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sandnsea Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-04-05 07:40 PM
Original message
White Male Voters
Dammit, if white males didn't vote for Republicans, Republicans would NEVER win. So all this talk about abortion, gay marriage, health care, whatever; doesn't mean squat.

The Republican Party is white authoritarian males and the women who love them. Period.

You figure out how to get white males to get down off their high horses and join an egalitarian society, Democrats win.

And for all you white males that want to argue with me, well gee, you're on the DEMOCRATIC UNDERGROUND board so I'm obviously not talking about you.
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HEyHEY Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-04-05 07:42 PM
Response to Original message
1. Actually if you look at this pie chart you'll see there is more chinese
People voting repub

Just kiddin' there's no pie chart- but you thought there was right?
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sandnsea Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-04-05 07:52 PM
Response to Reply #1
7. No
But I did think there was a pie. Now I'm hungry dammit, where is it???
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Radical Activist Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-04-05 07:43 PM
Response to Original message
2. We get them on board by talking about economic and class issues
Its insane how many middle and low income white men think that Republicans represent them and that the Democrats are the university, big city elites. The DLC has screwed us with the white male vote.

It would also help if more people were in unions again.
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Enquiringkitty Donating Member (721 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-04-05 09:28 PM
Response to Reply #2
20. During the last elections I worked with mostly union members and all of
them were convinced that Kerry wanted to break the unions. I don't know where they got this. They said that they didn't agree with Bush but they would vote for him to keep Kerry from breaking the unions. No one could tell me where this started....that Kerry was against unions.
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Radical Activist Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-04-05 09:41 PM
Response to Reply #20
23. That's odd
I never heard that. His support for NAFTA and the WTO couldn't have helped though.
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ashmanonar Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-04-05 10:10 PM
Response to Reply #20
29. yea, i heard this before too.
Edited on Fri Mar-04-05 10:10 PM by ashmanonar
and it blew my mind.

my ignorant relative who thinks he's god's gift to politics: "the guys in my union said not to vote kerry, bc he's gonna be awful to the unions."

"how will he? what has he said to indicate that he's gonna hurt the unions?"

"bc he is!"

this is the same relative i got into an abortion argument with...with him saying that it's a horrible rampage of immoral people...*strangles air*...

gods.

on edit: i'm dumb.
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starwolf Donating Member (137 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-04-05 11:06 PM
Response to Reply #20
33. I saw that too
A lot of union types at my job really did not trust Kerry. He really did scare a lot of them. Most of them really believed that Bush would do better for them and the country. Never could quite figure out why.

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dsc Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-04-05 07:44 PM
Response to Original message
3. Good question
but sadly it is hard to answer. I think that civil rights cost us some of that vote. I think guns cost us some of that vote. I think abortion costs us some of that vote. But each of those issues also gain us some of that vote. We are clearly not getting a majority of the white vote and getting beaten badly in the white male vote. It may just be that white males are more conservative than we are and thus we are then in trouble until white males are no longer the majority.
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ashmanonar Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-04-05 07:47 PM
Response to Reply #3
4. umm...
i'm a white male...does that mean i'm a conservative weenie?

seriously. think class. not race and sex.
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sandnsea Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-04-05 07:51 PM
Response to Reply #4
5. grrrr
I said in my OP that if you were HERE, I wasn't talking about you. You obviously picked up on egalitarianism somewhere along the way.

White AUTHORITARIAN males who will do anything to stay at the top of the heap. The Republican Party promises them that. That's the attraction.

