it was never about taking away hunting rifles.

"they're coming for our guns" are been baseless.

If that doesn't clear up the waters, what would?

take their guns...and you'd best believe it was MUCH more important to them than the fucking bathrooms, which doesn't matter to them

don't have major issues with abortion, minorities, bathrooms, etc. but will always vote Republican because of 2nd amendment rights. And I've seen plenty of talk from Democrats over the years in all the gun control arguments who sincerely want ALL guns banned, so these conservatives do have legitimate concern on this issue. "Give 'em an inch, they'll take a mile." is a presiding thought, so no they aren't even going to support the more "rational" gun control arguments in many cases because they see it as Democrats getting a foot in the door to banning everything. And people do use some assault rifles for hunting as well.

HRC did state in a couple campaign speeches that she wasn't going to take people's guns away, but no one really believed it.

I've lived in the south all my life and I don't think a lot of people here truly understand why a lot of people don't trust Democrats (and especially some of the well known Democratic "personalities&quot even if they agree on other policies and issues.

If you want to get voters currently outside of the Democratic party (and maybe even some voters inside) in the red states and rural/semi-rural areas, really bad idea to double down on the gun control issue at the cost of other things when "they are going to take our guns away" practically defines the entire party with a lot of people.

and would start nuclear Armageddon on day 1. That's what their television told them.

Last edited Mon Mar 20, 2017, 10:21 PM - Edit history (2)

I won't make excuses for the "hillbillies," but a lot Democrats play right into the stereotypes and fear some rural gun owners have about gun control. Many do not understand even basic technical issues about firearms, and some here will get actively hostile when you point out they have no idea what they are talking about. I've actively encouraged other Democrats to go shooting with me so they can understand the technical issues involved, and engage in informed debate. Many have never held a real gun, much less fired one, and after they handle and shoot one, are much less knee-jerk about them and can actually engage in a good discussion about how to reasonably regulate them.

Maybe I'm missing something

Although even here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10028818237

Nothing makes people want something more than when the government tries to ban it.

All the talk of gun control after Sandy Hook was what actually got ME into guns. Prior to Sandy Hook I had no real interest in owning more than a .22 rifle for plinking and a shotgun or revolver for self defense. All the talk of bans got me to go out and buy a M1A and 5.56 AK variant among other things. It even got another family member who previously had no interest in assault weapons to go out and buy a AR15 from a gunshow.

Gun control is to Dems what Gays/Abortion are to Republicans. It's an overall vote losing issue and should be left alone.

I live in Rural Upstate NY & surrounded by family & neighbors who are Trumpkins. They are all dead to me. They are dumb mother fuckers. People who support or vote against their best interests are dumb mother fuckers! Case closed!

While understanding deplorable trends such as racism or republicanism in groups. I don't have to give bigotry a chance. In Washington state, outside of urban areas, we are very red--loggers, ranchers, farmers, fisherman. Not everyone who works in these areas is a RW tool, but many are. Way too many. (The military too, despite its diversity, had its RW racist idiots)

That being said, I love the good in regional cultures. My oldest SIL loves hunting and fishing, and though bow hunting is his forte, guns are a big deal to him.


I get what you're saying--I'm not trying to reach the unreachable. I was raised by racists---average, run of the mill working class white people. Fought my way as clear as I could from that shit, and I'm always on guard against it.

How do you explain that Jesse saw real suffering and real need there? Appalachia was an important part of his campaign.

But I take your point.

and the whole cottage industry of copycats followed, followed by Fox News - and the mainstreaming of broadcasting fear! fear! fear!

Just underscoring your point that 1988 is different from 2016

They are losing the two groups that voted Democratic fairly reliably in the past. The Greatest Generation has mostly died off, and millenials move away.

That message was adopted by the GOP - and they threw in a side order of White Supremacy too

without throwing good people under the bus. From what I can tell, as their populations decreased, the stronger their Republican support increased. Decent people left, leaving large percentages of rotten human beings behind. I'm 100% ok with putting some effort into campaigning there, and giving them options and the oppourtunity to do the right thing, but pandering is off the table for me. Fixing the gerrymandered districts has to be top priority for the House to better represent real populations, and fighting against voter suppresion to make sure decent people are heard.

Online, people will always make a lot of noise and call each other names. Nothing can be done aboit that, imo. It's also reactionary to the very real cruelty those red districts have shown and participated in. I don't think there's a change in approach that fixes that, so it shouldn't be a real concern. And one other thing, the people calling these rural citizens names is absolutely dwarfed by the harassment other populations have received from these people, and organized campaigns of hatred.

