cyclonefence
cyclonefence's JournalWho voted for Trump?
from https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/10/the-first-white-president-ta-nehisi-coates/537909/
Asserting that Trump’s rise was primarily powered by cultural resentment and economic reversal has become de rigueur among white pundits and thought leaders. But evidence for this is, at best, mixed. In a study of preelection polling data, the Gallup researchers Jonathan Rothwell and Pablo Diego-Rosell found that “people living in areas with diminished economic opportunity” were “somewhat more likely to support Trump.” But the researchers also found that voters in their study who supported Trump generally had a higher mean household income ($81,898) than those who did not ($77,046). Those who approved of Trump were “less likely to be unemployed and less likely to be employed part-time” than those who did not. They also tended to be from areas that were very white: “The racial and ethnic isolation of whites at the zip code level is one of the strongest predictors of Trump support.”
An analysis of exit polls conducted during the presidential primaries estimated the median household income of Trump supporters to be about $72,000. But even this lower number is almost double the median household income of African Americans, and $15,000 above the American median. Trump’s white support was not determined by income. According to Edison Research, Trump won whites making less than $50,000 by 20 points, whites making $50,000 to $99,999 by 28 points, and whites making $100,000 or more by 14 points. This shows that Trump assembled a broad white coalition that ran the gamut from Joe the Dishwasher to Joe the Plumber to Joe the Banker. So when white pundits cast the elevation of Trump as the handiwork of an inscrutable white working class, they are being too modest, declining to claim credit for their own economic class. Trump’s dominance among whites across class lines is of a piece with his larger dominance across nearly every white demographic. Trump won white women (+9) and white men (+31). He won white people with college degrees (+3) and white people without them (+37). He won whites ages 18–29 (+4), 30–44 (+17), 45–64 (+28), and 65 and older (+19). Trump won whites in midwestern Illinois (+11), whites in mid-Atlantic New Jersey (+12), and whites in the Sun Belt’s New Mexico (+5). In no state that Edison polled did Trump’s white support dip below 40 percent. Hillary Clinton’s did, in states as disparate as Florida, Utah, Indiana, and Kentucky. From the beer track to the wine track, from soccer moms to nascar dads, Trump’s performance among whites was dominant. According to Mother Jones, based on preelection polling data, if you tallied the popular vote of only white America to derive 2016 electoral votes, Trump would have defeated Clinton 389 to 81, with the remaining 68 votes either a toss-up or unknown.
Flood insurance and Health insurance for all
Right now, federal flood insurance is not mandatory for people living in flood-prone areas, and it is very expensive because only people (who can afford it) who are most vulnerable pay for flood insurance. People living in the flood plain where flooding is not frequent or severe probably do not feel they need this expensive insurance--premiums might cost more than the repair costs.
Making it mandatory to have flood insurance if you live in the flood plain, no matter how great your personal risk is, lowers premiums for everybody by pooling risk. Some people will benefit more than other people when it floods, but everyone would be covered, and it benefits the group for everyone to be able to afford repairs. Hence imo flood insurance for all in the flood plain makes a lot of sense.
Spreading the risk for medical costs works the same way. Some will end up paying more in premiums than they otherwise would, but all would be covered. The group--our country--benefits when all its citizens receive health care.
Whether it's fine-tuning ACA or single-payer, the larger the risk pool, the better off we all are.
I caught a few seconds of HRC on TV this morning
I have avoided seeing her interviews--my pain is too raw--but in just those few seconds I saw something that really bothered me. She was talking about the MSM's part in her defeat, and I knew exactly what she was talking about and I know she's right. She was treated unimaginably unfairly and until the very end of the campaign DT's every lie and slander was reported with little or no fact-checking, while Emails and Benghazi drums were beaten nonstop. So I'm on her side on this.
The trouble is, she doesn't communicate well (in certain, important, situations, anyway), and it truly sounded like she was blaming the media for her loss. She wasn't; she was pointing out the role of the media in the election and suggesting that some introspection on MSM's part might be a good idea before the next election. But it sounded like blaming.
It just breaks my heart.
Trigeminal Neuralgia?