And yes, at some point it does become class, when somebody manages to climb their way to the top of the heap and forgets how many people helped them along the way.
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Enquiringkitty Donating Member (721 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-04-05 09:38 PM
Response to Reply #5
21. You've got it!! Around here the white male is worries that some other
will come along and take away something. They see life as everyone has a pie and if they share, there is less left over for them. Also that they must have someone under them to be better than. It's the old boy class system. Saying that gays (just an example) are just as viable and have just as much rights as they have is lowering their status as human beings. One told me," If you have ten tests scores of 90% and you add in a 60%, the result is a lower average." This is the way they see life. They really think they are saving a high status of living or morals or something!!!!
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ashmanonar Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-04-05 10:04 PM
Response to Reply #5
25. ok.
i just hate broad generalizations. just saying white males will automatically net that reaction, especially if your'e dealing with people who are uncertain yet. saying that could push away potential liberals.
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dsc Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-04-05 07:51 PM
Response to Reply #4
6. I am also a white male
though a gay one so therefore not quite the same. But I think we do have to face facts that many white males, even poor ones, consistently vote Republican.
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Discord Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-04-05 07:57 PM
Response to Reply #6
9. Because most of the poor white male republican vote
isn't based on politics or issues, its based on elitism and the promotion of intolerance.
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ashmanonar Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-04-05 10:05 PM
Response to Reply #6
26. i still think there's a class distinction there...
or maybe regionalism?

yes, white men tend to vote republican more than democrat...but i don't think there's that much of a spread (i don't know for sure, anybody got a graph/data?)
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sandnsea Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Mar-05-05 07:58 AM
Response to Reply #26
38. 60-70%
Go look at the exit polls. Particularly in red states.
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ashmanonar Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Mar-05-05 12:47 PM
Response to Reply #38
44. yea, particularly in red states.
i'm not a statistician tho, so looking at exit polls leaves me confused. numbers are not my forte. i'll believe you.
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AirAmFan Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-04-05 10:15 PM
Response to Reply #3
30. The Democratic Party must learn how to welcome and to educate those who
do not agree with us at first on EVERYTHING, and stop being so SELF-RIGHTEOUS and closed-minded. We're not going to change people's minds about "social issues" such as gun control and a woman's right to choose if we cannot listen respectfully to opinions we may think are STUPID, agree to disagree about those things, but make common cause on pocketbook issues. And many self-identified gun advocates and "pro-lifers" actually are not that different from most of us when it comes to the legislation they'd support or oppose on those social issues. The ranks of the far far right really are pretty thin, and most people are not very dogmatic about the practical measures government should be allowed to take on "social issues". Many such people WOULD come on over to our side if given a chance and allowed to express their misgivings without our jumping all over them.

Although I am a staunch supporter of a woman's right to choose, I think it's GREAT that Harry Reid is moderately "pro life" yet has been allowed to lead the party in the Senate. And recent speeches on abortion and right-to-choose by Hillary Clinton give me hope that she wants to welcome millions of "social issues moderates" to the party too.
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sandnsea Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Mar-05-05 08:00 AM
Response to Reply #30
39. What if it's economic issues
What if it really is less taxes, less regulation, less welfare, traditional schools, and traditional small town values.
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JHBowden Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-04-05 07:56 PM
Response to Original message
8. Well, values matter for this white male.
If I was voting strictly for my economic interests, I'd be tempted to vote for a lot of Republicans. I have no patience for religious fundamentalism, however, and that weighs a lot when I look at candidates on the national level.
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sandnsea Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-04-05 07:59 PM
Response to Reply #8
10. Interesting
No egalitarian economic society for you, huh? Meaning equal opportunity, not socialism. Tell us why you think Republicans are better on the economy. The evidence would seem to indicate that's not true at all.
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JHBowden Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-04-05 08:06 PM
Response to Reply #10
12. it depends on the Republican.
If there was a contest between Dennis Kucinich and Jim Edgar, for instance, I'd take Jim Edgar.
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sandnsea Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-04-05 09:06 PM
Response to Reply #12
17. Why?
What's so bad about single payer health care and international strategies that would create an environment of peace?
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Skittles Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-04-05 10:07 PM
Response to Reply #8
28. the idea that republicans are better for your economic interests
is LUDICROUS unless you make millions a year
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gizmo1979 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-04-05 08:00 PM
Response to Original message
11. Men think with testosterone alot
I'm male but alot of men can't get past we're not taking crap from no one stance,thus they love bush.He thinks like them,I would imagine it's because they have small penis's,but that's just a guess.Someone should do a study.I'll bet democrats penis's are way bigger.
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ashmanonar Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-04-05 10:07 PM
Response to Reply #11
27. or maybe republicans just feel more of a need to demonstrate
their penis size. i mean, come on...look at the missiles that republicans like to build! giant phalllic symbols.

