Yes, because I'm the Nazi now, not the worthless leeches who raise their kids to spit on, beat up, and threaten to shoot people like me just because of the color of our skin and the way our names sound.

I'm not against the working class. I'm all for people who want to work hard and contribute, for worker control over the means of production- for those people's sake and those people's sake alone. But that's not the "poor white trash" we're talking about here.

We're talking about Adam from third grade who punched me in the face just for looking a little bit different from him. We're talking about Collin in high school, apparently one of the best shooters in Texas, who called me racial slurs and told me to meet him after school so he could "show me his gun." We're talking about "poor white trash"- not all rural folk, not all working folk, just the people whose enthusiasm for Trump suddenly jumps in studies when someone reminds them America will be minority-white by 2042- and people like Eklipse who stand up for and enable them.

Until November, when someone like Eklipse told me they had to work for $9/hour on Black Friday, I felt bad for 'em- felt like they were hard-working, honest folk who deserved more than the few small opportunities that had been offered to them in life. But now that I've found out they've got no respect for me, this small subset of America driven by racial anxiety disguised as economic concerns, I ain't got none for them either. The Richard Spencers I can deal with, the confused business/free-market conservatives and evangelicals I can understand, but these former "Reagan Democrats"- these ignoramuses choosing to try to throw people like me under the bus because that's how they think they'll get their stupid little "manufacturing jobs" back- these people I used to think were good people until they revealed who they always are, always have been, and always will be. I ain't gonna apologize for thinking much less of them now- call it "disdain," call it whatever, I've got no reason to explain myself to you.

For me, this does nothing. I'm not a one-percenter by any stretch of the imagination, but my parents worked hard, and I'm working hard- jumping in this 'liberal, elitist' thing called education that gets me a solid shot at a six-figure job straight after graduation- and turns out hard work and education can still get you places in America, places where Adam, Collin, and these other people can never get to, places where I can afford to forget they even exist.

I'm only gonna laugh at my luck now, 'cause at least they disabused me of the misguided notion that I owe these people some respect. At least they took away that little part of me that saw their sinking ship and thought it would be worth it to reach out.

Their demise is now gonna be just as sad for me as Fidel Castro's funeral. These people deserve nothing, and now they'll get it.

Edited 11/26/2016 23:04:16

I'm not going to play logic police with you,wct. Just go back and read knyte's posts. It's quite obvious he's filled with hate against rural people, the working class, and anyone else not part of his cadre.

The best thing I get out of this is the realization that I straight-up don't care about those sad folk- and never will.

fuck that and fuck them

This is me telling them that they're gonna die sad and broke, watching their neighborhoods fall apart at rates they haven't even imagined yet, and I'm not even gonna feel sorry for them

Me:you could wipe us off the map and not see an immediate loss in capital, but you'd starve to death by the year's end.

knyte: If I had the means to do so, I would take you up on that bet

You're right- I have no empathy for you

caring about y'all was a courtesy, a favor we did because we felt sorry for your pathetic asses

So now I just get to watch and laugh with zero remorse as rural Americans get economically wiped out.

THIS is my problem with knyte. He's clearly a sadist with no empathy for the less fortunate. I don't know why you'd defend someone who's taking such a vile standpoint.

As a secondary note, the fact that knyte still labels himself as a Socialist or economically left is just hypocritical. No Socialist would so utterly disregard the working class.

Edited 11/26/2016 23:04:29

I am not opposed to most Trump supporters; I count a good number of them among my good friends, among people I regularly interact with and respect, among people I trust and value. However, a significant body of data shows that- especially among the white working class voters that backed Obama in '12, '08, Bush in '04, '00, Clinton in '96, '92, and Bush in '88, and Reagan in '84, '80- that especially among these people, racial anxiety beat the economy as their motivation.

In terms of economy you should support Republicans. :3

I support good policy that caters to an America that a candidate believes to be smart. Over the past 3 elections, that's been Obama, Obama, Clinton for me- even as I fall into the relatively very small set of people whose premiums actually did increase at an accelerated rate due to Obamacare.

