Why Some White Liberals Will Probably Vote For Donald Trump. (HuffPo)

[brush]

A new study demonstrates that racist dog whistles work.

Trump has made overtly racist statements, such as calling immigrants rapists, murderers and invaders. But he has also used coded language, describing Black Americans as living in filthy urban hellholes. In his inaugural address, he lamented “mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities,” and pledged to “get our people off of welfare and back to work.”

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/white-liberals-racism-trump_n_5d5aaec5e4b056fafd0f07e1

[lark]

1. No true "liberal" would ever even consider voting for drumpf or not voting at all.

You have your Jill Stein purists, but they are really phonies and are not real liberals because they only care about themselves and are willing to hurt the working class and the ideals of our country for their personal purity.

[jcgoldie]

2. If they are voting for Trump and inspired by racism...

Then how can they be categorized as "liberals"?

[Proud Liberal Dem]

12. Exactly my thought

This piece- even the headline- makes no sense.

[lagomorph777]

22. Wierd concept of "Liberal"

Bizarre they thought they could sell that nonsense.

[hlthe2b]

3. F_K HuffPo for continuing to propogate this Bullshit. No real progressive nor those who

WOULD ACTUALLY go on to vote for a DEM/Progressive thinks like this. I'm really tired of the conflation.

[blm]

4. Same page as you. This is bullshit.

Ever see an article where they report on Rightwingers voting for liberal candidates?

[Bettie]

5. If they would ever consider voting for him

they are NOT liberals at all and never have been.

[Act_of_Reparation]

6. Is there anything better than the HuffPo?

Where else can you get your daily dose of existential dread and get an incredible deal on non-gmo organic free-range toilet paper?

[comradebillyboy]

23. ++++++++++

[Hortensis]

7. "Racially resentful liberals represent about 3 percent of the population."

Sounds about right. Of course not all of that 3% did or would vote for Trump. There are a number of big-button issues.

"...or some 10 million people. And it only took 100,000 votes in three states to seal the Electoral College for Trump in 2016. “They might be a small group,” Wetts said, “but they’re really important politically.”

Only, what the hell is "racial resentment?" Turns out to be relatively new term that reflects attitudes toward racial policies. It makes sense that measures of it would soar (currently supposedly all the way to 3% in liberals) in times of great generalized anxiety, such as now, when positive reactions such as generosity and kindness tend to be to some degree replaced with fear, self protectiveness,...and resentment. Obviously, it doesn't manifest nearly as much on the left as the right.

White racial resentment – a form of new racial prejudice – is associated with opposition to a broad range of racial policies but its nature remains unclear. Resentment could derive from racial prejudice or stem from ideological principles – two very different bases for white opposition to contemporary racial policy.

...racial resentment means different things to liberals and conservatives. Among liberals, racial resentment conveys the political effects of racial prejudice and is better predicted by overt measures of racial prejudice than among conservatives. Among conservatives, racial resentment appears more ideological. It is closely tied to opposition to race-conscious programs regardless of recipient race and is only weakly tied to measures of overt prejudice.

Racial resentment, therefore, is not a clear-cut measure of racial prejudice for all Americans and we suggest that researchers explore other ways in which to assess the political effects of racial prejudice across the ideological spectrum.

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download;jsessionid=51F4254A339D67330163ABC11F1A9FBE?doi=10.1.1.528.3606&rep=rep1&type=pdf

[IdealsAndReal42]

20. +1

When you exchange with those voters, what often is brought up is that they feel disfranchised by pols who seems to turn their attention to diverse electorate, living in globalized cities, and they somewhat feel ostracized from the globalization. Some of them are also low income people, so they really don't identify as white privileged. Their skin color is not systematically favoring their lives.

[Hortensis]

52. Right. Although liberals aren't the ones who usually come to mind

when resentment of more attention to others, greater competition for disappearing jobs, frequent denigration of white people, etc., are mentioned, of course some are going to be unhappy. Thinking about it, in this era it's surprising it's only 3%.

[Recursion]

67. Remind me how close Pennsylvania was? (nt)

[Hortensis]

69. At less than 100K a lot less than 3%?

She is making the point that this matters in these days when states and nations are often won and lost by razor-thin margins.

