I had an interesting discussion with a patient yesterday who is a black conservative.

[tblue37]

66. No, it is simply astonishing when we encounter members of groups that

the GOP's policies and political maneuvres are deliberately designed to harm who nevertheless support the GOP, and not only support the GOP, but especially support the specific policies or tactics aimed at harming *them*.

As a poor man with neither home nor health insurance, the man referenced in the OP belongs to a group harmed by GOP policies, yet he supports precisely the policies and attitudes that prevent him and others like him from earning a livable wage *despite* working hard and *not* freeloading at all.

As a black man, he supports a party filled with open racists who are not only *not* reigned in by party leaders and mouthpieces (Limbaugh, Coulter, etc.) when they openly express virulent racism, but are actively *encouraged*, sometimes somewhat subtly with dog whistles and sometimes much more blatantly, to hate blacks and other minorities.

The same open hatred is expressed by the base and encouraged by GOP leaders and mouthpieces against women, Latinos, gays and others who are not heteronormative. That is why we recoil in astonishment when members of those groups support the GOP, and even more when they support policies that harm *them* specifically--like women who believe women should earn less than men or be blocked from certain career paths; Latino immigrants who support vicious deportation policies that destroy families or uproot children who have never lived anywhere but here or spoken any language but English; Log Cabin Republicans who support the party that wants to deprive them of virtually all civil rights--etc.

Race, gender, sexuality, socioeconomic status, ethnicity--all these things are relevant to whether we find a person's support of the GOP or of its policies, attutudes, or tactics appallingly anomalous or not. We find these things appalling anyway, but we find them astonishing and anomalous when they are supported by the very people who are harmed and who are *meant* to be harmed by them.