The garbage thread

[Elok]

The thing is, Trump's hijacking of the GOP is having weird knock-on effects across the aisle. Both parties used to contain both rich and poor elements--poor rural whites facing poor urban minorities, college-educated progressives versus country club whites, and everything in between. And there are still plenty of poor Democrats and rich Republicans, but not as many as there used to be. The things Trump uses to appeal to poor whites also have some appeal to poor minorities, because these two groups are in broadly similar situations. For example, poor minorities don't much like illegal immigrants either, and the idea of good low-education manufacturing jobs is quite attractive to an uneducated person of any color. The part where he says racially insensitive stuff all the time, well, IDK, I'm lily-white, but apparently it doesn't bother everyone. His stupid machismo posturing is certainly more characteristic of the lower classes--it's a good part of the reason he enrages the intelligentsia, but it's not equally offensive to everyone.

Meanwhile, poor people really don't give a damn about climate change, the current trendy talk about LGBT stuff is alien to them when it isn't offensive (lots of poor minorities go to church!), and student loan forgiveness isn't that interesting if you never went to college. I don't want to overstate this, the substantial majority of black people at least seem to remain loyal to the Democratic party, but this might slowly create an awkward situation where Democrats purport to speak for constituencies who are increasingly more common across the aisle.

[My Wife Hates CIV]

Perhaps is was just Harris not able to answer a question. Only always blaming Trump.

[Jon Miller]

Meanwhile, poor people really don't give a damn about climate change, the current trendy talk about LGBT stuff is alien to them when it isn't offensive (lots of poor minorities go to church!), and student loan forgiveness isn't that interesting if you never went to college. I don't want to overstate this, the substantial majority of black people at least seem to remain loyal to the Democratic party, but this might slowly create an awkward situation where Democrats purport to speak for constituencies who are increasingly more common across the aisle.

The best things that might happen from Tuesday is that Republicans realize that they can win democratic elections (and so don't need to do insurrections) and that they realize that minorities like Republicans. Exit polls say that Republicans won Hispanic men.

From Noah:
"
< < snip > >
Now, Trump’s victory, powered by lower-income Americans and Hispanic men, will hopefully convince the GOP that democracy is still a game they can win.

A democracy needs both major parties to believe they can win via persuasion rather than by organized resistance, and 2024 showed that Republicans can still do that — even if the method of persuasion is one that I personally wish hadn’t worked so well.

If you want an optimistic take, there it is.

< < snip > >

But I do think there are some important lessons that we can already learn from this election, especially at the intersection of economics and politics. In particular, I see three big ones:

1. Identity politics — viewing racial groups as homogeneous “communities” to be targeted with appeals to collective grievances — is not an effective way of winning over Hispanic (or, probably, Asian) voters.

"

https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/identity-politics-isnt-working

JM

[Elok]

I will absolutely agree that the death of the current phase of identity politics cannot come too soon.

[giblets]

Republicans aren't going to let identity politics die if they think it benefits them.

[SlowwHand]

Pot,meet kettle.