[Zambero]

8. Oh yeah, there's Susan Sarandon. Anyone else?

The sole criteria for this "demographic" would be the means to sit back sip select wine from a palatial estate with a prime but secured view of minions engaging in the long-sought revolution unfurling in the streets below.

(no sarcasm, none needed)

[brush]

9. Yeah, what happened to that revolution she promised if trump won?

[Voltaire2]

19. That isn't what they are reporting.

There were in fact Obama voters who switched to Trump, and we ignore them and why they did this at our peril.

So go ahead and bash Sarandon, but that ain’t the problem.

[Zambero]

25. They are not "white liberals" by any stretch

They were mostly independent voters some of who had voted for Obama, a few culturally conservative blue-collar Democrats, and some theretofore non-voters inspired by Trump's rhetoric promising more manufacturing jobs and trade policy reform. By definition and exclusion as well, anyone supporting Trump or his policies cannot be liberal, posers notwithstanding. Susan Sarandon seems to be a prime example of one who takes up the "revolutionary" mantle, then proceeds to precipitate a divide-and-conquer approach while watching it all blow up come election time, and then sits back while taking in all the targeted tax breaks that her wealth affords her. She has much to Thank Trump for. I'm sure she was one happy camper on election night in 2016.

[IdealsAndReal42]

28. And the same goes with all the RW populist wawes in the Western World.

In France, at 2017 presidency, le Pen could count on voters who had cast a François Hollande ballot in 2012. And a Segolene Royal one in 2007. And so on.
But they all explained why. Economical fears induced by both immigration, digital society and globalization. Desindustrualisation. Losing basic services in remote areas while millions are invested in the globalized cities's suburbs for equipment, the collective trauma of 2015-2016 terror attacks, a global sens of unsafety in cities (epidemical knife attacks, street harassment...).
Those are concerned that touch every day's life. It's a fault from pols to turn a blind eye on it, or pretend it doesn't exist, and this opens golden avenue to the far right they pretend to be fighting against.
The more those people will feel neglected, the more it will open golden avenues to far right, at the peril of everyone.

[Voltaire2]

45. Right. So offering more of the same

as an alternative to right wing populism is ushering in global fascism.

If we do not provide an alternative, if we run candidates like Biden and Clinton, we are taking a risk of repeating the disaster of 2016.

[IdealsAndReal42]

46. Every left in every country has to do this job

Running candidates who goes back reaching to the white working class as much as they appeal to diverse and multicultural groups, and say ti them that they matter too for their country.

[Arkansas Granny]

10. I don't know a single liberal who does not loathe and despise Trump. I can't see any liberals or

Democrats voting for him.

[Farmer-Rick]

11. Where have these Dixicrats been the last 50 years?

As far as I can tell, the racist Dems moved over to the RepubliCON party over 50 years ago, when Dems passed the civil rights act.

[Zambero]

13. Mississippi went 87% for Goldwater in '64 against LBJ

despite his being swamped nationally in an electoral and popular vote landslide. The Voting Rights Act had not yet been enacted, so that would have been an early indicator of "southern white backlash" following the Civil RIghts Act earlier that year. And that year Sen. Strom Thurmond became the first of many Dixiecrats to switch allegiance to the GOP. Johnson predicted that the previously "solid south" would indeed solidify for the GOP for another 40 years. And that has proven to be a very small-c conservative estimate, only to be slowly remedied by shifting demographics. Virginia was the first. Others (Texas, Georgia, Florida, North Carolina) show signs of coming around, the sooner the better, voter suppression efforts notwithstanding.

[IdealsAndReal42]

14. I'll be forced to agree with the poster.

Sadly, it has happened, and it will happen again, and not only in US.
Far and wide the western world, you have this white working class/disfranchised middle class voters facing poverty and unemployment that had voted left, liberal, progressive parties for decades, from generations to generations and are now turning, although against their interests, to RW, because they felt the left has abandoned them, and even somewhat reject them, claiming they are "the old nation". So it creates deep resentment. It's that resentments that, for instance, led to the Yellow Vests movement in France.

