questions we are not asking

In the ongoing feud between supporters of the two candidates, there are some unspoken assumptions that do not get challenged but are no coming into clear view.

Are whites in the South significantly more likely to be racist than whites in the North?

I am not convinced that this is true.

Are rural whites significantly more likely to be racist than suburban whites?

I am not convinced that this is true, either.

Are educated people significantly less likely to be racist than less educated people?

I am not convinced that this is true, either.

Are less educated people significantly more likely to be politically - politically, not culturally - conservative than more educated people?

I am not convinced that this is true, either.

Are rural people significantly more likely to be politically - politically, not culturally - conservative than suburban people?

I am not convinced that this is true, either.

This has been another episode of simple answers to simple questions.

I kept my post brief and simple, even though I have much to say on the subject, for the sake of clarity and context. Thanks for your input, and I would welcome a more detailed response should you choose to do that.

As I wrote the post, I was thinking that I was describing the view of the country from New England. There is some truth to each of those statements, of course, and there can be no doubt that many Democrats, perhaps especially in New England, see those statements as defining and comprehensive in the realm of national politics.

And, frankly, when I see a post like yours--one that says 'convince me', but lays out nothing of what the OP believes, I don't know what to do with it. In essence, it says to me one of three things: 'here, you do the work' or 'I have a whole bunch of stuff to say, but I'm keeping it secret so that if you come in low, I can obliterate you, and if you come in high, I can nit-pick your argument apart--I want to win more than I want to be better informed' or it's the old 'I believe, though I don't know it, that absence of evidence is evidence of absence.'

You show your hand, and I'll gladly play.

On Edit: From New England, yes, but also lived in St. Louis, went to school in rural western PA, my mother lives in WI, and my brother has been in the Ozarks for about 6 or 7 years now, FWIW.

I didn't mean to be disingenuous nor to be playing games. I actually want to expand the discussion and hear other people views, not pick a fight. Hard to do that here. If you make a long detailed rant, the discussion can go down a contentious and unproductive path in a big hurry. I don't mean to say "convince me" as a challenge, nor do I know that the opposite of each of those statements is with certainty true. The point is that we do have unexamined assumptions and that those could be impeding or crippling us, or at the very least introducing a lot of confusion into the discussions here.

I think that the media, particularly the right wing media fed by the propaganda mills, does the most damage to the political discussion not so much by pushing certain right wing points of view but rather by trying to establish a certain context for the political discussion that is false and that favors the Republicans.

There are factors that get ignored when we describe the political landscape with those statements. For example, in the reddest of red areas, often 40-45% of the people vote Democratic, and I find them to be some of the strongest Democrats anywhere. Another factor is that the South tends to be more rural. If we could slice Detroit out of Michigan and move it to Mississippi, our evaluation of the two states politically would be reversed. You would then have an enormous Democratic party bloc in Mississippi, and Michigan would be left with mostly rural Republican voting districts. Clearly, that is not a function of North versus South, but rural versus urban.

(Sorry if I'm misunderstanding.)

If that's the case, I guess I would ask, 'What's the matter with Florida?' Or, for that matter, what's the matter with Connecticut or Vermont or Maine? (Off the top of my head, I would guess that those three states--and certainly the last two--are more rural than urban. With the I-93 corridor and Seacoast region of NH, we are probably a good 50-50 split.)

FWIW, sorry for seeming to want to pick a fight. I, like a lot of people here, am a bit worn out and tend to pounce too quickly. I let your post inspire an emotional, rather than rational response. I've seen too many posts here from people who should be better informed who claim ignorance of the most basic fundamentals of ... well, anything that they think suites their argument. Not that any of those reasons excuse.

By the way, I was glad to see the user name "NewHampshireDem" show up. I have traveled for years as a performer all over the country, mostly in poor areas both in the big cities in the North, and many remote rural areas in the Midwest and South. New England is the area of the country with which I am the least familiar, and will readily admit that I don't understand New England or New Englanders very well.

