Why have some decided the only way to improve the party [View all]

[BainsBane]

Is to cater to white male Republican voters? Why do they require special attention? What about the million or so disenfranchised voters of color across the nation, many of whom lost access to the vote following the repeal of Article 5 of the Voting Rights Act and Republican state governments closing polling locations in communities of color?

Exit polls show that Trump won roughly the same percentage of white voters as Romney did, but the turnout among voters of color was down. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/09/behind-trumps-victory-divisions-by-race-gender-education/ That is particularly true in areas where state governments restricted access to the vote. Most of the key states in the 2016 election were run by Republican governors and Republican Secretaries of State: Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, and Florida. All of them underwent purges of the registered voter lists, shorter poll hours, fewer voting days, and/or fewer voting locations.

Yet self-described progressives insist that the focus should be on the white working class, while making no mention of the problem of disenfranchisement. Why? Is it because they take their lead from a politician who has traditionally relied overwhelmingly on white voters for his electoral wins? Is it because of an implicit, unconscious bias that white male voters matter more? They just don't think about disenfranchised voters because they don't know any? Is it because they want to see the party whiter, like in the days they insist the party was so much better than today? Or is it something else?

Certainly the Democratic Party can try to appeal to voters of all races, but not if they are continually told what matters are Trump-voting white males. The discussion has been almost exclusively about 50-80,000 white voters. The election was only a few months ago. The Trump voters have their man in the White House. Polls indicate that Trump is enormously popular with them. His approval ratings among Republicans are higher than Ronald Reagan's were! So why do Trump voters need special attention from Democrats now? Why should they be in red districts campaigning now, when they have work to do in congress, when they need to represent their constituents dealing with the Trump regime's racist policies?

Would social justice not require us to direct our attentions to the victims of Trump's policies rather than those who see themselves as beneficiaries? I submit it is not the white male Trump voters who are being neglected but the migrant families ripped apart by immigration raids and the Muslim ban; the victims of hate crimes; and the communities that face the brunt of the worst of Trump's actions. Morality, basic decency, requires standing up for the poor and oppressed.