"my dick is bigger than your dick, but if you try to compare you're gay"...

:D
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bucknaked Donating Member (818 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-04-05 08:09 PM
Response to Original message
13. God, Guns and Gays...
The folks I work with... white union/laborers, this type of rhetorical bullshit resonates with them. Case in point; my brother is in a similiar trade as I am, and when news came down that our senior Senator had died in a plane crash (Paul Wellstone), his co-workers were giving high-fives, saying "alright, I can keep huntin'!"

They lure the suburban white-males with their "pro-family" (puke) tax policies, and lure their target-bumpkins in farmland with their social policies.

BTW, myself, I'm a hybrid of a inner-city Irish Father, and a farm-raised Indian mother. ;)

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sandnsea Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-04-05 08:40 PM
Response to Reply #13
16. ego ego ego
It could just as easily be Miller, Money and Mama. It isn't the issues, it's the ego.
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BOSSHOG Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-04-05 08:15 PM
Response to Original message
14. I'm a White Male Voter, Military Veteran, extremely large penis,
heterosexual, and I haven't voted for a republican in decades and doubt I will ever vote for a republican for any office. And any time a conservative wants to chat politics I'm more than happy to bury them with facts, logic and a big old bad ass liberal attitude. But you are right, white males are pretty fucking stupid when it comes to our country, its defense and economic issues. Thank God we elect a democrat every now and then to keep us from going all the way to hell instead of just the brink.

P. S. Every time I vote for a democrat my Penis gets larger. Its better than the stuff you can get on the internet.
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steelyboo Donating Member (225 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-04-05 08:32 PM
Response to Reply #14
15. No, I would say its more the ignorant vs. the informed.
some people, no matter the sex, race, religion, or creed, just hate to have to critically evaluate anything. The more people participate in democracy with an informed mind, the more allies we will have.
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sandnsea Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-04-05 09:10 PM
Response to Reply #15
18. That's too simple
You can't say that 60-70% of the white male population are simply uninformed. They're very informed on their side of the issues, and probably informed on issues I don't know anything about. Alot of them seem quite knowledgeable about military maneuvers around the world, the tax code, etc.
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Radical Activist Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-04-05 09:42 PM
Response to Reply #14
24. LOL! Hilarious
Honestly, I think if we started spreading that penis line around it would work. Enough idiots would vote Democrat, just in case.
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Tactical Progressive Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Mar-05-05 04:59 PM
Response to Reply #14
53. Voting Republican does make your penis smaller
Then, feeling even greater inadequacy and resentment, you become still more Republican. Leading to even more shrivel.

It's a vicious cycle.
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Just Me Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Mar-05-05 08:02 PM
Response to Reply #14
58. LMAO,...I'm glad I took a peek at this thread,....LMAO!!!! n/t
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forgethell Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-04-05 09:22 PM
Response to Original message
19. That is a racist statement, similar
to saying if African-Americans didn't vote for the Democratic candidates, they would never win another election. Both may be true, but are irrelevant.

If all we can do is call names and blame others, we will never win another election. We need ideas, not finger-pointing.
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sandnsea Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-04-05 10:37 PM
Response to Reply #19
32. Republicans do say it
All the damned time. They say it in a way that attempts to make the Democratic Party irrelevant. 'Well if you didn't have those blacks or Indians, you'd never win so you're not a real party'. As if minority votes don't count as much as white votes.

That's the Republican Party. That's where the white males are.

Facts are facts.

Why do white men need their own political party? Why do white men hate the rest of America?
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forgethell Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-04-05 11:38 PM
Response to Reply #32
35. White men ,
as a whole, don't hate the rest of America. Some may. So do some of the rest of America seem to hate them. Why shouldn't they vote their interests, as they see them, same as the rest of us?

But, really, that was my question. What makes your statement any less racist than those of the white men that you despise so much??
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sandnsea Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Mar-05-05 07:55 AM
Response to Reply #35
37. They vote against them
Why? Why is the Democratic Party the rest of America, and the Republican Party is white men and women who are married to them?