[brush]

15. We also saw it in 2016 when some former Obama voters switched to trump because of so-called...

economic anxiety (translation: they succumbed to racist dog whistles).

[Meadowoak]

34. Many of the ones that voted for Obama, then voted Trump were likely

In the best financial shape of their lives. Maybe having some cash to invest, they thought Trump would create a better climate for investing.

[brush]

37. That's was kinda dumb though since O had saved the economy and bought the Dow from 7500...

to nearly 20,000. And they apparently fell for trump's okey doke and "Apprentice-enhanced" image which belied his actual business history of several bankruptcies and business failures, including losing money running casinos.

Casinos? How do you do that?

[NewJeffCT]

62. He lost money at casinos

because he was laundering money for mobsters - first local ones, then Russian

[brush]

68. It's still a casino. If ran correctly you shouldn't lose money even if you launder some.

Laundering money is as old as the casino industry and mobsters don't want a casino going out of business they can launder money through. .

I lived in NY at the time and my wife and I used to take those casino-sponsored junket buses down from the city and observed trump's casino empire grow then implode. First of all he spent way too much on building the junky, plastic-ky looking Taj Mahal monstrosity. Then he bought 3 more casinos, one from Playboy, thereby cannibalizing his own interests. He competed against himself.

trump was/is just a poor businessman, as attested to by his many other business failures.

[jcgoldie]

16. This is bull

The people you are talking about feel resentment because of racism and the perceived loss of white privilege not because of "economic anxiety" or abandonment by the Democratic Party. If that were the case they would not be voting against their own economic interests as you pointed out.

[brush]

17. Agreed. "Economic anxiety" was being to kind to those whose barely under-the-surface racism surfaced

And they then voted for trump's on-the-surface racism.

[IdealsAndReal42]

18. Some of those people I talk about are fighting unemployment.

Others are living in (for France) rural areas stripped from their basic public services. Others went through periods of homelessness. That's not what I would call "white privilege", although yes they don't suffer ostracisme based on race. They are class ostracized.

[comradebillyboy]

21. Huffpo and Salon are not our allies. They push the

Democrats in disarray line even more than the New York Times or Chuck Toad. Proud hosts to H A Goodman and Walter Bragman among others.

[brush]

24. I don't disagree. My post is sort of a cautionary one to remind us not to try to appeal to the...

lost white, working class voters who haven't voted Democratic for several presidential cycles now (not to be confused with the so-called "economic anxiety-challenged", once-Obama voters who went over to the dark side in 2016 for trump).

[comradebillyboy]

27. I feel the same way about the Stein voters like Sarandon

and Turner. Those folks are not the friends or allies of Democrats either. Green= getting republicans elected every November.

[Freethinker65]

26. Don't believe everything you read on the internet.

[Downtown Hound]

29. If you vote for Trump, you're no liberal. n/t

[Iliyah]

30. I call bullshit . . .

If they vote for shithole, they are not liberal, simple fact.

[brush]

33. Of course. But do you think some fool themselves into thinking they're liberals but aren't really...

like the so-called "economic anxiety-challenced", once-Obama voters who went for trump in 2016?

[spanone]

31. NO liberal will vote for him. If they do, they are not a liberal.

[Aristus]

32. Yeah, no.

If you vote for Trump, you are, by definition, not a liberal.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

35. I think it's important for people to acknowledge that being a liberal or a Democrat doesn't mean

you're not racist. We live in a white racist hegemony. It's impossible not to pick it up; we're soaking in it. Anti-racist work is vital both within and without the party, and I haven't seen a whole lot beyond reading diversity statements at the beginning of meetings. Reckoning with our own internalized racism is a constant battle, and yes, some white liberals and Democrats will definitely respond to racist messages, coded and uncoded.

[ismnotwasm]

36. Thank you.

[brush]

38. Wise words.

[Turin_C3PO]

41. It's one thing to have

deeply held, unconscious assumptions about race that most of us have. It’s another thing to be a self aware racist. I argue the latter, by definition, is not a liberal.

