West Virginia Democrats Scared of their Own Shadows: Will Skip Convention

[old timey villain]

Hardly afraid of their own shadows. They'd hate to be associated with failure.

Yes, that's exactly what's behind it. Not the fact that they're playing to the animalistic instincts of their dirt poor, racist constituents, weak in their own fear of appearing anything less than hate filled toward their own party's nominee and the leader of the free world.
How could I have been so wrong??

[old timey villain]

Hardly afraid of their own shadows. They'd hate to be associated with failure.

Yes, that's exactly what's behind it. Not the fact that they're playing to the animalistic instincts of their dirt poor, racist constituents, weak in their own fear of appearing anything less than hate filled toward their own party's nominee and the leader of the free world.
How could I have been so wrong??

Ah, I love seeing Progressives talk about the people they so love to take care off.

As a Democrat, I believe our party should help all impoverished or struggling people, but that doesn't mean I have to like all of them.

And please, I'd love for you to find me a legitimate reason why 40% of WV Democrats voted for a skeevy convicted felon over the President that doesn't have anything to do with blatant racism or xenophobia. I would absolutely love it. But I don't know if I have the time to wait around while you come up with a bull**** excuse.

[old timey villain]

Hardly afraid of their own shadows. They'd hate to be associated with failure.

Yes, that's exactly what's behind it. Not the fact that they're playing to the animalistic instincts of their dirt poor, racist constituents, weak in their own fear of appearing anything less than hate filled toward their own party's nominee and the leader of the free world.
How could I have been so wrong??

Ah, I love seeing Progressives talk about the people they so love to take care off.

As a Democrat, I believe our party should help all impoverished or struggling people, but that doesn't mean I have to like all of them.

And please, I'd love for you to find me a legitimate reason why 40% of WV Democrats voted for a skeevy convicted felon over the President that doesn't have anything to do with blatant racism or xenophobia. I would absolutely love it. But I don't know if I have the time to wait around while you come up with a bull**** excuse.

Maybe because West Virginia is Hillary Clinton country? Maybe because West Virginia is a economic left, socially right wing state? Maybe because Obama's cap and trade would rape the economy of West Virginia?

I come from a WV family. Of course race is a issue, but the fact is, the right of the Democratic Party is disgruntled?

Since when is WV Hillary Clinton country? Bill Clinton maybe, but the wild assumptions that Hillary would have won WV in a landslide had she won the nomination are pretty far fetched IMO. Bill Clinton country might be a better fit.

And LOL at cap and trade. We can certainly argue whether cap and trade would help or hurt the coal mining industry, but Bill Clinton also supported cap and trade, and he's a saint up there. The connection you're trying to make just doesn't exist.

And if WV is economically left, then why did Joe Manchin, a Democrat, all but curse Obamacare when he was running in 2010? WV is one of the most uninsured states in the nation, and  you'd think an impoverished, populist state, would be head over heels for the bill- but they weren't.

Maybe I'm unfairly critical of West Virginians. I'm sure they're very nice people. I've been up there and they were perfectly fine, but I'm sick seeing what the state is turning into. People up there are viewing things through the prism of race and it's preventing them from voting for their own self interests. I think there's a lot of people who have no business voting Democrat, they don't need to. But if any state should remain firmly aligned to the party, it's West Virginia.

 So yes, I'm a little mad. I saw poor white voters in my state switch from D to R over something as trivial as the stupid state flag, back in 2002. They now vote for politicians who want to lower taxes for the wealthy while their services and benefits get cut. Their quality of life has not improved one bit since Georgia became GOP controlled, but they don't care. As long as the Republican guy rambles about god faith and family they're all good. And the Republicans know this- they couldn't give a crap about them. All they want is their vote and they know they'll get it no matter what. I just don't want to see the same thing happen to West Virginia.

[old timey villain]

People like cope are one of the reasons people think Democrats are elitist condescending jerks.

Oh, sorry dude, I didn't realize we were ignoring this problem.

I don't know about your experience, but I was born and raised in Georgia, and I've seen our party lose voters due to racism and cultural issues. I know how it works, and it's a problem for both parties.

I don't want to lose these voters- they have always been the heart of the party. But I also think that we're losing them because of racism and xenophobia. So we're just not gonna talk about it because we're afraid of being seen as condescending?  I could really care less.

When 40% of Democrats in WV vote for a prisoner over Obama, I'm gonna have some suspicions, and I'm not gonna ignore them. You can think whatever you want about me, but I'm gonna talk about it.

Oh, and I'm from Georgia. I've heard people disparage my state and my family, friends and neighbors all my life. They call us racists and rednecks and everything else in the book. So don't think I'm sitting in my penthouse apartment wondering why everyone else is such a racist.

[old timey villain]

That's a factor. The fact that the Democratic Party has snubbed the poor and working-class (both whites and non-whites) in favor of wealthy donors who want neoliberal economic policy and care more about same-sex marriage than poverty is also a factor.

I actually agree with that. The Democratic party in a way sold its soul in the 90s to pick up suburban voters and young people, and the perception of Democrats has changed.

But as I said in a post a while back- can't we support equal rights and economic fairness at the same time? I think we can.

[old timey villain]

With the polarization we have experienced over the last few cycles, I expect a significant dealignment in 2016, especially if someone like Brian Schweitzer is the D Nominee.

The red state/blue state divide will probably remain intact, but I think the Republican will improve a lot in the blue states while the Democratic will improve in the red states -like actually winning a county in Oklahoma!

[old timey villain]

Yes, that's exactly what's behind it. Not the fact that they're playing to the animalistic instincts of their dirt poor, racist constituents

Who else raised an eyebrow at that?

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I saw it, which is why I posted what I did about cope earlier.  It is really disgustingly elitist of a party to go on and on about how it's the party of the commoner and the little guy and then completely ignore the actual opinions of said people and condescend to them and declare that the party knows what's good for them better than they themselves do.  (I try to avoid this by never claiming a populist streak to begin with, unlike someone like cope who rambles about fighting for the little guy and then makes fun of the impoverished and rural)

Oh, so now you're admitting that you're an elitist democrat who doesn't care about the impoverished, but somehow you're absolved of any criticism because you admit to it? Classy.

And I wasn't making fun, I was making observations. Just because you don't agree with them (or are simply feigning moral outrage) doesn't mean you can label my comments as derogatory.

All right. 'animalistic' might be too strong of a word to use. But I've been to some very rural areas of WV in the past few years, and I've seen the attitudes I'm speaking of displayed in some pretty disgraceful ways. So I don't think it's a stretch to make the claim that racism is part of the problem, as it is in Georgia too.

[old timey villain]

Yeah, that's an interesting perspective and I didn't really think about it in those terms.

But to clarify, I never referred to said people as animals. I mentioned animalistic insincts, which we all have, seeing as humans are animals and are motivated by very primal desires.

Historically, racism has been used by humans as a survival instinct. Some even believe that humans are programmed to use the prism of race to determine friends and foes. It harkens back to prehistoric times when different groups or tribes of humans were competing for scarce resources, and skin color/external features often distinguished one tribe from another.

For the record, I believe that ALL of us are racist in one way or another, whether we want to admit it or not, and we all manifest this animalistic instinct. Sometimes it's reflected in our politics. Might it be possible, that some people will innately distrust a politician of a different color, even if an unbiased look at the issues proves that he is on your side? This is really the only way I can think to explain it.

I know that I'm getting flamed for all that I've said, but maybe I'm just not so hopeful about the prospect of race relations in this country. Remember when everyone said that Obama's election was going to usher in a post racial America? Yeah right.