I don't think you could find anything along the lines of good economic policy from a candidate who barely even had an Issues page on his website. Back in March- I shit you not- it was just links to YouTube videos of him ranting about Mexico and China.

Again, Tabby, the thing is- I'm insulated enough by skill, education, industry and reasonable middle-class wealth that, barring a complete and utter economic collapse or some insane policy shifts- and I'm talking insane- none of this can meaningfully hurt me. I'm not worried.

I don't see why this is escalating- I told Wally that, unless his situation significantly deviates from mine, he's got no reason to worry either. We won a long time ago, small political upheavals like this will do nothing about it.

Edited 11/26/2016 23:10:27

I'm not going to play logic police with you,wct.

Logic doesn't need policing. An argument is logical, or it is not. It has nothing to do with anyone trying to 'enforce' logic.

By trying to dodge this, you're essentially saying (to my ears), "I don't care about being logically consistent. I'll just say whatever feels right, even if it's false and/or causes unnecessary misunderstandings with others in the discussion."

THIS is my problem with knyte.

If that's your problem with knyte, then why don't you just admit that your originally written argument doesn't correctly convey what you actually meant? What's the point in dodging logic?

He's clearly a sadist with no empathy for the less fortunate.

I suspect (I daresay I *know*) that there is a huge gap in communication between you and knyte. You are both misinterpreting each other (not least because you're not being careful with what you say).

I don't know why you'd defend someone who's taking such a vile standpoint.

Critiquing an illogical argument is not the same thing as defending the target of said argument.

The only thing I've defended related to knyte in this thread is his point that Trump is not going to do anything better than Clinton would have done (which is an extremely low bar, since I don't think Clinton would have done much at all). Both Trump and Clinton are/would have been disasters for the middle class. After four years of Trump, you and everyone else will be no better off, and will probably be even worse off. (Even this is not 'defending knyte', it's defending a point.)

Tabby, just because I'm brown does not mean that those are the issues I care about.

I'm in the United States on the same terms as everyone else. I'm not here as some sort of economic or social resource for some "white Christian America" that exists in certain people's minds, or as some cultural ambassador to declare the peaceful intentions of some exotic civilization.

I'm not asking for any favors or special treatment. I'd appreciate it if there was a little less "racial anxiety" in this country- fewer people like Bannon from Breitbart saying that it's a problem that I have a reasonable shot at a reasonable job in the field that I've devoted my time and interest to.

But for now I just appreciate these people's honesty- they don't care about me, they think that they can win if they start fighting, and they're just too dumb to realize that they're in a much weaker position in this game than I am.

If Eklipse and the rest of y'all don't count y'all'selves among these people or as their enablers, good for you. I don't have malice directed toward you in either case (like I said, caring about people like y'all is a waste of my time)- only the same cold apathy you have demonstrated toward me.

Edited 11/26/2016 23:21:58

However, a significant body of data shows that- especially among the white working class voters that backed Obama in '12, '08, Bush in '04, '00, Clinton in '96, '92, and Bush in '88, and Reagan in '84, '80- that especially among these people, racial anxiety beat the economy as their motivation.

And what data would that be? The same data which practically guaranteed a Clinton victory? Out of all the Trump supporters I know, none of them really gives a cent about racial issues one way or the other. It was mostly about economics or foreign policy.

I don't see why this is escalating

Probably because earlier you were playing some sort of super villain routine. But at-least now we're getting some sincere statements out of you.

jumping in this 'liberal, elitist' thing called education

See, and here's part of the problem. You act like you're the only one who works hard, you're the only one who's educated, and the rest of us are just ignorant slobs. That's not the case at all. I work a very physically demanding job on a regular basis, AND attend college.

However,I know some people less fortunate than me who CAN'T go to college, because the cost and debt is just so crippling. Your narrative about "Anyone who works hard in this country can get ahead" no longer holds true for a 100% of the population. That's why we need a major change in the system.

Edited 11/26/2016 23:24:55

The same data which practically guaranteed a Clinton victory?

70% is not a guarantee. Per FiveThirtyEight, the odds of Trump winning were the same as rolling a 1 or a 2 on a die.

