A white people reality check

This has really been upsetting me, embarrassing me, disappointing me.

What the hell is wrong with white people? Have you guys noticed the polls on Bush support that are broken down along racial lines? Whether it's terror, leadership, or voting in general, the white polling for Bush is always around 65%.

I'm white, most of my friends are white, I live in a small predominantly white town. These people aren't stupid, most aren't hateful, they pass school bonds and all the rest. But by these polls, I guess they love George Bush. Why? What is it about the way white people think that they can't see what a buffoon this guy is?

Of course, the possibility always exists that these polls really reflect the truth about the polls in general. That they are choosing heavily Republican areas to skew the perception of Bush's "popularity". But if that's not the case, white people have lost their minds.

Any thoughts on this. And I don't mean southern white racist, bla bla bla. A +60% positive for Bush among whites comes from more than that.

I'm white and I flip off George Bush every time I drive by the White House. Ashcroft be damned, I hate that little fucker and can't wait to see him booted from office.

I can't speak for every other white person, nor can anyone else speak for the rest of their demographic.

It's our families, friends, business associates and neighbors who are voting for this fucktard.

We can only do so much to sway their opinions. Berating like-minded colleagues isn't the solution.

I didn't berate anybody. You're the one that got all offended by the mere suggestion that there is something weird going on in white world. If you don't like the topic, don't respond.

When someone tells me I need a reality check and asks "what the hell is wrong with ?", I usually don't take that as a "mere suggestion". I don't need a reality check and nothing is wrong with me. You're yelling at the wrong people here.

A reality check is a reality check. Something is askew, what could it be. I put out a possibility, maybe those high numbers indicate that these polls are being done in heavily Republican areas. Now that's a reality check we should all wonder about because polls do affect the way people think and act, momentum and all of that.

If that isn't the explanation and over 60% of white people really do give Bush a positive job approval rating, than white people have lost their minds and I want to know what the hell is wrong with us. If white people are the ones who have the power to put Bush back in office and are leaning towards doing that, then white people are the exact people I need to be yelling at. And the ones who want to put their heads in the sand and ignore the fact that something is seriously fucked up in the way white people are thinking, well, I'm going to yell at them to.

Don't like it, don't respond to the thread.

or maybe a con vs lib thing.

Colin Powell consistently polls as most popular member of the Administration, & he is black. His approval is very high among whites.

If you look at the race make up of Dems vs Repubs, I bet that is where the minority/white thing occurs.

I thought I could respond to whatever I so desire. Silly me.

Oh, and I also didn't realize that all white people have a hive mind too. Apparently, we all think exactly alike, according to you.

I didn't personally attack anyone, and it's HER argument that all white people should think and act alike. Why should my post be deleted?

did not have anything to do with you.

sorry for confusion

who absolutely hates him, I couldn't possibly explain it. I have no idea why his apprival rating is anything higher than 2%.

I think you're being too generous with 2%.

published a study about a month ago that said around 25% of all Americans have some sort of mental illness and that two thirds of those cases were either moderate (alcoholism) or severe (bipolar disorder), 2% of people must be wacko enough to think that a president who hears god telling him to kill people is a good thing.

Actually, the sad thing about that study was the degree to which those people are untreated. The US, by the way, had way more illness in general and severe problems specifically than any other country on earth.

You think if we could heal some of that illness people would vote Repub less often?

People want to be looked upon as generous people in public. They will doante so people see their actions. In private, they can vote for Bush and not worry about how it will look because no one will see.
We shouldn't have public voting, but private voting makes it eaiser to be selfish.

In private, on the ballot, everywhere I've lived. That doesn't explain this Bush lovefest among white people.

I bet the bottom line is money. That's what I think turns so many people into conservatives after their 20's. They think they will keep more of their money with Repubs in office. They're wrong, of course, but they go by that impression rather than the facts.

I believe female whites are much less likely to vote for Bush, particulalry single female whites. So there are some other demographic influences going on too.

But your point is still well taken, in that it's hard to understand why it is so high for reasons other than racism, fears, selfishness, etc.