My sense is that we are seeing a division in the party, whipped along by the idiot talking heads in the media, and sorting itself out between the two campaigns for the nomination. I am trying to avoid the candidate arguments, though.

I am just not convinced of the narrative we are getting, and that so many people are embracing. Certainly race and geography are factors in where each candidate is doing well. And yes, a case can be made that people are voting long racial lines and by region and education to some extent.

But it would be powerful for us to look at this a little more deeply and see if we cannot maximize the opportunity that the campaign race provides us. I think that many people are voting on other factors. First, they are voting against what they perceiver to be people who do not understand them and hold them in contempt - the resistance to "city slickers" dynamic. Secondly they are voting against the ascendancy of the culture war issues in importance over the politics of economics and power. They are voting against suburbanization and modernism.

As one clear example, in rural areas you cannot predict who does or who does not own a gun according to whether they vote Democratic or Republican. Yet that is seen as a defining issue among suburban activists. You cannot predict resistance to liberal arts academia based on whether or not a person has a college degree. An ever increasing percentage of small farmers do have college degrees, mostly from the "cow colleges" such as Michigan State rather than the elite liberals arts schools such as the University of Michigan (and right there I touched on the cultural divide just by the words I used to describe that), but they are just as resistant to the liberal arts people meddling in agriculture as their colleagues who do not have a degree are.

To touch on the college thing for a moment: In New Hampshire, UNH has what we refer to as the 'T-school'--the Thompson School of Applied Sciences--which is the 'cow college' part, though in reality it's more of a tree college these days, since forestry is its largest program, IIRC. UConn had a big ag program, which I believe was phased out about 10 years ago or so. NH, CT, ME all have 'parallel' systems, which offer some liberals arts courses (some kids use them like the old 'junior colleges') but focus primary on technical and professional education. So, I think even in the northeast, it is probably wrong to slap the ol' 'elitist' label on everyone with a college degree. (I would dare to say that nearly all of our firemen in my little town and certainly all of our police officers are college educated.)

But back to the larger issue:

"But it would be powerful for us to look at this a little more deeply and see if we cannot maximize the opportunity that the campaign race provides us. I think that many people are voting on other factors. First, they are voting against what they perceiver to be people who do not understand them and hold them in contempt - the resistance to "city slickers" dynamic. Secondly they are voting against the ascendancy of the culture war issues in importance over the politics of economics and power. They are voting against suburbanization and modernism."

I have to ponder that, a bit, because my first reaction is to ask, 'What do we do, short of sanitizing the left of anything that could be seen as condescending to poor (white) rural voters?' My second reaction is to rail, yet again, against what Atrios has termed 'Our stupid discourse' and blame it all on Chris Matthews, et al.

If, for the sake of argument here, we can suspend our belief that the political divide in the country is best illustrated, or illustrated in its purest form, by being portrayed as being between northern educated suburban people and rural southern uneducated people, think of the powerful political possibilities that are open to us. We break free from the straight jacket we are in - the one that says we either pander and compromise, or else lose.

We want to build a bigger majority for the party. That means that many who are now voting Republican will in the future be voting Democratic, should we succeed. No way around that, that I can see. How can we best do that? Too often, we think that the only way to do this is to pander to bigots or to water down our positions or compromise our principles. If in fact there is no more opposition to the political left, and no more racism among the people we are not getting than among the people we are - if in fact the right wing propaganda about the nature of the people is wrong and misleading - then we can seriously ask ourselves why we are not getting those people. To know that, why not compare the political platform of FDR with that of John Kerry? The main difference between the two is this: modern liberalism leads first and foremost with "culture war" issues, not with economic issues, not with matters of power and class, while New Deal Democrats worked from the opposite direction. Might it not be that we would sooner win on both fronts - economic and social - by taking the New Deal approach, rather than the "culture war" approach? Is it not so that the right wing propagandists are always trying to steer us into the "culture wars" and define us that way?