Are you going to say that probability is broken and the data is wrong if you roll something with a 1/3 chance?

If you'd like me to link you to it, I can (just have a few things to wrap up first). For now, though:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/clinton-wasnt-wrong-about-the-deplorables-among-trumps-supporters/2016/09/12/93720264-7932-11e6-beac-57a4a412e93a_story.html?utm_term=.17442dcd5599&wpisrc=nl_most-draw6&wpmm=1

Racial animus beats economic anxiety as the single biggest predictor of Trump support. Moreover, Clinton voters were substantially more likely to rate the economy as their top issue (relative to Trump voters) and let's be real- a large chunk of Trump's economic policy has a long, long track record of failure (we're talking trade restrictions, for example) and has been denounced by economists worth their salt.

That said, if you voted for Trump because you genuinely believed he was better for the economy, I have nothing against you. I have only lost respect for rural white (and other) voters who voted for Trump out of racial anxiety, of which there are likely many, many more than you expect.



This is not consistent with a world in which large numbers of Trump voters are driven by purely economic anxiety. Neither is Clinton still winning among low-income Americans. Neither is Steve Bannon's appointment.

Not all Trump supporters are racist- it would be very, very crazy to say that ~48-49% of Americans are racist, sexist, homophobic, misogynistic, etc. No one's really arguing that (outside some fringe groups). But Trump was driven by racial anxiety far, far more than Romney (whose poll numbers did not correlate nearly as strongly with racial anxiety), McCain, etc., and that's just something we have to acknowledge at this point. Bloomberg's final poll- which was consistent with the actual outcome on election day- did a little study where they told white working-class Americans that by 2042 America was going to be minority-white, and this caused a bigger shift to Trump than nearly any other statement they tested with.

Not everyone was a racist, but racial resentment and white identity politics were part of this election.

Edited 11/26/2016 23:32:29

Again, Tabby, I place zero value on those genetic differences and don't see small variations in our cultural backgrounds as anything close to irreconcilable differences (especially not in America). I'm significantly more likely to stop talking to someone if I find out that they're from Oklahoma or a Seahawks fan than on the basis of their race or religion.

Like I said, I'm not asking for any special treatment, recognition, or another politician to ask for my support and tell me how much he likes curry or how hard-working we model minorities are. I'm literally asking for the exact opposite of that- incompetent Rust Belt workers realizing that railing against people who look like me is not going to bring back the 1950s-era jobs they haven't been able to move on from.

This is my country as much as it is theirs. I don't have any allegiance to any other ('cept for Texas). So stop treating me as some sort of foreign representative and recognize that you don't have to compliment a guy who's been educated in the United States on the quality of his English just because his skin color is a little bit darker than what you could achieve at a tanning salon.

Edited 11/26/2016 23:39:24

I'm working hard- jumping in this 'liberal, elitist' thing called education that gets me a solid shot at a six-figure job straight after graduation- and turns out hard work and education can still get you places in America

This is no longer any guarantee, sadly.

Too bad the voters didn't have a chance to vote for Bernie's free college tuition plan, eh? Too bad the corrupted two-party system makes it nigh impossible for a third-party candidate with a brilliant plan to eliminate student debt to have a fair shot, eh?

And, Tabby's right that not all Trump supporters were the Adams and Collins. Not even the majority. A lot of people on that sinking ship still don't deserve to be there, even if you're lucky enough to have escaped it.

Edited 11/26/2016 23:38:41

@wct: I was referring to my specific situation.

Too bad the voters didn't have a chance to vote for Bernie's free college tuition plan, eh? Too bad the corrupted two-party system makes it nigh impossible for a third-party candidate with a brilliant plan to eliminate student debt to have a fair shot, eh?

I don't think you're familiar with economic analysis of his plan (or Bernie's own economic illiteracy- this is a candidate who assumed that the volume of high-frequency trades would remain unchanged after instituting a tax on high-frequency trading)- we're talking about a deficit like we've never seen before. Clinton's debt-free college plan, on the other hand, held up to scrutiny for the most part. This was a candidate posting fucking thesis papers on her issues page and running on policy far more than people gave her credit for. Even Eklipse seems to not realize that she was running on a platform of providing free or cheap job training to people left out of our economic growth over the past three decades- people whose manufacturing jobs aren't coming back but who could easily transition to industries where we have an actual competitive advantage.