I've seen a couple of others in the past couple of weeks, on the Iraq war, WMD, and some other issues. This one is on Bush and the election itself. The voting choice is closer on this one, but look at the Bush job approval. 61% whites, 40% hispanic, 16% blacks. The disparity of the perception of Bush is astonishing to me.

http://www.gallup.com/content/default.aspx?ci=12244

I'm waiting for the paperback.

in Harper's a few months ago? I loved that one. Too bad no one in Kansas will ever read it.

Amazon info:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0805073396/qid%3D1089748216/sr%3D11-1/ref%3Dsr%5F11%5F1/103-1740601-3171013

its fantastic. The thesis is that the conservative elite creates a bogeyman called "liberalism" which they use to herd the blue collar whites in the Heartland. They, therefore, are driven to vote against their own economic interests.

"liberalism" comes from the so-called elite Eastern intellectual establishement and professionals. The conservatives tell the BC (Blue collar) Kansans that these "liberals" have contempt for them and their values; that they sit in ivory towers trying to dictate how the Kansans should live their lives. They use the Democrats to try and enact this wholesale destruction of "heartland values".

By keeping the BC Kansans fixated on social values and regional antangonism, the business class can be spared the otherwise certain wrath of a underprivileged populace whom they are screwing.

Thanks!

I haven't read it yet, but one of my friends is most of the way through it. The author was also on PBS last week (I forget the show-- either Frontline or NOW) talking about the book.

IMHO that's part of the problem with liberals today: they make it far too easy for the rightwing to demonize them and portray them as aliens. Unfortunately, the nomination of an east-coast "elitist" doesn't help much, but Edwards defrays a lot of that.

To win back middle America, this party needs to talk about economic justice again, and use that as our main talking point: breaking up agribusiness monopolies, letting small and medium farms be competitive, protecting small and medium-sized rural businesses from the Wal-Marts of the world, and passing trade agreements that benefit EVERYONE, not just big businesses.

Unfortunately, over the last dozen years, the party has abandoned its economic populism and become just as big-business-friendly as the Repubs. NAFTA and MFN status for China are just a part of this, but the Dems' wholehearted support of Greenspan during the Clinton years is a large part of it. Greenspan's worker-unfriendly policies have done more to damage working-class people than Reagan's eight years ever did. Sure, interest rates may be low, but income is stagnant, and more people are declaring bankruptcy because of their debt load.

Take back the economic argument, and we'll get the white folks on board.

many of the whites who support bush also tend to be poor or struggling financially. they blame things like affirmative action for their problems.

bill clinton actually got more white male voters than usual because he was one of them. he was poor, from a mostly conservative area. the could identify with him in terms of struggling financially. but bill clinton was also very popular with women and minorities.

one of the reasons john kerry got edwards to be his vp was because he appeals to these group of voters. edwards is one of them in terms of how they grew up or the financial problems they face. edwards doesn't have to support bigoted policies like bush does. he just has to speak about where he comes from.

That's a matter of looking at the facts right in front of one's own eyeballs.

This article says 77% of blacks believe Bush intentionally misled the country, at least somewhat. I've seen polls on whites and it's the polar opposite. I'll keep looking for these polls.

This has nothing to do with Affirmative Action or any other racial or economic issue. It's white people's brains. And I just don't get it.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A41971-2004May20?language=printer

the fact that they already support bush and don't want to admit their guy is wrong.

but you are right about iraq. it's a matter of facts. whether one supports bush or not they should still be able to say that iraq is a mess. maybe religion could be the thing. in which case it's not really based on facts but beliefs. they see everything that happens including the negative as part of what god wants.

if you remember during the primary, especially in places like iowa, i saw kerry directly speak to white men with conservative leanings. he was patient and calm with them and won many of them over. it could be that the same type of effort needs to be made.

Claiming your white supremacy and refusing to budge for fear of losing it, I guess. I think white people need to start trying to talk to other white people about whatever the hell this is. Denying your President is a criminal in order to keep your own delusion of the "correct" world order is insane.

