of libertarians and liberals. The libertarians make sense—like populists, they are torn between their social liberalism and economic conservatism, and like anti-immigration Clinton supporters, they voted on economic issues, not social/identity issues. More puzzling are the Trump supporters who are liberal on both identity and economic issues. Perhaps they are misinformed, or perhaps they are single-issue voters on some other set of issues.
by Aillyria » Thu Oct 12, 2017 1:02 am
Conserative Morality wrote:If RWDT were Romans, who would they be?
......
Aillyria would be Claudius. Temper + unwillingness to suffer fools + supporter of the P E O P L E + traditional legalist
West Oros wrote:GOD DAMMIT! I thought you wouldn't be here.
Well you aren't a real socialist. Just a sociopath disguised as one.
Not to mention that this thread split off from LWDT, so I assumed you would think this thread was a "revisionist hellhole".
by Diopolis » Thu Oct 12, 2017 4:40 pm
Aillyria wrote:I find that the supposed view points of the WWC is very similar to the overarching aspects of my own viewpoint on American politics and culture, and I'm not even white. Is it possible this is a trend in working class Americans in general, regardless of race?
by Farnhamia » Thu Oct 12, 2017 4:42 pm
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