I don't hate white men at all. I just don't understand why they think they need their own party.
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forgethell Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Mar-05-05 10:10 AM
Response to Reply #37
42. If you follow
politics at all, then you know that the Republican party is constantly trying to "reach out" to minorities, and win a larger share of their votes.

I hate to break it to you: you totally misunderstand what the Republican party is about. And until we do understand what they are about, what their hopes and dreams and fears are, what chance do we have of developing a strategy to either defeat them or win them over.

the clash between the Rs and the Ds is not over race, but over ideas. so far, they are winning, despite what the Kool-aid drinkers, who keep thinking they stole 2004 think. Maybe 2000, see my screen name, but they whupped us in 2004.
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sandnsea Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Mar-05-05 01:12 PM
Response to Reply #42
45. Oh ack
Ego ego ego. Being at the top of the heap. I already said that. I already said that when a minority or woman gets to the top of the heap, many forget those who helped them get there and take on Republican ideology as well. It's a superiority based belief system and white men at the bottom of the heap are more inclined to believe it than the rest of America.

I never said it was about all about race, the fact that that's all you got out of it says more about you than me.

I'm just tired of getting distracted by abortion, guns, gay marriage and the rest. White men make up the bulk of the Republican Party because they sell different ideas that appeal to the WASP superiority complex of white men. I'm sorry that offends you, but I see it all around me here in rural America where I live.

BTW, they didn't whup us in 2004. Kerry did better than any candidate against a sitting president in almost 100 years. He did better than Clinton in 1992 or 1996. So that whupping nonsense needs to go too. Still, Republicans are getting alot more votes than they ought to and people are believing out and out lies and no matter what happened in 2004, that's still a cause for concern.
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forgethell Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Mar-05-05 01:44 PM
Response to Reply #45
46. Kerry did better than any candidate
against a sitting president in almost 100 years. And he still lost. And seats were lost in Congress, and Tom Dashcle is gone. And all we've got left is the filibuster. We can only accomplish a negative, positives are beyond us. The Republicans can take the filibuster power away from us if they get frustrated enough with our "obstructionism". And they will. I predict it before the end of the year. And you think we didn't get our asses whipped??? Absolutely effing incredible!!!!

Look, I disagree with the Republicans, but I pay attention to what they say and believe. I live in a small city, or a medium sized town, whichever way you want to look at it. But I work in an extremely rural community. So I'm pretty sure that I have observed as much of rural, white life as you have. Most of them just want to be left alone.

Until we can at least understand our opponents, and stop making up myths that no longer have any validity, whatever their truth in the past, we will continue to get beat every election.
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sandnsea Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Mar-05-05 01:53 PM
Response to Reply #46
47. Amazing
"at least understand our opponents"

You keep talking about understanding our opponents, bla bla, and that I'm making up myths.

Our "opponents" are white males and the women who love them. That's who they are.

THAT IS A FACT. THAT is the Republican Party. The REST of the country votes predominantly Democratic. WHY???

"Most of them just want to be left alone." Which means, most of them just want to stay at the top of the heap and not have to worry about how their actions affect everybody else on the planet. The Republican Party gives them that.

Again, you say we need to change, yet bring absolutely nothing useful to the debate because you're trapped up in the rural white victim mentality.
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forgethell Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Mar-05-05 02:27 PM
Response to Reply #47
48. But the country is
predominately white men and women. Or can't you count?

I could, but won't, say something about being trapped in a black victim mentality. But none of us should feel like we are a victim. What does the poem say, "I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul"? Isn't that a better, and more profitable, attitude to have than wondering how the white man is going to screw you next??

The world sucks. You can suck with it, or try to make a better place around you. No one should do less, few can do more.

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstances
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of change
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the year
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul


William Ernest Henley.

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sandnsea Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Mar-05-05 03:03 PM
Response to Reply #48
49. lol
I'm a 47 year old white female who has lived in rural America my entire adult life.