After four decades of real progress spearheaded by the Democratic party - the 30's, the 40's, the 50's, the 60's - we now have four decades of stagnation and political paralysis and domination by the extreme right wing. That coincides with the party abandoning a strong, coherent, compelling and unified program of advocacy for economic justice and instead adopting a grab bag of isolated and disconnected and controversial causes on "culture war" issues.

And that's what Obama meant, IMHO, when he made the 'cling to' remark. (I cannot parse HRC's comments because, frankly, I don't understand them. Not snark, just a genuine, 'I don't get it.') And asking 'What's the matter with Kansans?' automatically places us in the position of the 'elite eggheads' who 'look down our noses' at and 'know better' than the 'ignorant racists' and 'rabid fundamentalists' who 'aren't smart enough to vote their self interest'.

See the problem? :)

So are is it that we are going through a transition period where we learn how to talk about these issues in a way that is productive--at least more productively than we've been able to discuss these issues? That is, currently attempts to broach the subject *are* cultures wars--or at least are successfully framed as such time and time again.

Or, do we simply persist in making the case, no matter how the rw and media define it?

Or is there another option?

We are on the same page.

Think about this: 65-75% of the public, regardless of education level or race or geographical location, supports all of the traditional left wing programs. Public education, workers' rights, workplace safety, government regulated public utilities, protection and preservation of public resources, support for ag research and management, food and safety inspection, universal health care, regulation and restriction of capital and finance, consumer protections of all kinds, public transportation, equal protection under the law.

So why is it that we do not have a solid base of 65% or more of the public to work with? The public does not trust us. They do not think we stand for, nor do they think we will fight for any of those things. Why is that? Because we don't and we won't. We have not for almost 40 years.

Public transportation? Hah. We advocate bike riding, which is not realistic for most working people, and hardly a week goes by without someone here claiming that riding a bike is "saving the planet." Is there any wonder that many in the public roll their eyes at that and reject modern liberalism?

Public education? Hardly. We don't stand in solidarity with the teachers unions, we don't strongly advocate for universal public education. Why is it that when we are smearing those "stuck on stupid" people out there who won't agree with us, I never see anyone advocate for increased spending on public education? No such connection is made. No, we say get rid of "them" - "fuck 'em! we don't need them!" and then say things like "if the American people are so stupid that they would vote for Bush, they deserve everything they get. Or we here mean-spirited and ugly little references to "cleaning out the gene pool" of stupid people.

Regulation of corporations? No. we advocate give aways to the corporations, in the form of tax breaks and incentives, to "do the right thing." That is how we wind up with social disasters like the ethanol craze.

Workers' rights and taking care of the poor? Not a chance. We blather about "personal responsibility" and "free markets" and the "law of supply and demand."

Rebuilding our public agricultural system? No, we favor "organic choices" - a libertarian and free market solution only available to the well off and pampered few.

The people will say "but we are against the war!" One problem with that - there is no "war" to be against. Saying that we are "at war" is a right wing argument, a way to manipulate and deceive the public. If we say we are "against" it, then we have acknowledged that "it" is real and exists - we have reinforced the most potent theme the Republicans have going for them. We are not at war - our government is occupying a country for the benefit of a handful of corporations, for the benefit of the wealthy and powerful few. That is exactly the same thing the government is doing here. The difference is that the Iraqis are resisting this total domination of their lives and their country by corporations, while we are too weak and cowardly for that and are rolling over for it.

Would the "war" be over, and could we all then celebrate if the Iraqis did roll over, and aspire to turn their country into happy little consumer suburbia with corporations calling all the shots? The violence would be over - the obvious organized state-sponsored violence, that is.

These are just a few of thousands of such examples of our disconnection with the people and with reality.

The reason that the public does not support us, to the extent that they do not, is not because they are conservative politically. It is because we are far too conservative politically. It is not that we are too radical - we are not radical enough, by a long shot.