[brush]

43. Yep, self-aware racists know who they are whereas some fool themselves and are unaware and thus...

susceptible to dog whistles.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

44. No true Scotsman, eh?

Saying that a true liberal isn't racist is the flip side of someone saying they can't be racist because they have a black friend.

[Turin_C3PO]

48. Question.

Do you know any out and proud racists who identify as liberal? I don’t. I’m not saying there aren’t a few but they’re statistically minuscule. Keep in mind that I’m NOT saying that some liberals aren’t susceptible to racist rhetoric, if couched in certain terms. Just saying that I’ve never seen an open racist call themselves liberal.

[Caliman73]

58. That is the point. People who consider themselves Liberal aren't "out and proud".

They are people who generally hold liberal ideas about freedom of ideas and some sense of general welfare. If they are White however, they are still susceptible to the idea that "too much" is being given to racial minorities. They can support integration of schools but just not their neighborhood school.

I experienced that first hand in my progressive city when our school district proposed closing schools. We fought hard to keep our neighborhood school open and were successful, but the very allies in doing so turned and turned in an ugly way, when the plan turned from keeping our school open to keeping our school open and absorbing a large percentage of poorer Latino students from the school that closed.

The article is based on a study that was done in a peer reviewed journal. The subjects were people who identified as Liberal. The results are that you can hold liberal beliefs about many different things but when it comes to the very deeply ingrained ideas about race, those liberal ideals can sometimes take a back seat.

It is an area of discomfort for many White people who identify themselves as liberals or progressives but it exists.

I am a person of color, but I still have to consciously battle against the racial attitudes that were taught to me by my family, my community, and society in general. I have members of my own family who are people of color, who were immigrants or born to immigrants, who hold ideas that are contrary to my own.

We are all susceptible to rhetoric that may align with certain values that we are not proud of, that we may not even be consciously aware of.

[jpak]

39. What a shitshow of a thread

[brush]

40. Tell us how you really feel.

[MrScorpio]

42. I'm not surprised about these results in the least

I’m also not surprised that some on the left want to face this issue

[Atticus]

47. HuffPo forgot to credit their source: MSU-----------

"Makin' Shit Up ".

[pwb]

49. Racist white liberals? Can you use that in a sentence please? definition please?

A reminder why i stoped reading that garbage many years ago.

[brush]

50. It's said that former Obama voters in 3 mid-western states voted for trump and tilted the EC to him

How's that? The reason for this post is a cautionary tale to not succumb to tribalism and dog whistles. It happens.

[pwb]

51. Its said ha? o k then.

As long as it was said.

[Jakes Progress]

53. I do not think that word means what you think it means.

That writer needs to look up the word "liberal".

Voting for donald trump automatically disqualifies you as a liberal.

[brush]

54. It's not my word, it's from the posted article. I contend though that some fool themselves into...

thinking they are liberals but succumb to dog whistles, or as some put it, economic anxiety, as if Obama's economy wasn't expanding well from the ditch he inherited from W Bush.

It's said those former Obama voters switched to trump in 3 mid-western states and swung the EC to trump.

[Jakes Progress]

70. I was referring to the article.

The author doesn't know what he is talking about.

[not_the_one]

55. bullshit. clickbait.

n/t

[brush]

59. Not all together (see former O voters in midwest who tilted the EC to trump). It happens.

[Onyrleft]

56. 3%? That's about the same percentage of people

commenting on this post who read the article.

[brush]

60. You nailed it.

[MFM008]

57. Garbage

Utter crap.

[brush]

61. Really? See the midwest former Obama voters who succumbed to alleged "economic anxiety".

IMO what they really succumbed to was the trump racist dog whistles which their under-the-surface racism responded to.

"Economic anxiety", my ass.

[MFM008]

64. they were never Liberals

....................

[brush]

65. Of course not, but they might've fooled themselves inot thinking so since they had voted for O.

[harumph]

63. Any "liberal" that votes for shithead - isn't a liberal.

My former republican sister-in-law despises him. Anyone with any intelligence or decency has
abandoned him.

[Vinca]

66. The highlighted section is the reason? I'd say that was a reason white racists would vote for him

and I can't imagine any liberal being a white racist.

[LiberalFighter]

71. I question the supposed sociology professors that conducted the survey.