Bush's base are white males. They've been number one since our country began, why would you think they would all be willing to share the pie more equally now? Ruling classes have always found ways to pit the lower classes against each other and GOP has been very successful in making poor whites feel they can lay the blame for their lack of success on other lower classes, especially black, "welfare mothers." My uncle is a prime example. He thinks he's "taxed to death" to pay for a bunch of deadbeats. I keep trying to tell him that the welfare queen is a myth and that welfare is a drop in the bucket compared to all the corporate welfare we dole out. Doesn't matter. He HAS to believe this or he would have to take the blame for his own lack of success. My brother in law actually came out and said," It seems like there's some advantage for EVERYONE but us white males, these days!" :nopity:
By the way, does that poll differentiate between white males and white females? I have the feeling white females are less likely to support Bush. Obviously, I'm white and would do just about anything to get rid of the bastard.

That's what doesn't make sense to me. I could understand the split if it were more a 50/50 thing among whites, but 61% approval rating for Bush??? Based on WHAT?? What criteria are they using to judge success? Is it all just denial based on an underlying racism?

I guess you could call it "nationalism" or the new "patriotism" that the idiot spouts off about. Some people must hang on to the idea that Americans are supreme beings at all costs. It's EGO that really has nothing to do with racism. It's just that whites are more prone to the whole egotrip thing, IMO.

My son pointed out to me that every war the US has fought, except the Revolution and world wars, has been against minorities. The white ego elitism thing, supreme at all costs.

In this case, you are saying racism against Arabs, right? I still think it's bigger than that. Somehow, the Repubs tie it nationalsm and patriotism and that makes it NOT racism in some people's minds. From my post above, you can see that I was even fooled into not thinking that way even though I abhor this war.

Let's see. A patriotic white elitism, with a subtle underlying general racism, that makes some white people support rah rah, keep your money, earn your own way, Republicans? And blow up anybody who tries to stop you and don't even give it a second thought if it's a minority?????

That's just what I believe it is. And, it makes me sick.

After the Civil Rights movement and the beginnings of affirmative action, the economy started to cool. This was only natural after two decades of artificial prosperity due to the US being the only industrial power left unbombed-the-crap-out-of after World War II. But blue-collar whites suddenly woke up and realized that all this equality and diversity was going to cost them something. And all too many of them made common cause with those unregenerate types who had opposed Civil Rights and affirmative action all along.

But racism was hopelessly out of fashion in the seventies. The intelligentsia equated racism with Archie Bunker, a hopelessly ignorant moron, and with the Klan. White people who resented what they saw as special privileges for minorities were dismissed as illiterate idiots. They couldn't speak out in public without embarrassment, but it was easy for them to find others who would agree with them in private. Resentments smoldered.

Further, in the zenith of liberalism that was the seventies, all kinds of conservative ideas were loudly put down on all sides as ignorant, and conservatives likewise. This led to the racial antipathies of whites who felt pushed aside, or who felt that they had lost a legitimate precedence, being tangled up with all kinds of other generally conservative ideas in the minds of blue-collar, uneducated white people and their children.

Then Ronald Reagan came along and made it clear that, as far as the Republican Party was concerned, racism was A-OK (as long as you didn't actually burn any crosses or lynch anybody). Racist talk that had gone underground bobbed back to the surface. In many venues (for example, practically anywhere where country-western music was playing), one could now make a racist or sexist joke without much fear of embarrassment.

This led to a highly durable loyalty to the Republican Party, particularly its good ol' boy branch (Bush's branch) on the part of masses of blue-collar, uneducated white people and their children. The children are important because a lot of them grew up to be educated and successful without ever abandoning the class and race resentments of their parents. Don't forget that blue-collar, uneducated, religious people tend to have more children than the average population.

Note that these are not people who are Republicans or Bush supporters for any articulable reason. The issues hardly matter to them. Bush is just "their kind of folks." A lot of them identify more with him every time we call him stupid, even though he is stupid (for a President). They hear us calling them and their ideas stupid. And while there's some truth to that also, it isn't going to help us change their minds.