:)

Your post reminds of the opening of one of Mike Moore's books (IIRC, 'Stupid White Men',) where he cites a bunch of polls showing support for progressive social programs. 'Where is this socialist utopia?' he asks. The answer, 'The United States.'

And, yes, in a nutshell--the most powerful statement of this thread: "The public does not trust us. They do not think we stand for, nor do they think we will fight for any of those things. Why is that? Because we don't and we won't. We have not for almost 40 years."

IMHO, we, Democrats, are here because we have been playing for as long as I can remember (which is back to Regan and the 1980's). And, we have had some pretty horrible Democrats--corrupt, back-room-deal political-machine-style guys.

IF (and that's a big if) there's anything good that's come out of this drawn-out primary, I hope/believe/wish that it is that we have learned to fight again. Dean, thank whichever deity you prefer, taught us how to organize to win again. I hope the lesson of 2008 is that we--you and I and the grassroots of this party--can get a little bloody and still live, can get and give and walk away be ready to do it some more if we need to. (Please, please let our Reps and Senators learn that too.)

Obama or HRC, I really hope that what we will see is the dawn of a new Democratic Party ... and a better America. (Wow, that reads a little sappy than I intended. Oh well.)

Thanks for this. I've enjoyed our discussion and you've given me a lot to think about, too. I look forward to standing beside you as we kick McCain's ass!

We are on the verge of great things.

I am a big history reader, and I happened to notice an interesting pattern a couple of months back. Big social changes and revolutions run in 80 year cycles - something to do with generations passing, and lessons that need to be re-learned I imagine. There is also an off-cycle between those big crises, of social change, but not quite on the same scale. We are about 80 years from the New Deal, and 40 years from the 60's. If you go back 80 years from the New Deal and the depression, you get to the Civil War. 80 years back from that, and you have the American revolution.

We are right up against the next crisis in that cycle now, and the signs are everywhere that all Hell is about to break loose. What is developing and about to explode into view right now? The second American Revolution? A civil war? A new New Deal? One thing for certain - things cannot go on as they have been for much longer.

The MSM promoted the things that have been ruining our country.

They're doing it again.

We are taking the "right side" on the "issues" as opposed to Fox news, for example, but are we working off of the same script? Are we letting the right wing propagandists define us?

not this.

Always appreciate your commentary at DU, and I usually agree with you.

On this, I must disagree. I believe that these questions are the key to breaking the hold that the Republicans have on the voters.

Actually this is the WRONG question. The question is how predictably racism affects their voting prefs--specifically their party affiliation.

Down here, race is EVERYTHING in matters of party affiliation. It's just an ugly fact of life. There may be racists just as bad in the north as in the south as you slyly suggest, but on balance white people up north are WILLING to vote for Democrats, black Democrats even, and down here in Dixie white people overwhelmingly vote Republican because "Democrats are a party for Black people." Period. Paragraph. End of Story.

It isn't a matter of who's the worst racist? on some individual basis.

I remember hearing Dick Gregory describe the difference between racism in the North and racism in the South once. He said "down South they don't care how close I get, so long as I don't get too big. Up North they don't care how big I get, so long as I don't get too close."

Can there be anything so defining and overriding as an example of social change being driven by racism as white flight and the explosion of suburbia in the North? The voting patterns are all steered and determined in the North by the same factor - racism. It is not as overt and obvious as racism in the South, but the functional and practical effects are identical.

Though, IIRC, his 'North' was Detroit. IMHO, the North along I-90 from Cleveland to Milwaukee is a different 'North' than that along I-90 between Cleveland and Albany, as is the 'North' of the New England states.

As for the issue of 'white flight,' I think the phrase grossly over-simplifies internal migration, which is affected by a series of complex social and economic push and pull factors. For example, there has been concern about 'white flight' from Boston for years now; however, the larger trend points to 'white flight' from the entire state of Massachusetts. It would be overly simplistic to suggest that people from MA are moving to NH to escape 'scary black people' (not your phrase, just a phrase), since IIRC more people leave MA for Florida, Arizona, and Nevada than for 'white' NH. (I wish I could link to the source for that, but I'm too lazy to hunt it down at the moment. I can it's from an article a few years old that appeared in either the Boston Globe or NH Union Leader; I've used it with my Humanities class when we study migration.)