Yes, the majority of America is white. Why is it that the Democratic Party is made up of the majority of the minority groups in this country. While the Republican Party is made up of the majority of the majority, white men and the women who love them. That's the entire point.

For years now I have heard the Republican Party say "Democrats would never win if xyz minority didn't vote for them", as if the minority vote isn't equal to the white majority vote. Shouldn't the point really be "Why do so many white people think they need their own party?"

That is one part of me trying to make the world around me a better place. Getting white people to understand how they've allowed the Republican elite to divide us with phony issues surrounding race and sex and hippies and city dwellers and the educated and everybody who isn't a white rural traditional Christian.
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forgethell Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Mar-05-05 03:31 PM
Response to Reply #49
50. Why?
Edited on Sat Mar-05-05 03:35 PM by forgethell
Shouldn't the point really be "Why do so many white people think they need their own party?"

They don't think they need their own party. They think they need a party that will push their ideas. Turn it around. Why do the majority of the non-white people think they need their own party? Because it pushes the ideas that they want to see as policy. Nothing wrong, or racist, with any of that.

Evidently, then, as I understand you, you are not a woman who loves a white man??? Fair enough. However, saying "Democrats would never win if such-and-such a minority didn't vote for them" is simply a statement of fact, not a moral judgment on the value of minority votes.

The Republicans may be wrong on the issues, but that does not make them phony issues. Real issues are whatever people care about, and will decide their votes on. So let's take the some of the issues that divide us. We say, why do the conservatives not vote their interests?", meaning of course for us so we can do our economic magic for the country. Well, why don't we abandon the positions on the social issues, you know abortion, gay marriage, etc., so that they will vote for us on the economic issues? It's because, for both sides, the social issues are more important to them than the humming economy. We stick by our principles even when it costs us at the polls because we like to have integrity in our positions. How can we expect them to do otherwise, especially as they are winning (i.e., whipping our asses) by doing so???

The Republicans are not dividing us. This is where we make your electorally disastrous mistake. We are already divided!!! The Republicans are simply meeting the needs of those who do not like where the country has been headed.

But let's say that my analysis is totally off the wall and wrong. Just for argument, of course. You are correct: white people think they need their own party. What do you propose to do about it? All I can hear is a whine about how they shouldn't do that. That is not a persuasive argument, not to me, and I'm absolutely certain not to them. After all, who are you to judge them??

On edit: I kept my remark about the white man purposely generic. It could apply to women, too. And in any event, it's good advice. As for the "black victim" mentality, hey, lot's of whites have it, too. It's called "condescension".


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sandnsea Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Mar-05-05 04:30 PM
Response to Reply #50
52. You refuse to answer
"Because it pushes the ideas that they want to see as policy."

WHAT ideas??? Why do the ideas of the Republican Party appeal primarily to white men and a handful of white women who defer their power to the males in their lives? WHAT are these ideas you keep speaking of. WHAT are the ideas that divide us that were supposedly already there.
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forgethell Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Mar-05-05 07:01 PM
Response to Reply #52
55. I could tell you what I think they are,
Edited on Sat Mar-05-05 07:02 PM by forgethell
but you haven't listened to a word I've said so far.

So, in the interests of research, why don't you visit one or two of their websites, and lurk a bit. Then you could hear what they say in their own words, and, more importantly, why they think they believe that way. You could also form your own opinions about why they really think the way they do. Here's a hint, IMO it is not a pure love of evil.

I don't say they are right, but I do say that they have reasons that seem valid to them, and "keeping the _____'s down" is not among them. Unless, of course, you visit an openly racist, as opposed to conservative, web site.

At the very least, you will learn their thoughts. If you register and post, you might learn to sharpen your debating skills. And you can always come back to DU for cleansing when you feel too dirty.

Good luck!!
:) :) :)

By the way, somehow it has gotten into my mind that you are from Alabama. Don't know how, but there it is. Are you?? Don't answer if you feel I'm being intrusive. Thanks.
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sandnsea Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Mar-05-05 07:25 PM
Response to Reply #55
56. ha
I have lived around rural Republicans for TWENTY FIVE YEARS. I have two sisters and two brother-in-laws who are Republican. I think I know how they think. I also think I know that when it IS NOT a Presidential election year, they don't think all that differently than Democrats. For some reason, come a Presidential election year, all they can do is spout Republican talking points. It is EMOTIONALLY important for them to identify with Republicans. Facts don't matter. So why is that?

