The Sam Spade Memorial Good Post Gallery

[RI]

There's pretty much nothing they can do.  The crushing poverty of African American communities helps make this a solid Democratic voting bloc, but the ties between African Americans and the Democratic Party extend beyond policy or economic indicators.  Conservative African Americans vote for the Democrats.  Hell, even wealthy African Americans consistently vote for the Democrats at extremely high rates.

Ultimately, I think social segregation is what keeps this such a solidly Democratic voting bloc.  People are unlikely to vote for a political party that none of their family, friends, or neighbors vote vote for, even if some or most of their views align with that party.  Most African Americans live in African American neighborhoods and have very few non-African American friends.  They are also the second least likely group to marry outside of their race (after whites).  They have their own culture, their own dialect, their own churches, mosques, and social institutions.  Really, they live a world apart from White America and that's what makes it so difficult for the Republicans to make any inroads whatsoever with this voting bloc.  When you hear Republicans (and many white Democrats, to be fair) talk about African Americans or African American issues, it's obvious to these voters that the politicians have no idea what they're talking about, and why should they?

And I don't think it's plausible for America to end the social segregation of African Americans anytime soon, but that's really an entirely different discussion.

This d32123 guy seems to have politics that are the polar opposite of me, but I'm really liking him as far as new posters go.

He's decent when he's not crying racism or sexism about everything or generally bashing other posters.

[RI]

There's something sort of adorable about people who have a Hazlitt-level understanding of economics and assume that there's nothing left for them to learn. It's like a puppy with a habit of stealing your mittens: Cute for a while, but eventually it becomes irritating.

No one "understands" economics. I almost have my PhD in it, and I certainly don't "understand" it. People with Bachelors in econ don't "understand" it. People who've taken a couple courses certainly don't understand it. Economics is fickle, counterintuitive, caveat-riddled, vast, amorphous, and often inscrutable. Trying to understand economics is a hopelessly Sisyphean endeavor; anyone who says otherwise is selling something.