I think that white flight is overlooked and dismissed too much as a social force, not overstated, as is the case in general with racism. We can't ignore the fact that we still live in a largely segregated country. That isn't a random or accidental effect of other social forces, such as people leaving one area seeking economic opportunity in a other.

But, on the other hand, it now occurs to me (a real, 'well, duh!' moment) that the system is fundamentally self-reinforcing. That is, the system is set up so that whites have better opportunities, so they are able to leave, so they do.

Back to the 'yes, I think so' part--Having lived on the outskirts of Seacoast region, I watched the wave of people roll over us. That is to say, as people pushed further and further out from the epicenter in Boston, Methuen, and Lawrence, I saw our region go from being largely rural to being a satellite of the city to being nearly a full-fledged suburb. The school I worked in, for example, used to be fairly stable in terms of enrollment.

For a few years, we got lots of Hispanic kids (relatively speaking) whose parents could no longer afford or no longer wanted to live in Lawrence or Methuen, but who could not afford to live in the 'burbs. They would typically be with us for a few months, and most no longer than a year or two, before moving on. (Some, of course, made it their home.) We are now in the midst of full-blown suburbanization, with (current economic conditions excepted) large McMansions growing like mushrooms.

My point is that the people coming and going were of all races--and that, in fact, we were probably more attractive to minorities than to whites for a while. (Because we're one of the few places within an hour drive of Boston where you can still buy a house for less than $300K, we probably still are.)

Did any of that make any sense? I feel like I've confused myself.

I certainly don't have the final answers on this. Yes, people of all races are moving around for various reasons - cost of housing, location of the best economic opportunities. We do know, though, that once a white neighborhood becomes about 8-10% Black residents, the white flight dynamic kicks in and real estate values are negatively impacted, and we do know that whites in general have more opportunity to relocate and a broader range of career and employment opportunities open to them.

But I'd really be interested to see how that 8-10% figure plays out in the Northeast. In many areas, we are more constrained by geography that the south and midwest--we just don't have as much room to spread out, and so growth is much slower--since it means converting farm land to development land and towns here (especially in NH) resist that as much as they can. We also tend to be more concerned about setting aside green space and conservation land.

I think this is mostly me thinking aloud and trying to wrap my head around this Rubick's Cube of migration/development/economics in the Northeast. A big part of it is that I come from Willimantic in Connecticut, which is a small city that one could easily hold up as an example of not just white flight, but absolute white abandonment--but, when the thread mill closed :pffft:--anyone who could get out got out.

I work with fruit growers around the country and talk to thousands of them. In the Midwest, what we call a "boutique" farm - oriented to agri-tourism and retail sales - represents a small percentage of the farms - one in a hundred or less. But in New England there is a much higher concentration of this type of farm than anywhere else in the country. Higher land costs, more pressure from development, proximity and access to large population centers are the driving factors I think. While this is all interesting to those of us watching these trends, and New England is a decade ahead of the other farming regions in some of the innovative approaches to marketing being used, much of what is being done there is not representative and is not applicable in other regions.

Funny you mention the 'boutique' farm. We had a large apple orchard in town, which has gone over to residential development. Why? No one wanted to buy the orchard. Why? I'm not entirely sure, but this might be a clue: the old man was retiring and didn't want to harvest the last season's apples. He could not find someone to take the apples themselves in payment for harvesting them! (He himself had kept the place running by selling small-batch boutique cider.)