It's a trade-off. Republicans support their quest to stay at the top of the heap, so they ignore and/or rationalize all the tragedies we inflict on the world, a world full of people of color. Ya think that's really all there is to it? Seriously.

I said that racism got tangled together with a lot of other conservative ideas when both racism and conservatism were so thoroughly put down by the intelligentsia in the seventies. Think of it as Archie Bunker's revenge. A lot of blue-collar uneducated whites identified with him and resented the way he was constantly being put down.

I'm just trying to sort of throw back what people say. Maybe it's more white elitism than racism. That's how white people can say they aren't racist, because many are truly happy if minorities are successful.

As long as they can maintain a hold on white elitism. Know what I mean?

nationality in this case, IMO. Those that are wildly approving of *** genuinely feel that he is kicking ass and showing everyone that we, the U.S. are the rulers of the world. I honestly believe that's their mentality.

Remembering that those three things interact a lot with each other. Here's some further thinking.

After World War II, veterans came home to a hero's welcome. People who had been coal-miners and sweatshoppers and farmhands and chronic unemployables in the Depression and before (or their children) were suddenly the Greatest Generation. They were important, they were somebodies. And they were all white males. There were high-paying union jobs for them, and a warm welcome into the middle class. Madison Avenue was falling all over itself to accommodate them. Politicians quickly followed suit.

In the late sixties and the seventies, things changed. High-paying blue-collar jobs disappeared. To get a good job, you had to have gone to college. Meanwhile, colleges were hotbeds of liberal activism. Joe Sixpacks and Good ol' Boys found themselves shoved aside by hippies and conscientious objectors - and minorities. The truth was, there was less opportunity for everybody, especially if they didn't have a college diploma, but it was easy for the Joes and GOBs to blame liberals and minorities.

I'm saying that all these resentments tended to blend. Most people are emotional, not rational, in their politics and in their operational philosophies. They don't think much, they don't question their values and beliefs, and they don't respond well to others who do. And again, this kind of thing is deeply hereditary. People generally stick to the values and politics of their upbringing, again questioning very little, even if their circumstances become markedly different from those of their parents.

I think there are deep-seated resentments about race, class, education, religion, and values that run rampant through blue-collar and rural white America (and their children). I think these resentments are all tangled together. I think they create a near-automatic rejection of anyone who can be credibly identified as a liberal and/or an intellectual. I think that's why Clinton tried so hard to avoid appearing to be either one, and why that worked so well for him. I think that's why white folks, especially white males, tend to vote Republican (caveat - I'm a white male myself).

Yes, I know, bazillionaires are overwhelmingly white in America. But some of them are quite liberal, and anyway they make up a tiny minority of the white population. They may be the ones manipulating the great mass of white Republican voters, but they are not themselves the great mass of white Republican voters.

professionals are just as racist, sexist, etc., as any other group. It's not just blue collar workers. These professionals are more cagey about not expressing it clearly so that they won't be caught, and they are quite aggressive in denying it and attacking anyone who calls them on it, so it largely is unchallenged.

come from uneducated families. A lot of self-made types hold on to the prejudices of their parents, especially if their education is a professional education designed to increase their socioeconomic class rather than to enlighten their worldview. You're not really going to learn anything in business school, or even engineering or medical school, that's going to convince you that races and cultures are equal.

That's practically meaningless. Pretty close to saying that people that flip a coin and have it come up heads will vote Bush...

I never could agree with it, but I could logically arrive at the conclusion of how someone could support Bush by some of the beliefs and attitudes they had.

Mainly, these excercises always included some of that "ego" you mention above along with a "Billy Bad Ass" mentality. Especially, when the notion that Iraq was tied to 911 was generally believed by the majority (even though I knew better), I could see them saying to themselves somthing like "They messed with us and we're kicking their ass! That'll teach them!"

Maybe, part of them not admitting the lies and that Iraq is now a mess comes mainly from ego as well. If they admit those things, they must admit that the U.S. is not such a "Billy Bad Ass" after all. That might even cause them to admit that we might just be one of those "bullies" that can't back up our tough talk with appropriate actions.