You know full well why that is. Which is why you're dodging answering the question yourself.
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forgethell Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Mar-05-05 11:44 PM
Response to Reply #56
59. Not at all:
they think differently about the social issues. You know what they are. They think these are destructive of society. They think Democrats are weak on national security. Many of them think many Democrats are unpatriotic, even treasonous. Many of them think as we do on the economic issues, especially, say, Social Security. These are the ones we might have a chance of reaching if either we, or they, changed our stance on the other issues. I've already said why I don't think that will happen, at least not easily.

Nor am I going to try to defend their positions to you. I'm a Democrat. But talking to your country cousins will not tell you what you are asking, and I've spent years trying to understand the opposition myself. Get on the net, cast off your ignorance, find out the intellectual basis of the conservative movement and why it appeals to people. Calling them racists will not change their minds, and their votes count as heavily as ours.

Facts do matter to them, as does logic. They are every bit as good at it as we. But they filter those facts through a different filter, a different world-view, than we do. But we both do it.

I don't know what else I can do for you. If you won't examine what I have said, honestly and with an open mind, you will continue to wonder why the "white men" think they need their own party. You will find an answer, but it will not be a useful one.

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sandnsea Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Mar-06-05 10:46 AM
Response to Reply #59
60. That's just sad
My country cousins? My sister is an executive at Alltel and my brother in law is an architect. And they live in the south. My other sister and bil own their own business, Mormons who live in Utah. My sister in Utah is considering leaving the state because she's tired of how they treat women. None of them think Democrats are treasonous at all. My brother and sister-in-law, who also live in the south, vote Democratic all the time.

My country cousins. Social issues. Hicks who think Democrats are treasonous. You labeled them and put them all in one pile, not me.

Why do white men vote Republican in the national election? They hum along and quite often vote Democratic for Senators and Represenatives and Governors. But for the President, suddenly only white men become concerned enough about abortion and gay marriage to vote Republican??? It doesn't even make sense and that was the point of my OP.

The Republican Party promises people they'll stay at the top of the heap. Whether economically here at home, or as a superpower around the world. We're #1. That's the appeal of the Republican Party. The rest of it, for the most part, is an emotional excuse to vote Republican. As long as we stay stuck in debating the emotional issues, we'll never bridge the real gaps and move towards discussions on creating an equitable society.
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forgethell Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Mar-05-05 11:47 AM
Response to Reply #32
43. I guess,
judging from your responses, that I am not making my concerns clear. First. Let me ask you: do you want to model yourself, and your ideas, on what the Repukes are and do??

Second, and I quote,"They say it in a way that attempts to make the Democratic Party irrelevant. 'Well if you didn't have those blacks or Indians, you'd never win so you're not a real party'. As if minority votes don't count as much as white votes.."

No, how does this differ, morally, substantially, intellectually, or qualitatively from this statement, "They say it in a way that attempts to make the Republican Party irrelevant. 'Well if you didn't have those white men, and the women who love them, you'd never win so you're not a real party'. As if white votes don't count as much as minority votes.???

In other words, on this issue, how are you any different from the Republicans? What makes your stand any more principled than their's? I'm not saying they're right; what I am saying is that I think you are wrong on this issue. I don't think we can achieve any kind of racial harmony by continuing to blame the white man. People's social and moral outlooks have evolved over the last 3 or 4 centuries, and white men did a lot of the evolving. For instance, slavery is still rampant in black Africa. In countries where the whites are dominant, the authorities stomp on the perpetrators when it occurs, generally anyway, and certainly in the USA.

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Davis_X_Machina Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-04-05 09:40 PM
Response to Original message
22. No-brainer....
You figure out how to get white males to get down off their high horses and join an egalitarian society....

I have it figured out.

Let them run it.