But, before we set aside this part of the conversation, I want to make clear that I don't see the Northeast as a model of racial harmony, per se. What I see happening in lots of areas is that the families that have been in these smaller rural towns are now being squeezed from two different groups: the 'city slickers' (though no one in New England ever says that!) moving up from Mass to buy the big McMansions; and the Hispanics/Latinos and other minority groups who are moving out of the city and buying the old camp properties (little houses that were once vacation places in the woods), trailers, etc. when the old timers move on. The high school student parking lot has BMW's, pimped-out Civics with Puerto Rican flags, and old Chevy trucks with 'Git-R-Done' bumper stickers (and the occasional Confederate flag). Makes for some very tense times some days.

Very sad. When a guy walks away with apples on the tree, you know it is bad. I just hate to see that. That is how tight the margins are in fruit farming, yet we have people right here at DU today screaming about paying the pickers more money. No free lunch, folks, no free lunch. Meanwhile, billions are passively made by wealthy people through clever investments in real estate and by turning prime farm land into more over-priced trashy and soul-killing subdivisions and shopping centers. We desperately need expanded subsidies and protection for our farm land and farming communities - if we hope to be able to eat, that is.

What people don't realize is that there is a shortage of farm workers at all levels, including new farm owners. Immigrants are the fastest growing group of new farm owners. We now have a population in this country that is 3-4 generations removed from the farms, and more disconnected from and ignorant about their food source than any population ever. We value the "right" of people to making killings off of real estate investments and development schemes much more highly than we value the right - a true right, I believe - of all people to have adequate food.

Democrats get elected in Democratic districts, no matter what part of the country. The reason the North seems to be more Democratic is because of the electoral college and the presence of more urban areas in the North. States in the North have huge Democratic voting blocs and that swing those states into the D column in the electoral college. States like Mississippi do not have such blocs, and their electoral college votes go into the R column, because those states are less urbanized, not because they are more conservative.

And that's after our supposedly huge tsunami win of 2006. It just didn't get wet here.

If the north and west were "functionally, practically" the same as the south as regards racism and its determining effect on politics, there wouldn't even BE a Democratic Party anymore.

Winner-take-all electoral college votes follow the same state boundaries that senatorial races do. If it is mostly rural within a state boundary, that state goes into the Republican column, whether in electoral votes or senate races and for the exact same reason.

Senate races and the electoral college are two anti-democratic provisions that are built into our system, and they both give small states disproportionate representation. If a state happens to be mostly rural, it goes Republican - even if it goes 49% Democratic. Southern states are more rural, hence they go Republican. But the rural districts in Mississippi are no more likely to go Republican than the rural districts in the Midwest are, and the urban districts in the Midwest are no more likely to go Democratic than the urban districts in the South are.

The West Virginia of 1992 is NOT the W VA of 2008!

16 years later, lots of people who may have supported George Wallace in the 70's are dead now. Lots of 18 to 25 year olds would LOVE Obama's plans for college aid.

Also, lots of people of all skin colors, in all states, are NOT in favor of Bush III under the name of John McSame!

So the difference between 1992 and 2008, Bush I and Desert Storm victories, and Bush II and Desert disaster, and John's promise to carry on..........

Oh, and Obama has lots of stuff going on this summer to PROVE he's for the working poor white folks...and lots of working poor white folks to endorse him.

I don't think this is much of an up-hill battle after Obama faced the former President, his somewhat popular and known worldwide First Lady, and has a dark skin, and a middle name Hussein.........Obama has few challenges facing him from this septuagenarian who claims to want to perpetuate the Bush-2 doctrine forever.

Not a real issue here, Obama can win and make Americans united, and awakened for the first time since 1992.

It is one thing to talk about unity, another to actually achieve it. The primary season has shown us that there is a split in the party. Understanding that split better is the key to finding consensus and common cause. If the supporters of either of the two candidates had all of the answers, we would not have this extended and tight race and so much controversy and division.

Kicking my own post here in hopes of getting more comments. Hoping that we can discuss the demographics of the primaries for the purpose of solidarity going into the general, without the usual candidate feuds. If you support this idea, a rec or two wouldn't hurt. :)

- TA, in support of and in solidarity with, all Democrats here.