The Partisan Divide on Issues

[pbrower2a]

(02-07-2020, 02:45 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(02-07-2020, 01:22 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(02-06-2020, 10:50 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(02-06-2020, 10:23 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: ...except that blacks do not make a difference in the states in which they are the largest parts of state populations compared to the rest of the United States. Virginia would, Delaware, and Maryland (now that one might be a surprise, but it has lots of middle-class blacks) night still be voting R in Presidential elections except for large black populations. This said, the black vote is not going to swing Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, or South Carolina D.The Hispanic vote is about as large as the black vote in Texas, and rarely enough to swing a statewide election. To be sure, neither Florida nor North Carolina could ever be close without the black vote, and if the Democrats win any statewide vote in Georgia, then the black vote will make a difference. 

So why does Trump do unusually badly among blacks? 

1. He is a racist and a religious bigot, and that scares blacks. I do not see him as particularly anti-black in the sense of a segregationist pol of the old days; his bigotry is more anti-Muslim and anti-Hispanic. If the direction of his bigotry were toward Asians , then that would still scare blacks. Among ethnic and religious minorities, the common wisdom well known in practice is that bigots usually end up turning against other targets. (Even if Donald Trump has a Jewish daughter he scares Jews with his weak-to-non-existent condemnation of neo-Nazi violence. His type is more likely to turn against Jews -- even his daughter -- than people who show no "racial" consciousness).

2. He made his money as a landlord. Americans have more sympathy for capitalists who make their money as technological innovators or creators of intellectual property. If the 2020 election proves to be between media mogul Mike Bloomberg and real-estate profiteer Donald Trump, then Bloomberg will have the edge (if he were an oilman he would have that edge) among people who do not have an unqualified love for capitalism. Trump reminds too many people of a slumlord -- which may not be so much of a problem in rural areas and small towns.

3. He is anti-intellectual, and that hurts him among Jews (even with a daughter who converted), the black bourgeoisie, middle-class Hispanics, and the bulk of Asians who are more educated than whites of similar SES. Anti-intellectualism offends the well-educated, people who depend upon education for getting their jobs, and people who aspire to education as the only means that they have for escaping poverty. The Republican Party has been going blatantly anti-intellectual for several decades; consider that Eisenhower won 80% of the college-educated vote in the 1950's. On the other side, Donald Trump does well among ill-educated white people who see educated people more as exploiters (there are the people who correct their kids' grammar in school) than distant city-slickers. Trump is little-better educated than the typical high-school graduate with which he has affinity.  He said "I love low-information voters", something that Republicans used to cavil about saying.

How many Jews are intellectuals? I've met quite a few Jews but very few were so called intellectuals. Trump made his fortune building luxury condo's and apartments for rich people. The slumlords that you speak of are some how or another related to a Democratic bureaucrat or politician connected to the government of some blue city. Yeah, I've been in those shit holes and wonder why their tenants don't string those greedy people up. But then I remember that those greedy people are most likely related to the bureaucrats running the police force too. I forget that there system isn't like our system.

These slum lord real estate greedy people can count Trump among their number. They are very likely to be Republicans who themselves live in some upscale conservative gated community. They are not likely connected to the government, because the government imposes regulations upon them, which all Republican slum lords and other large landlords and almost all Republicans oppose.

The Jews I have known tend to be smart as a tack.

I agree that the Jews that I've met were sharp and business savvy. Dude, there isn't enough Republicans in blue cities to oppose much of anything these days. Hell, you're even running out of conservative Democrats these days. You guys pretty much have the cities to yourselves and no one who lives outside of them really wants anything to do with them these days.

Uhhh. Suburbia. Suburbia is becoming legitimately urban with high costs of infrastructure, traffic jams, costly public services, and proximity in many cases to rotting cities. Some old suburbs are themselves places becoming rotten in their own right. (Newark, New Jersey is the first, worst, and biggest such place). 

Rural areas still have comparatively low costs of living, including such public services as education and law enforcement. Consider that in a small and isolated town in the boonies that salaries of teachers and sheriff's deputies can be low because such people have few viable options unless they are to move to the Big City (or even small ones or Suburbia). I can attest that were I looking for a new salesperson I could hardly find anyone with a more fitting skill-set than a good teacher. To a great extent, teaching is salesmanship. As for police -- small towns do not have the criminal syndicates that can bribe a crooked cop whose inadequate pay makes him vulnerable to the inducement of getting paid well for not busting the illegal profiteers off vice. Big cities and suburbs must pay well to keep good teachers and to keep their cops honest. 

Let us also remember that, as Eric says, there is no monolithic capitalist class. The slumlord gets a nearly-passive return on investment as the investment physically rots. Real-estate interests are among the most reactionary interests in American life (aside perhaps from those who extract resources including energy). If the impresarios of intellectual property depend upon well-educated and creative people, the real estate interests can simply charge such well-educated and creative people exorbitant rents. The big money in Silicon Valley does not enrich software engineers; it enriches the landlords of those software engineers above all else. The software engineers simply become the conduit of wealth going to landlords.  

The difference between rural America and urban America (and Suburbia has largely lost the rural characteristics that it once had) is that few people in rural America (unless you are speaking of ski-resort communities or the like) pay rents that take half or more of their income. Trump is a wealthy landlord above all else, someone who is the most rapacious capitalist that most people know in high-income urban areas but who are not so present in rural America. Unlike the capitalist who in fact innovates in technology or services, Trump has never been successful except as a real-estate baron or as a creator of schlock entertainment. Semi-literate people in rural America may love his superficial, mind-numbing schlock, but well-educated people despise it. (Know well: education and hours of TV watching are inversely related. It may be crude to call television the "Idiot Screen". but in general such fits.