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Michael Ward's avatar

So perceptive and damning yet I think your analysis is on the money. Economic loss is gladly acceptable and traded for racist results that supports white supremacy, even if some poor whites have to suffer ill consequences. The insanity of this "operating equation" can be addressed, condemned and fought back against by the shrinking white majority's white opposition, along with a coalition of diverse peoples, but the current governmental power aligns with the more brazen and unashamed GOP. Another thirty or forty years and the majorities will shift, if the democracy can hold on and survive that long.

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Kim Field's avatar

After 2016, I hung my hat on 2040, when Whites will no longer be a majority in this country. This is why the institutional MAGA racism is moving ahead at such a vicious pace and why Trump is getting stronger, not weaker. No longer sure that 2040 will save us. Frightened Whites will have engineered such a closed system by then that the tyranny of the minority will be permanent.

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Bob Knetzger's avatar

Blunt talk but true.

I used to think the well spring that Trump has tapped into was all about money and the resentment of being left behind financially. Not so sure anymore.

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Kim Field's avatar

I have been a Bernie man who has argued about this with other Bernie supporters for years. If you believe it’s about being left behind financially, you must believe that all the MAGA voters are complete idiots who cannot comprehend politics at even the most basic level, because, again, we have sixty years of data voting against themselves economically. And there is tons of date from 2016 and 2020 showing that fear of White displacement, not economic concerns, was the most common attribute of Trump voters. To be sure, inflation was a big problem in 2020 and it hurt Biden, but the Dems have been infinitely better than the GOP when it comes to the working class since 1932, so, sheesh, come on, people! I think many White people who aren’t racists have a really, really hard time calling other White people racists, so they keep snapping back to this economic excuse. White racists rarely speak in overtly racist language. This is what Atwater was explaining. They use coded language or use phony rationales in public for their voting, and many non-racist Whites misunderstand this and/or cling to it. I think this is a real thing and is part of the White problem in this country.

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