Fear of diversity, not economic anxiety, caused Obama voters to switch to Trump

[Beet]

Lief,

This fails to debunk the economic anxiety camp, because even if the above study is accepted as accurate, which I wholly believe to be true, they will come up with two counterarguments. First, they will say that regardless of why voters switched to Trump, the Democrats should become economically populist because it's the right thing to do in a time of high inequality. Secondly, they'll say that from a pragmatic standpoint, if the debate is solely over diversity, we'll lose anyway. So in their minds, they have both merit and pragmatism on their side. At this point, I'm inclined to agree with them.

[Beet]

They voted twice for a black man, but a ticket with 2 whites was too diverse for them? OK.

No, they voted twice for liberalism over conservatism (2008 and 2012), but when given the opportunity to pick white nationalism over liberalism (2016), they did so.

I corrected it for you.

That's why Trump is so tough on Putin, eh?

[Beet]

They voted twice for a black man, but a ticket with 2 whites was too diverse for them? OK.

No, they voted twice for liberalism over conservatism (2008 and 2012), but when given the opportunity to pick white nationalism over liberalism (2016), they did so.

I corrected it for you.

That's why Trump is so tough on Putin, eh?

What does Putin have to do with this?

It's not very nationalistic to allow a foreign country to attack Americans without punishment, to denigrate American intelligence agents who risk their lives for this country, or praise a dictator whose government is run contrary to the values of the US Constitution.

[Beet]

They voted twice for a black man, but a ticket with 2 whites was too diverse for them? OK.

No, they voted twice for liberalism over conservatism (2008 and 2012), but when given the opportunity to pick white nationalism over liberalism (2016), they did so.

I corrected it for you.

That's why Trump is so tough on Putin, eh?

What does Putin have to do with this?

It's not very nationalistic to allow a foreign country to attack Americans without punishment, to denigrate American intelligence agents who risk their lives for this country, or praise a dictator whose government is run contrary to the values of the US Constitution.

To Attack Americans-Putin didn't hit us with a nuclear bomb.

Praise a Dictator-Trump said Putin is a strong leader. Trump didn't exactly go into with wether he agreed with Putin on issues.

Hacking is a crime, that if an American did it he would go to jail; it is digital breaking and entering and theft, no different than the burglars who broke into the DNC in 1972, in this case carried out by an arm of the Russian military, the GRU. So it was literally an attack by a military arm of a foreign power against American civilians. Trump mocked a whole class of US civil servants who offered their opinion on the attack, and then went on to praise the attacker. Regardless of how reasonable you think what he did was, it was by no means anything resembling "nationalistic." To side with foreigners over fellow Americans is the opposite of nationalism.

[Beet]

EHarding, my ideal situation is a liberal, democratic and prosperous Russia with strong U.S. ties. Wanting one's own president not to hand a foreign military more rights in one's own country than our own citizens have hardly makes one a xenophobe, even moreso when said president claims to be a nationalist, as opposed to a white nationalist.

[Beet]

Damn I love how so many progressives don't want to think about the fact the that maybe many Obama voters were racist, and only voted for him so as to not get called racist. 

-How does that make any sense?

It never does but thats not the point. Its like back in 2012 where so many dems tried to argue that mitt romney wanted the naacp to boo him on purpose so as to pander to the "racist" vote. Because apparently until then racists might have been tempted to vote for the black guy. Just remember, if you reduce all problems down to "the other side is icky" you automatically win any argument.

You can be racist and vote for the Black person.  How is that a difficult concept to get.

I think the problem is we are defining "racist" and "not racist" as discrete labels rather than a continuum. If the Dems were to rule out everybody who has some racialised views, you wouldn't have many voters at all - because society as a whole has internalised racism. The problem with the Clinton campaign is they lost a large amount of people in the sort of mid-region of the racism continuum; who voted for Obama in their droves because he presented himself as postracial.

The 2016 election year, with the overwhelming fixation on racial  and identity issues by the media and Democrats (oscarssowhite, blm, Colin The Football Player etc) served to confuse and balkanise the electorate. These issues, which were wholeheartedly endorsed by the Democrats and their affiliates, were largely distant from whites living in homogenous areas, who concluded that the democratic party was not interested in picking up their votes. And the Democrats  allowed them. Even when they were handed issues on a plate, the Democrats tendency to racialise every issue bites them (the good example here being the Flint water crisis).

And yes, I know that there is truth to the notion behind white privilege or whatever. Ok? That doesn't really matter if you're running an election campaign? A rough comparison would be an election campaign that centred around how lucky Americans are compared to sweatshop workers and peasant farmers in Bangladesh: I.e. an non-viable campaign.

The Democrats didn't start any of this stuff. Colin Kaepernick denounced Hillary himself. When racial identity politics rears its head, it makes things harder for Democrats, because we are the party with a multi-racial coalition. In the past, we could neutralize it by going full Bill Clinton 1992-on Sister Souljah, but the far left won't let us any more. On the other hand, we could go far left and all-out support all these movements, but then we alienate white working class voters. This is why I have always hated racial identity politics.