And I hate the NRA with every fiber of my being, the republican party as well.

I live in a red state surrounded by racist entitled white trash that think Trump is going to put his foot down on PoC, that's why the majority of them voted for him IMO. And they bought the lies of the orange con man that he will "help them", ***kin dumb asses.

IOW they have cut the throats of their own families by voting for Dolt 45.

Their is no excuse for these people, none.

Last edited Mon Mar 20, 2017, 03:38 PM - Edit history (1)

There is a tendency here and elsewhere to dismiss EVERYONE in certain areas as completely ignorant so-and-so's who don't know what's best for themselves. Maybe it's true for some, maybe a lot, but dismissing all of them is a mistake.

For the time being at least, Democrats are going to have to get votes from at least some of them in some places. It would not have taken many this last election, either.

Bernie Sanders does well at those town halls with some of these folks because he knows how to talk to them without talking DOWN to them. He's persuasive. Far too many Democrats, elected and otherwise, cannot do the same thing. That is not, of course, the only quality that matters. They also don't scapegoat any particular group of people the way Republicans do.

After all these years.

Here, this clip is meta AF. Flatt and Scruggs, who did the theme song also appeared on the show

This is the most backwards place I've ever lived politically speaking.

No offense, but I cannot wait to leave and never come back.

From another part of the country.

I was stationed in a couple of cities when I was younger but I settled back into a rural area after I got out. But to go the other direction? I can't picture what it looks like to a stranger.

The pepperoni rolls and buttered noodles are great tho

this place is incredibly insular.

I live near Huntington and like it

I'm originally from the NYC area and spend my summers in Mexico City.
This is the whitest, most boring, backwards place I ever lived...and I spent a long time in Oklahoma. So...yeah. And because my job is tied into the state, the dumb ass shit they do impacts me (like you know, the potential that guns will be allowed on campus).

See a couch on the lawn?

Walk away neighbor, walk away

This from another DUer who grew up in the same region and demographic. Only I recognize how both GOP tactics work. The NRA is nothing but a GOP marketing machine. Want proof? Gun sales are way down now that Trump is in office.

Your reasoning is absolutely solid and dead on as for why we don't need to pander to the Trumpsters. But it's the same reason we don't need to drop gun control. It will do nothing to change the GOP/NRA smear campaign. They're the cause. Not Dems.

I don't understand hunting at all.
In this day and age of super morbid obesity and my 600 pound life,
with food stores on every corner,
grocery shops even in the most rural areas?
Here in rural WA i cant throw a rock without hitting something that sells food?
Is it habit? Just want to see something bleed?
Don't get me wrong,
If someone breaks into my house I'm going to watch it bleed,
white or black, brown or green or furry.
Sorry, I just don't get the need to kill something just minding its own business.

Since just about all the predators that culled white tailed deer herds would also eat cattle and sheep, they were wiped out.

The deer population explodes without hunting and the animals become a nuisance and a safety issue until mass starvation prunes the numbers back during winter.

Also, game is part of the common wealth of the country. Not just deer, but also turkey, pheasant, rabbit, mushrooms, various berries, greens and ramps... If it didn't poison us, we ate 'em.

If you can't afford to shop there. They aren't hunting for fun, they are hunting to survive and put food on their tables.

33. I have never killed a deer but do understand why the herd has to be culled each year.

Humans have taken over much of the feeding grounds of deer. Also they get slaughtered crossing highways every day. If a certain number are not shot during a regulated hunting season, many of them would die of hunger because they would multiply passed their food sources. Deer and bears now roam on city streets through people's yards. That is not a good thing. There have been bear spotted inside department stores in malls in the Pittsburgh area and thankfully no one has been injured. The bears are captured and relocated but the deer are now being culled in a couple communities in the area. The people that kill game in the rural area where I live, eat what they kill. For many of them, it is their main source of meat. The local food banks give mostly canned vegetables, pasta, rice, flour and peanut butter. They do not give fresh meat.

I get why hunting is upsetting to people because it is killing animals, and I don't and never have hunted as it doesn't personally interest me. But hunting actually does serve a real purpose, believe it or not. It does provide food. It will serve its purpose far more often than a gun owner who owns them for self-protection. The perversion of gun ownership from hunting/sport/hobby to fear mongering GOP machine is really unfortunate.

when you can grow your own?

I have a hog named pork chop and a calf named meatloaf every year,to kill and eat.
I don't want to eat cows that are fed other/sick cows in pellet form.