A lot of people on that sinking ship still don't deserve to be there, even if you're lucky enough to have escaped it.

You're right- like I said, no sane person can argue that all Trump supporters were racist blue-collar rural whites. A lot of people in rural, predominantly white America didn't vote Trump either.

They still have a path toward the future- transition to industries where we have a competitive advantage. We're not gonna move forward with coal, nor with steel (even China's losing the battle for steel versus Southeast Asian economies). But we're in a much better place economically than China is (as a country; we're an innovation-driven economy, which makes us much, much less susceptible to price or wage fluctuations) and certainly have plenty of industries- like mine- with a shortage of skilled labor where we can expect to have a solid economic outlook for a fairly reasonable time.

Shutting off trade, renegotiating deals, building walls doesn't solve that- there's no way to change the reality that we've lost our competitive advantage in most manufacturing sectors. Those jobs aren't coming back no matter whom we decide to yell at- Bernie's "billionaire class," Trump's Mexico and China. We have to adapt to that reality and figure out how to reallocate the people who clearly have a lot of willpower and ability (they're Americans, after all- if there's anything we're given credit for by other countries, it's our optimism and our willingness to put in work).

Clinton had that option- she ran on it, breaking from Obama's policy of giving a speech every year where he tells us that the "manufacturing jobs" are coming back by pointing to new factories on our soil where robots do all the work.

That option got rejected, and- per the data I can find- a large chunk of it was driven by racial anxiety (fear of non-white immigrants taking jobs from white Americans). So there are millions of Americans- possibly tens of millions- who decided that their best path forward is to reject viable economic solutions in favor of launching an attack on educated, urban America and on Americans that have a different skin color than them. And those are the people I couldn't care less about.

Edited 11/26/2016 23:50:51

Also the idea that America will be not white majority anytime soon is absurd since in order to do so you have to claim that all Hispanics are not white which is not true.

Irrelevant and misses knyte's point about Trump's racist supporters (though they are not all, nor probably the majority, they *are* a significant constituent).

Also you should not be in the wrong states if you want to avoid racism. You will fit in nice here for example.

More missing the point.

In terms of economy you should support Republicans. :3

Either a joke, or simply wrong. Can't tell. (Not that Dems under Clinton would be much better, if at all.)

If racism is such a problem we can probably seek a solution by claiming some parts of Antarctica or the Moon for all civilized and advanced peoples. If America becomes an intolerant land this is what I will promote.

Whut? *scratches head*

especially among these people, racial anxiety beat the economy as their motivation.

Then why did they vote for Obama and not Clinton?

barring a complete and utter economic collapse

I think you're underestimating the probability of such an event.

Edited 11/27/2016 00:10:58

Knyte, that image you posted had 25,000 participants in it. I mean, who even did this poll, where did they poll, what were their methods?

Yes, because I'm the Nazi now

Well you did say you wanted to exterminate all rural folk.

You are not brown, come on. You are an East Indian engineer. Your position is certainly better than those who are actually brown, I mean the mestizos.

Tabby, why are you buying into racialism? (Also, you're still missing knyte's point. I doubt he cares whether he's 'brown' or whatever. The problem is that *other people* do, and try to use that against him.)

Then why did they vote for Obama and not Clinton?

Clinton was the first president to even use the words "systematic racism" in a speech. Obama, on the other hand, famously told black Americans to "pull up their pants."

Notice the backlash Obama's gotten every time he's sided with Trayvon Martin or some section of BLM- especially from places like rural MI, WI, PA. It's very consistent with people voting in Obama because they thought a black President would finally fix "race relations" (i.e., black America complaining about systematic and structural racism it's continuously faced for over 200 years now) and getting mad at him when black America didn't quiet down. Remember all the times Obama got called the "most racist President ever" and got attacked for "terrible race relations"? That's consistent with data indicating that white Americans wanted him to focus on them more.