Should do the trick.
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alcuno Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-04-05 10:21 PM
Response to Original message
31. "The only thing wrong with men is that they are not women."
Heard it tonight. Couldn't help myself.
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Robeson Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-04-05 11:12 PM
Response to Original message
34. Not taking issue with you, but if all women voted in a block....
...it wouldn't matter how white males voted. Because women could pick who the President is going to be, everytime. So, if women don't vote in a block, why would you expect white males too?
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sandnsea Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Mar-05-05 07:53 AM
Response to Reply #34
36. White males do
60-70% vote Republican. That's the whole point. The Democratic Party is everybody else, except the white women who are married to the white men who vote Republican.
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brindis_desala Donating Member (866 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Mar-05-05 09:27 AM
Response to Original message
40. Recent (500 years) history determines their perspective.
George Kennan, long time Washington "wise-man" said before he died that his greatest single regret was helping to create the CIA. Beyond the obvious implication that secret extralegal entities will eventually undermine a democracy as an advocate for "realpolitik" he rued the implication that supporting the status quo was more important than justice or preserving the rule of law. He reasoned that the US with merely 6% of the world population could not continue to consume a quarter of its resources and not be challenged. This is the white male mindset that has justified the perversion of Catholicism,(raping the Americas to spread the gospel); the Enlightenment (trade in slaves to "civilize" the heathen) and Darwin's Theory of Evolution (unfettered capitalism). They see survival as a zero sum game where the top dog (Manifest Destiny or as the Calvinists would say:the blessed by God) deserves the hindmost.
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sandnsea Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Mar-05-05 10:00 AM
Response to Reply #40
41. Yes
Until white America looks at their Christian history square in the eye, nothing will ever change.

"We weren't lost and
We didn't need any book
Then the great spirit
Met the great lie
Indians are jesus
Hanging from the cross
Hanging from the cross

In the name of their savior
Forcing on us
The trinity of the chain
Guilt sin and blame
The trinity of the chain
Guilt sin and blame
Hanging from the cross
Hanging from the cross"
John Trudell
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TayTay Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Mar-05-05 03:34 PM
Response to Original message
51. Maybe 'They' don't like being thought of as morons
Maybe we could start by admitting that if we could have taken 1 in 33 voters away from * in the last election, Kerry might have won. (That's about 2 million voters nationwide. That would do it.)

Maybe we start by talking to and, most importantly of all, listening to these voters. We might hear them say that they are worried about their jobs and about the threat of unemployment and having to retrain for a new job. Some of them just retrained for their last job and now that field has little to no future for them. They might be worried that fees at their kids school are going up and they can't afford another $300 - $500 next year to let the kid play football or join a club after school. And college is looking more and more like a distant dream for their kids, unless they want to start out with thousands of dollars of debt.

We might hear people talk about how much of a bite health care is taking out of their pay checks. A lot of companies are cutting back on benefits and workers are having to cover more and more costs of hospital stays, doctor's visits and medicine. And did you hear that the cost of gasoline may hit $2.50 a gallon soon? That means, what another $15 a week or so. (Hey, it's two cars, it ads up.) Where is the money going?

A lot of families worry that their kids are picking up bad habits. They look out and see a coarsening of the culture, where everybody seems to be in it just for themselves. The future looks shaky.

So what do you guys, you Democrats offer that can help make it better? Talk to people, not at them and say what you can do to help. Oh, and make it clear, concise and honest, People got a lives to live and don't have five hours to sit and listen to something that sounds like a college lecture. It's your job to turn complex ideas into clear positions, that what politicians do. Oh, and I think it might be nice if we reached out to red state voters in an open and non-condescending way. People don't like it, generally, when other people look down on them and their way of life. If you keep doing that, they won't vote for you in the next election either, no matter how good your proposals are. (That's just Human Nature 101.)