Anybody with experience? My ENT suspects I have it but needs to clear up a massive sinus infection before addressing it. I was devastated to learn on the internet this morning that it's a chronic condition. The shooting, lightning-strike pain is damn near unbearable.
About my husband and the gun
We were just about to leave to visit a sick friend. I was sitting here reading DU, and he announced--after we'd been talking about the possible repercussions from the pardon of Arpaio--that he thought we ought to get an automatic weapon, maybe an AK-47. I posted in shock--my husband is totally anti-gun--and then had to leave. I should have held that thought and posted more fully when we got back.
I'm really not a drama queen, and I'm sorry I behaved like one.
I am worried sick, but not because I'm afraid of my husband.
My husband is so concerned about the Arpaio pardon
that he wants to buy a gun, and I'm scared shitless. We live in a neighborhood with several vocal Trump supporters, and we're worried.
I edited this post because my original post, sent in haste, has given folks the wrong idea about my situation. I'm sorry for the confusion.
I saw a lout on CNN talking about
not being a racist but only wanting to "preserve my white heritage." I'd like to know what the hell his "heritage" is. My family fought for the confederacy (Edgar's Battalion, Virginia) and they owned slaves. I know they owned slaves because I have wills bequeathing living human beings to my predecessors. I am ashamed of my heritage and wish it could be obliterated from the earth.
I have a suspicion that the "white heritage" this guy wants to preserve is more my heritage than his own, and I want him to know I don't want his help in this matter.
My father was a college student
when he saw Nazis marching on the newsreels at the movies, and he knew what he had to do. He didn't get a permit; he enlisted in the Army Air Corps and dropped bombs from his B-17 on those fuckers in Berlin, in Peenemunde, in Dresden. He saw and did things no 19-year-old should have to see or do, but he did them because he recognized the Nazis for what they were and knew they had to be stopped.
The college students (and college-age young people) who marched with their tiki torches, who beat defenseless people almost to death, who murdered a young woman for no reason other than she was there--when I compare them to what my father was at their age, I weep.
"Fire and fury" is from the failing New York Times
back in April, writing about the missile attack on Syria:
Nothing drowns out scandal like the fire and fury of 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/07/opinion/the-riddle-of-trumps-syria-attack.html?_r=0
His addition of "power" is prefaced by the words "and frankly" which is what he says when he goes off-script--a verbal tell, if you will.
"Abortion rights" are not about abortions, and "Freedom of Choice" isn't about choosing
What many on the right do not understand is that *no one* makes the decision to end a pregnancy joyfully. Fighting against a woman's right to make this decision implies that women are not smart enough, or thoughtful enough, or sensitive enough to understand the moral weight of what they are doing, and that is insupportable.
It maddens me when anyone doesn't understand that being "pro-choice" isn't about abortions; it's about respecting the fact that women are adults as capable of understanding what they are doing as men are, whether it's having an abortion or buying a gun.
The RW bangs its head against the wall of "It's murder! It's murder" as if women don't understand what they are doing.
And don't tell me you are "personally" opposed to abortion--well, who the hell isn't? For Glob's sake, who would want to go through an abortion *unless* there was a fucking overwhelmingly good reason to do so? "Pro-lifers" deny that women are capable of deciding what reason is sufficient--again, whether it's to have an abortion or to get a divorce.
If you are "personally opposed" to abortion--good for you, join the rest of the world. Nobody wants to be in a position to decide whether or not to have an abortion, and your announcing your own "personal" moral superiority doesn't mean shit. I don't care how you feel in your heart about abortion; either you are for accepting that women are adult human beings or you are not.
That's what makes abortion rights the most important--and clearest--litmus test I can think of.
"Pro-lifers" employ all kinds of smokescreens to hide the real motivation behind their efforts to infantilize women--forcing them to watch videos of fetuses because women of course don't understand that there is the beginnings of a baby in there; "protecting" women by imposing impossible conditions on abortion clinics to have facilities comparable to a full-service hospital; making it as hard as possible to get to an abortion provider; insisting on humiliating, invasive "testing" before an abortion can be approved; propagandizing out the wazoo--the list goes on. Common to all of them is the underlying belief that women just don't know any better.
Well, fuck that.
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