Beet
Atlas Star
Posts: 28,985
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« on: August 20, 2016, 11:32:43 PM » |
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primaries. I knew that it would exacerbate racial polarization. When you have Democrats nominating a black man when Democrats are already getting 90% of the black vote, and then have him be the face of the party for 8 years, it's playing with fire. This is not an attack on Obama. It's not his fault he's black, obviously. It's just a commentary on political dynamics. During the Obama years you had increasing racial polarization by party, and now it's opened up the door for someone like Trump, who has the backing and uses memes from racist groups that were once considered fringe. Prior to Obama, the GOP was diversifying... you had them start to run candidates like Michael Steele in 2006, who was a relatively high-profile candidate; and from the statistics, the share of black delegates to the GOP convention peaked in 2004.
My ideal would have been for the first minority president, particularly a black, to be a Republican. With a black as the face of conservatism for four to eight years, the racists would have been banished from the GOP, and race would have been removed as a polarizing factor in American politics, as much as it could have been. In a way, conservatism represents the American's Americanism, the heartland ideology, and if that could have been represented by someone black, it would have been even more transformational than just having a black president.
Basically what has happened is what I feared. And this goes for Clinton to, to a lesser extent. We've now had two nominees in a row in the Democrats, where the winner of the white vote in the primaries didn't get the nomination. The black bloc vote is a problem because, when you have 20% of the primary electorate going 90% for one candidate, any other candidate needs to win by landslide proportions just to stay competitive. So blacks have just enough pull to decide Democratic primaries, but the actual swing group in the Democratic party, whites, have less pull. The result is the Alabamization of America, or at least forces pushing in that direction.
That's why I'm going to strongly support the Sanders' calls post-primary for open primaries, rather than closed, in the future. That goes for all levels of government. We need more whites and other non party dedicates deciding our primaries. Those loosely attached to the party having more sway would be better in General Elections.
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