Austin newspaper had an interesting article about the people who are planning to vote for the GOP governor and for Beto. Many have never voted for a Democrat before. Promising story overall.
Not to quibble too much, but the only reason that isn’t true of Oklahoma is that it wasn’t a state at that time. It was very definitely Confederate in sentiments among the white population, though.
I’m pretty sure the perception of the south has to do with how they behave, the sheriffs, the cops, voting trends and the news, that the fact that racist people there might see minorities more often then some other racists in other states.
My point was actually that dismissing the south means dismissing half of the black folks who live in the U.S. The south isn’t just white folks. In spite of the Great Migration, a near majority of our black population still lives there too. Pick 10 random Mississippians and 4 of them will be black. Muddy Waters is just as typical a southerner as Boss Hogg.
Well maybe to you that’s what it means, but when people say the racist South, I think most realize there is a specific population that’s being referenced. .It’s pretty clear actually.
I get that, but consider that in 2016, Wyoming, West Virginia, North Dakota, Utah, and Idaho went more strongly against Clinton than any southern state. Kansas was more strongly pro-Trump than South Carolina. I feel like our regional prejudices (and I’m not immune) fail to adequately capture the complexity of the large populations they encompass. We’d do better to be more specific and/or to outline what specific grievances we object to rather than making blanket assumptions about vast swathes of our geography and 1/3 of our population. Georgia, Texas, North Carolina, Virginia and Florida are purple states–their populations are quite diverse in every way.
North Carolina might be a purple state by raw demographics, but it’s firmly ruled by its Republican masters. And is pretty shitty in a lot of other fun ways, to boot :P
Having been trapped in the Southeast (Louisiana, southern Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, and North Carolina) all but four years of my life, I’m pretty cozy with the folks who write it off as racist flyover country. The densely populated coastal towns are where it’s at baby!
I don’t know what to tell you. I am not moving to Texas, Georgia or NC, fucking Florda, or Virginia. It has nothing to do with who they for in 2016. Say how are the Texas Rangers doing with digging up dirt on the guy who got shot in his own apartment by an off-duty cop, and to be clear, the guy is the victim, the killer is the cop. I know that can be confusing considering they’re not actually investigating the killer much.
That’s true in California too. But you’re right, the state legislature makes a big difference.
This is a national, not regional problem. Philado Castille lived in Minnesota. Tamir Rice lived in Ohio. Oscar Grant was from Oakland.
This one is Texas, thus the Texas Rangers. Texas doesn’t get a pass just because there are other incidents. How many people does Texas execute again, and how many of them are black?
I get that you don’t like the South is portrayed as being racist, but you’re not going to fix that by saying the people facing problems on voting, that are part of NC’s unconstitutionally created maps, and the intimidation tactics are black.It also doesn’t help when looking at some of the sheriffs and the politicians coming out of there. That reputation was and is earned. it can be unearned but not by pointing at black people or any other minority group and saying see they’re here.
I think there is some confusion. I believe he’s answering a belief up above that we should just “get rid” of the South, and his point is that doing this condemns half of the African-American population to live under Southern governments unconstrained by the federal government.
He then went on to explain that the problem of racism isn’t just confined to the South, nor is the South so far gone that in some instances it actually has proportionately move Democratic votes then some “non-Southern” states, so just cutting off the South doesn’t solve either problem either way.
I’m from Washington state. I live in southern California. I don’t really have a dog in that race. I just am wary of blanket generalizations. That’s all.
Likability and charisma matter, is my take away.
I must say I also really like this
I like this from reader A.W. DuBois: “It is really sad when it is considered strange to want to vote for people in different parties. Frankly, I think that attitude is what is killing America today. Information, not just ideology should guide you when you mark that ballot. That is exactly why I ended any party affiliation 30 years ago. I vote for the person who I think will do best job, putting my country before any party.”
As somebody who’s never voted a straight party ticket in his life, and voted for equal number of Rs and Ds over the last 8 years, I’m with this guy I’m going to end any party affiliation. It’s bad for the country.
Adam kind of implied that the Civil War wasn’t worth fighting over to keep the South, not really saying we should get rid of it now. Matt then, mostly implies, that the South is being seen as racist despite the population of minorities down there. The impression I get, and it’s mostly confirmed by the politics and public issues, that the South would be a lot like it was prior to and right after the Civil War if the federal government didn’t actually outlaw what it does. I don’ think that’s a stretch.
The problem with this is the level of control of the agenda given to the party leaders. A vote for any R in the Senate is a vote for Mitch McConnell and his take on what the country should be like.
EDIT: In other words, the only way to fix this problem is to reduce the power of the majority party to set agendas, control committees, and so on
I agree with the first part. It’s hard to vote for any R, no matter how qualified, reasonable, or smart, because you’re also voting for Paul Ryan or Mitch McConnell, whether you want to or not.
But I don’t necessarily agree with the second part. The problem isn’t that the majority has too much power, it’s that the majority is elected by a vast minority of the country. Whether it’s a President who got fewer votes than his opponent (and far less than 50% of the voting eligible population), or a Senate where 30% of Senators represent more than 60% of the population, or a gerrymandered House.
The majority having too much power is a problem because it represents a small minority of the population.
I agree that that is a problem, but I don’t think it’s relevant to the question of voting across party lines. Regardless of how they got their power, if the majority party derives their power from being a majority, then voting for the other party is a way to reduce their power. This means that you can’t simply consider the candidates you are voting for or against, you have to consider the agenda represented by their party affiliation.
The Senate is supposed to represent the minority by design. The real problem is that the electoral college and the myriad of issues in the House have allowed those to become minority rule as well.
My problem is that Trump’s election has rendered the word ‘charisma’ completely puzzling to me.
I mean, he’s one of the most offputting individuals I’ve ever seen, at least in his late-stage. (He was probably more fun on Letterman in the '80s, or whatever.) But apparently he has ‘charisma.’
If that’s ‘charisma,’ then clearly my internal charisma-o-meter is not calibrated along with the rest of the country.
Expecting some good, some bad…