Heck, I don't know. I lost the capacity to understand when the lies became increasingly revealed. Maybe the blatant truth is not as clear to everyone as is it to us. It just seems like it should be.

I can tell you one story, though, that might help explain it a little. My sister was the one who first sent me the link to whatreallyhappened.com. I shared it with my brother. One of my brother comments to me was "I don't believe anything anymore after reading all that stuff." It sure seems like, with all the chaos, that people would be better informed. But, maybe they're not. Maybe the majority of people are like my brother and I were before my sister shared that link with me. Now, I've lost the capacity to look at the world through "uninformed" eyes. Does that make sense?

On edit: Another thing is if they have to admit that Iraq is a mess, they might have to actually admit that we might just not be the supreme glorious best greatest nation on earth - and the only one that's right about every single thing - and better that everybody else.

1. White people tend to have more money than other groups of people, or to put it another way, more economic opportunity. They will tend to identify with the Republicans' pro-wealth positions.

2. Government activism has helped African Americans and other minorities to get ahead, so they will disproportionately tend to side with the Democrats, the party traditionally in favor of government activism. Many Whites, by contrast, feel threatened by things like Affirmative Action, which they see as unfair treatment towards them.

3. White people live disproportionately in rural areas, while minorities tend to live in urban areas. People in rural areas favor stability and simplicity, and conservative social values. They don't like change. They are not exposed to the sheer diversity of people and ideas that are found in urban areas. They may be put off by liberal interest groups who, in their minds, want to radically alter the natural social order, and tend to side with the conservative Repubs.

I am a rural person myself and I can see where the isolation, of sorts, would lead to some skewed attitudes. You're right. There's not a lot of diversity of people or ideas. Not a lot of culture, if you will.

We tend to be extremely old-fashioned, with many of our values coming from religious beliefs - even if they're not specifically presented as such. What I mean is this: I grew up in a family that did not attend church regurlary - I suppose you would say we were not religious. But, the majority of things my parents taught me came straight from the Bible - you know, respect your elders, obey your parents, the grown-up is always right, etc.

Rural people do not expect or want change. They mythologize the past, thus they are afraid of progress, which they believe would take society away from that ideal.

From Dec., 2003,

http://www.post-gazette.com/election/20031229bushmailes40elect5p5.asp

snip

"In 1988, George H.W. Bush beat Democrat Michael S. Dukakis by 27 percentage points among white men, the same advantage Reagan enjoyed over Jimmy Carter in 1980.

During the 1990s, Bill Clinton significantly reduced those margins, losing white men by just 3 percentage points in 1992 and 11 points in 1996, according to exit polls. But Clinton didn't win a much higher percentage of the white male vote than Carter, Mondale and Dukakis did; the GOP margins fell in the 1990s because independent candidate Ross Perot siphoned away so many white men from Bush in 1992 and Bob Dole in 1996."

snip

"But even in September and October (2003), when Pew showed the country divided exactly in half between Bush and a Democrat for 2004, and white women narrowly preferring a Democrat, the president still led among white men by 27 percentage points.

Bush's strength among white men derives as much from his personal style as his policy choices, most analysts agree."

NT

Apologize if a non-white shouldn't be voicing an opinion here...

It's definitely ironic that considering the intense religious conservatism among African-Americans (pro-life, anti-gay, anti-feminist, pro-military, pro-home school) that we are such staunch defenders of Democrats. BUT, Democrats *tend* to protect social services, and Affirmative Action, and somehow, we seem to see this as a more important priority for our GOVERNMENT to have.

African-Americans have a fair number of reasons for disliking Bush. They start with Jeb, Florida and voting disenfranchisement. Add a tendency to distrust Republicans in general, the complete hanging out to dry of Rice and Powell, the snub at the NAACP convention, the stealth visit to the MLK gravesite while building his campaign treasury, the comments about the Michigan Affirmative Action policies, the slow "re-employment" rate.... and it just doesn't sit well.

I'm not sure that most Americans felt as defrauded by what happened in 2000 the way black folks in Florida felt. It was an incredible slap in the face, and it was HIGHLY racial.