Moreover, Obama did fail to deliver on his promises on manufacturing jobs. Because no one can deliver on a promise like that. It's been a fairly consistent cycle, really, of the Reagan Democrats switching allegiances every 8-10 years.

That's why there was so much analysis of economic anxiety at first- I thought it was the case, too, because I got really fed up of sites like Slate, Salon, and SketchyLiberalSite#494304 telling us that it all boiled down to racism and sexism. And after all, rural Rust Belt America is doomed.

But that doesn't hold up when you look at policies, when you look at awareness, when you look at the attitudes that chunk of America did express when held up to the microphone. We're seeing economic crisis (in rural America) combined with ignorance to result in racial anxiety, because "build a wall and you get your jobs back" is a hell of a lot easier to sell than "okay, you're going to get a few years of training and then you'll be ready to shift to a different industry."

It's always an uphill battle for policy vs. populism, and I don't think any coalition built on the Reagan Democrats (now Trump Republicans) can expect to survive for long for that reason- race and class anxiety will always triumph over good policy with a demographic that frankly can't be really expected to favor policy over populism.

I think you're underestimating the probability of such and event.

I think you're overestimating it. :P As long as our economy doesn't like straight-up hit rock bottom (and I mean rock bottom, so bad that even tech doesn't have a fighting chance even with all the non-vaporware it's been delivering) by the end of next summer, all that changes is the view from inside my nice, cozy bubble.

Note, foreign policy overrode everything else in this election. Clinton, was going to fight Russia, and there's no question that that would be the outcome, with Russian's preparing military buildups on the borders and Clinton saying that mysterious Russian hackers were a declaration of war on the US. If the US warred Russia; it's over. The whole world would be at war, economies would grind to a halt, civil liberties would be lost globally, and most importantly, millions would die, from Asia to Europe to Africa and the Middle East. Anyone who blatantly ignores this reality is much more apathetic than any Trump supporter who didn't care that someone punched you in the third grade.

@MGSB: It was a hypothetical. And when Eklipse suggested that the rest of us are doomed without rural America, I only said I wished I had the means to demonstrate otherwise- not to actually exterminate a third of our economy.

I also found the data I'd promised earlier: http://electionado.com/canvas/1479173071893

I think this lays out a fairly compelling case. If you're interested in asking questions about methodology, etc., I believe those are answered in the poll itself. Feel free to challenge that if you'd like.


And again, if you voted against Clinton out of foreign policy concerns, I think your analysis is very, very off- but that's not what I'd like to spend effort discussing right now. My "disdain" is primarily directed at voters who were driven by racial anxiety.

Edited 11/27/2016 00:07:02

But Trump was driven by racial anxiety far, far more than Romney (whose poll numbers did not correlate nearly as strongly with racial anxiety), McCain, etc., and that's just something we have to acknowledge at this point.

Then why did Trump get a larger share of both the black and latino vote than Romney did? Why did Clinton do worse with these groups than Obama did? (To be clear, I'm not disagreeing with racial anxiety being a big factor in this election, just with your interpretation of the evidence of just *how* important it was to Trump supporters of various stripes.)

@wct: Turnout (there was a reduction in polling locations by over 800 in states no longer monitored under the VRA), economic anxiety, Comey, and a lot of other factors. Keep in mind that those figures are also from preliminary counts; I haven't been following a lot of demographic breakdowns of the vote since the election (like I said, it's worthwhile to move on) so I don't even know whether it's still the case that Trump significantly outperformed polls when it came to minority voters.

I'd recommend just looking at this: http://electionado.com/canvas/1479173071893

I think it's at the very least fairly clear that economic anxiety and foreign policy concerns were not the primary drivers of the Trump vote.

Edited 11/27/2016 00:11:06

This is a tweetstorm based on analysis of some preliminary data tied to the 2016 election.

Note, if this is just a bunch of things from twitter compiled up, I doubt that this proves a significant portion Trump supporters are racist. I mean, how many trump supporters are on twitter?