Remember, it's 1 in 33 * voters that we have to reach. Not the wingnuts and the died-in-the-wool Republicans, just pick off the few who genuinely are open to a good, solid argument that has something to do with their lives. Make that argument first, because if we don't have that, we don't have anything.
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QC Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Mar-05-05 05:56 PM
Response to Reply #51
54. One of the best posts I've seen at DU in a long time. n/t
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sandnsea Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Mar-06-05 11:09 AM
Response to Reply #51
61. Cutting through the smoke
My OP was not intended to call anybody morons. Except maybe all the people here on DU who keep posting on abortion or gay marriage or some other made up issue. It also wasn't about getting 1 out of 33 voters. It's about the way the Republican party plays the people, all the time. When you look at the national exit polls, white men voted Rep at a rate of 60-70%. Come a national election, white men suddenly become more interested in abortion and gay marriage than anybody else? Not for the House, Senate or Governor, just the President. Makes no sense. That is not what is going on.

As I said up above somewhere, it's "We're #1". The Republican Party promises people that they can be #1, at the top of the heap, and that they'll keep away all the people who are trying to get there unfairly, the people who will put in regulations to get in their way, or the people who will tell them their Christian values aren't #1. Owning a gun is a #1 American value. Never mind that going to court is too, the Republicans haven't said it's a #1 value so it isn't anymore.

The benefit of being #1 will trump anything we've got to offer until we break through with the reality that everybody can't be #1. The greatest benefit for the greatest number of people through cooperative effort is a tough sell, but it is what really works in the end. "We All Go Up Together". White Republican males that I know aren't quite ready to hear that.

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many a good man Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Mar-05-05 07:48 PM
Response to Original message
57. Pity the white male American
This once was a society completely ordered by white male preference. Imagine what that must have been like. No broads in the office-- definitely NO woman bosses-- except for the buxomed secretaries husband hunting. Sexual harassment in the workplace institutionalized. NO competition for promotions from women or minorities. Always got the factory job BEFORE the colored guy. First hired, last laid off.

White male supremacy must have felt like a drug. No matter how tough life was, there was always someone worse off, someone who's forced to kiss your ass. Liberals are solely responsible for cutting that addiction.

My parents were raised in the 40s and 50s in a prosperous midwestern industrial city. They lived in big gorgeous houses on the east side of Cleveland. In the 50s came "urban renewal", which tore down the slums where the poorest blacks lived, slums which had not changed since the turn of the century when just-off-the-boat Irish immigrants lived there. Unfortunately they did not build enough new housing stock to take care of the people they evicted so they moved into these idyllic white neighborhoods.

That pushed the white people out and into the suburbs. They watched the idyllic neighborhoods of their youth turned overnight into treacherous, dangerous ghettoes. And all of it because of Democrats.

In the 70s white male supremacy ebbed as did the American manufacturing base. Affirmative action and school desegregation coincided with the unraveling of the economic base, not just of white people, but ALL people trying to scrape by in the Rust Belt of that era. Many places have never recovered.

This experience and attitude is now deeply ingrained in the white male working class. Its a long term effort to turn it around. Its not an intellectual thing; they have some idea about how Republican policies favor the rich. They still like the idea of preferences, as long as its other white men.

LBJ predicted that the party would lose the south for a generation after signing the Civil Rights Act. We're now TWO generations past and Democrats have lost more than the Solid South. We can turn around the northern blue collar vote if:
1) blue collar jobs continue to exist; and
2) we start emphasizing bread and butter populist policies and lay off the victimology and sex crap

Struggling white families have more in common with struggling blacks than with wealthy whites. These white men have been the real victims of the social progress made by women and minorities in the past 50 years. Lets show some pity for them. Its been a very difficult adjustment...



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Hello_Kitty Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Mar-06-05 11:16 AM
Response to Original message
62. I get through to some of them when I talk about Church/State issues
A lot of them have personal libertarian views and are not comfortable with the fundie theocrats. I point out to them how much power and influence groups like the Christian Coalition have in the administration. They realize that their porn might get taken away and it gives them pause. I hate to put it that way but thats how some of them think.
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donsu Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Mar-06-05 12:06 PM
Response to Original message
63. it's racism, racism, racism

and religion - the white man is the head of the house, any house, every house, crap

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jonnyblitz Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Mar-06-05 12:18 PM
Response to Original message
64. no argument from me.
:thumbsup:
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