With all that said, I seem to recall an excellent essay, and I think I read it here in DU last winter, about Southern White Males and their love for the Shrub. It was attributed to his ability to identify with them as "home boy makes good", happily blind to the silver spoon in his mouth, but at home with his drinkin', cussin', womanizin' ways, and his born-again reformation. Moreover, there seems to be a sub-conscious tendency in some folks to distance themselves from the "pro-black" party, that is associated with the Democrats. For others, the Democrats are "pro-heathen", supporting everything from Wiccans and atheists to gays. "What's next? The ACLU defends the rights of pedophiles and Satanists???" For working class whites with strong religious roots, it's small wonder they vote Republican. Working class whites are also some of our staunchest patriots. Part of the dedicated core of our US defenses. These were NOT the people who questioned Bush for going to war with Iraq.

Now for the middle & upper classes, it's something else again. For the middle-class, and the upper class, Bush and Republicans are the party that safeguards the American economic system. Big business, the stock market, profit margins, low taxes - all the things that help wealthy people MAINTAIN wealth. Republicans have wealthy folks CONVINCED that Democrats are trying to create a socialist state in which taxes hit an all-time high so that poor, lazy slobs can co-exist on the largesse of the wealthy (even if they are also lazy slobs, existing on the largesse of their parents!)

Sometimes it seems to me that the ONLY white folks who have a reason to dislike Bush are the ones that disapprove of his ideology. The white folks who believe in equal opportunity, the white folks who hope someday that we'll have a decent national healthcare policy/umbrella, the white folks who think we were NUTS to invade IRAQ and that it's PATHETIC that we didn't focus on Osama Bin Laden, and generally the white folks who are religiously liberal (pro-choice, pro-gay, pro-feminist, pro-Wiccan, pro-atheist... you get the point!)

If the stats say that 65% of white folks like Bush then I would assume that this means that only 35% of white folks are liberal enough to dislike him, EVEN if he's helping some of them build wealth.

At any rate, that's my theory... and I'm stickin' to it.

head marching for open housing in the 60's in Milwaukee I'll bet you weren't even born.

And the brothers dug the fact that I had no guilt nor superiority or any other attitudes about anyone's ancestors behavior.

Still have that attitude, it goes a long way in the world-sandnsea--when it comes to BFEE we are the rainbow coalition of opposition, we THE PEOPLE.

One is either with him or against him regardless of complexion, now.

And because of what you did, I learned that there's no such thing as superiority based on race, sex, creed, etc. I'm amazed that so many white people knew that 30 and 40 years ago, and then just flushed it from their minds. 60% is WAY too many white people thinking this way, any number is too many, but 60%, we've made no progress at all.

I don't get it

Most of the people in the theatre in Texas at F 9/11 were white.

Also well said library max.

Reagan did make it ok to be openly racist again.

disgusting and depressing!

That's about all I can say. It makes sense, since we're the privileged ones who called the shots for years, enjoying unfair advantages whether we realized them or not: now we want to rig the game to make sure we don't lose any more of our god-given superiority.

It's sad.

I remember reading the paper after the '80 election and realizing that 4 out of 5 white males had voted for Reagan. It didn't sit much better to know I was one of the 20% non-asshole/idiots; it was just depressing.

Let's back up a bit: shitheadedness is a pan-cultural, multi-racial, gender-neutral, economically shared affliction. The problem is the human creature itself.

The world is getting more complex, and as that happens, people try to shut off the noise and ward off change. There will be more fundamentalism, more racism and backlash against progress and more scary flare-ups as we drown in an ever-increasing sea of people scrabbling for fewer resources. Mercifully, there's much good in the human beast, too.

As for us whiteboys, we mostly suck, and we need to be reminded of it.

In the same breath, though, there are many of us who are dedicated to social change even though the short-term effects of it is almost always not to our benefit.

Does that just about cover it?

Shouldn't we be asking why the Dems have pissed white people off so much?

Last time I checked, the parties serve the electorate. Not the other way around.

