cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/25218510
THIS IS NOT A TROLL. I’d like a deeper dive into this as a black man.
For context, I’ve voted Democratic my entire life, same with my family & most of my friends, including most of my white friends. We tend to agree on the obvious issues in American politics like lobbyist & foreign affairs. But we continue to vote Democratic because we see it as the best way forward for progress compared to the GOP.
But my question is why are white people specifically so strong for the GOP? It seems like no matter which election you look at post civil rights, the GOP either comfortably wins the white vote, or narrowly wins it. Despite issues like the war on drugs, early 90s recession, war on terror, mortgage crisis, Trump’s abysmal response to COVID, cuts to Social Secuirty, Tax Cuts for the Rich, etc. It seems like the white electorate always backs Republicans in big numbers. No matter what.
You could say the same for black people and the Democratic Party, but we are a far smaller voting base that can’t really decide elections outside of a state like Georgia (I live in Chicago). But also, the Dems aren’t perfect, I don’t expect any political party to be, but their track record and policy positions work much better for the common man to me.
Obviously there’s a large contingent of white voters who greatly represent the progressive movements on the left more than any other group, but they’re vastly outnumbered by their Republican counterparts. And Trump did worse with white women in 2024 more than any Republican has post-civil rights.
TLDR; Why does it seem like no matter what Republicans do, white voters who always give them a large amount of support? If Dems held policy positions and had the rhetoric of the modern day Republican Party, I doubt black people would support them.
One party is offering the status quo of a continuous decline in quality of life, the other offers an attractive fairy tale about an ideological war where you (white men) are the ubermensch (gigachad) victims who will get their vengeance.
I don’t know, it really seems the opposite to me.
In the first reign of terror I read an interview with a few people from West Virginia. They all remembered “the good old days”, when Coal was hiring and you could earn good pay for hard work. However they did admit to understanding the health impact, they did admit to realizing the downturn was long term, instead of more recent environmental concerns. Trump represented holding on tight to what little they had left, rather than more scary change. Then they even admitted to understanding some of the spite, malice, and harm Trump represented, but that’s ok because they were frustrated and that malice would hit someone else