I don't eat store bought eggs either,or ...

My first pet was a pig that we ate as bacon and country ham and sausage. I learned early not to mess around in granny's henhouse too! We raised damn near everything we ate at their house. (FYI in middle TN GoVols... )

fucks some people up when I say it.

In Mid Tenn too,real close to where George Dickel whisky is made.

I'm on the other side on Nashvegas, across Old Hickory Lake.

I read every day. And I don't mean comics. I raised 7 children, 6 of which are college educated. I realize
that I am a minority in my area but I object to people who claim that those of us that prefer raising much of our own food, and living in the peace and quiet on a couple acres of ground are hillbillies. It only takes me an hour to get to a dozen museums, a concert hall, 3 arenas, the Benedum Center, and 5 star restaurants in the city in which I was born. I can and do enjoy the benefits of both worlds.

Then this post is not talking about you.

Even in the heart of the reddest states in America, thousands voted for Hillary and thousands said "screw these guys".

Trump voters actively worked for racism and corruption.

If we can get the power to ban guns and take that one issue away forever they'll never have reason to vote GOP again.

Roe Vs Wade settled abortion rights in the 70s and the GOP is all over it - still.

The 2nd amendment is part of the damn Bill of Rights, and the Supreme Court has decided it is an individual - not a collective right.

But that hasn't stopped anti 2nd amendment Democrats from talking about banning them - still.

This new book that came out last year is part of many hillbilly references cropping up, as this acclaimed book has been reviewed and referenced all over prominent media and mentioned by many respected journalists

and much of his analysis in the book is right wing critique from what i have read in reviews, but I am still curious to read it.

if they could succeed in doing that, and actually produce some results, they would gain as many repug converts as they're ever going to get.

White people here are waaay more comfortable with racism even if they are not openly racist themselves. Far more likely to put up with someone saying the n word even if they don't use it themselves. Evangelical churches keep them riled up about gay people and abortion and really blissfully ignorant or hostile to any sort of cosmopolitanism.

Darkest red Indiana.

The people surrounding me are not critical thinkers or free thinkers. They're afraid of change. They are highly religious. Jesus rules and no amount of logic will change their god-fearing minds. They will LITERALLY GIVE UP THEIR LIVES for a savior they believe exists.

But their piousness is bullshit. They voted for a bully: a rude, loud, boorish, pussy grabbing mocker of the disabled. Their vote for trump was based on selfishness (what can he do for me) and, as the OP stated, a desire to stick it to you and I... the godless (or more specifically, Jesus-less) queer-lovin' libtards and all others who don't think, look and act like they do.

Racism is everywhere. If you're a brown man standing on a street corner in my small rural town, you're a Mexican. If you're Indian and run the local gas station, you're a Muslim. If you're black... people literally talk about it as if they sighted an intruder in THEIR community.

The sheer ignorance is fucking incredible. These people love and are proud of who they are and what they represent. It is a communal psychosis. And reasoning and logic won't change it. For these people - like any addict forced to change their behavior - it has to be very personal and hit very hard. Still, like an addict... some will not change regardless.

My background is different from yours (suburban Florida guy, never hunted) but I can appreciate yours because you represent millions of people. You're a Democrat (thank you) and what you say, I've seen elsewhere.

You mentioned the race issue. This will probably remain the "dealbreaker" for many racist whites who would otherwise vote for a Democrat. We are the party of all minorities, and will stay this way, I'm proud to say.

You also mentioned the guns issue. You nailed it. I strongly believe that the guns issue is a losing one for Democrats, no matter how well-intentioned we are. The Newtown CT massacre of all those children really woke me up - the country is not ready for any meaningful gun control. When will it be ? I have no clue. I do think, eventually, the "have a gun everywhere!" philosophy will push enough people to revolt against it, but we are not there yet.

Becoming the 2017 version of FDR Democrats is what we need to do. The version without the racism of the 1930's but with the strong appeal to working people and the middle class. We might end up losing a national election during our transition, but it would be worth it long-term. We will also get "class warfare" yelled at us a lot, but meh. No shame in representing the working class and middle class, much as Labour does in the UK.

Thanks for your aid to the party!

They are being deceived by bad ones. I think as it dawns on them, there will be hell to pay. I am not going to trash them for wanting to hold onto their way of life.

It's about food on the table and roofs over heads. Healthcare. People get a pass from me when these are the issues they are focused on. Even when I think they are wrong about how they are trying to fix things.