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Most people here went into the reasons whites vote Republican. My point was that whites think Bush is doing a good job, which is a whole lot more than voting Republican. That poll I posted, 18% of blacks think Bush is doing good, 61% of whites. Bush. If whites are supposed to be so much better educated, how can 60% of us look around and think things are good? Makes no sense. It means a large number of white people are intentionally putting blinders on when it comes to that man. Has nothing to do with the Democratic Party.

I for one, am white and being educated about the * administration, despise it.

The 'cult' following he has consists of a lot of whites who buy all his crap ideology and bs about why we are doing the right thing in Iraq. They're stupid. Plain and simple.

Whether its 65% or something higher or lower, Bush appeals to any of the paternalistic groups. He's the perennial good old boy. These are not people who look for information to challenge their thinking. They are the people who only scrounge around in the brain barrel for who agree's with their thinking. Education is not the unifying factor. Identification with George Bush and what they think he stands for based on what they want to hear is good enough for them. George Bush's campaign gives these people an identity and a large herd to run with. They believe that affiliation with George Bush will automatically endow them with the elite success that he has known.

On the face of it, these are people who don't want new thoughts. So, George Bush and his team of right winger's make the meal easy for them. In effect they say, "Don't worry, be happy. Jesus is there for you and so am I. We're special, you and I and one day, the rest will see us for the saviors we are. If not, that's ok, it won't matter. Because you know, and I know, that God has chosen us. Right good buddy? We're an elite team and we have each other."

These are people who have no idea who they are and what they want in life or what you want. So long as they live in a matrix of polished promises, eat well, send their kids to the right schools or give them the hot car, they are happy. These are the people who teach George Bush and his good buddies to underestimate the personal resources other voters have to recognize a bullshitter when they see one.

And above all else, Geprge Bush is a bullshitter.

I can't verify your 65% claim, but it is clear that more caucasians support Dubya than John Kerry. I'd love to see the breakdown, I have a feeling that Dubya's huge advantage in the South makes up a large portion of his lead among whites overall.

I've always thought that people like the idea of being Republican. They think they are "part of the club" if they vote Republican.... ie it's a sign that they've made it in life. Republicans are associated with Golf, country clubs, expensive cars, and the good life. People want to believe they are in that group, so they vote with that group. In recent years, the conservative Christian movement has added another group of whites who have been brainwashed to believe that being a Christian equals voting Republican and vice versa. To these warped individuals, they are making a moral decision when they vote. How Republican politics even come close to what my understanding of Christianity is...I'll never understand.

Whatever the reasoning, it's VERY scary that 45% of the country is going to vote for Dubya NO MATTER WHAT happens during his presidency. There's never been a less qualified, less talented man in the White House, and results have been predictably bad. Reagan was the worst President of my lifetime, until son of Bush got in office. More than 15 years after he left office, many people still think Reagan was a good president. Will it be the same with Dubya?

I was under the impression that females (no matter what gender) prefer Democrats, by varying margins??? (margins vary by marital status, education, race, etc)

...who sees that 65% figure would despair, and nod and say, see? We always knew it. The failure of the Democratic party since the 70's has long and widely been blamed on perceived "preferential treatment" of blacks (Affirmative Action, welfare) by segments of white America, and that makes it easy to point to racism as the cause of such a high percentage. While I agree that racism is certainly a part of it, I wish that more African-Americans could see discussions like this; they would take heart at your thoughtful responses to a question that's nagged the black community for decades. One of the greatest byproducts of the internet is the "fly-on-the-wall" factor: the shield of anonymity allows for honest discussion. And if there's anything that desperately needed in this country, it's honest discussion.

about how her relatives and neighbors felt about *, and she said while most don't really like him too much, they'll ALWAYS vote rethug because of, in her words "the race thing."

but i agree that there are many factors contributing to this number, and i only expect it to go up over time. that is, as more and more of america looks like me (cafe au lait) the fear factor will cause more and more whites to become more 'conservative' in an attempt to preserve white supremacy.

i've always thought that racism is the heart of conservative america, as do most black folk. thank you for discussing this so openly, DU.