The GOP’s Race Problem

Elrod,

Uh they forgot the chitlins and collard greens- maybe the sickos ran out of room on their food stamp. Seriously, I saw this tonite on Olbermann-- and thought it was the most disgusting ad yet- even worse than the ad from Sacramento that suggested there was no difference btwn Osama and Obama so why not waterboard??

Is there any wonder why African-Americans vote 90% of the time for Democrats???

McCain- I am waiting for you to own up to your campaigns repulsive actions- pls don't insult us by telling us you had no idea these were circulating!!

This kind of racist crap is why I no longer consider voting for Republicans.

man oh man, you'd think it was the early 20th century instead of the 21st! i'm just waiting for the minstrel shows to break out.

just ... wow.

Onley one

And McCain got all self-righteous about Lewis comparing him to George Wallace???? How can he pretend he's repudiated all of the nasty attacks on Obama??

If I was better with my computer, I'd copy and paste that food stamp ad and send it with a withering complaint to his website instead of the donations they are hoping for.

I have seen nothing on this level in campaign ads against McCain- tho I admit the Dems do distort his positions.

kritt11 said: "... I'd copy and paste that food stamp ad..."

kritt11, Just 'right click' on the picture and select "Save Image as..." the picture will be yours. :-)

I'm not sure that you have the causal connection going the correct direction. The problem is this: blacks and hispanics who vote Democrat do so for one reason, getting more free stuff. The welfare state has been many things, and one of them over the past several decades has been a continuous transfer of social resources from whites to blacks. I'm not complaining, just noting the reality of the facts.

As society gets less and less religious, outside of a general spiritualist feeling, there is simply no reason for blacks and hispanics to vote Republican at all, as the Republicans will never be able to outbid Democrats for black and hispanic votes. Blacks will be voting in the 95 percent range for Democrats for many decades, if not generations. There are both cultural and material reasons for this. Voting patterns in lower-class populations tend to be based on heuristics and cultural markers rather than analyzing policy positions. Also, the black illegitimacy rate is 70 percent and what is good social infrastructure for single mothers is far different for two parent families.

And the hispanic illegitimacy rate just passed 55 percent and is steadily climbing. Additionally, hispanics have a large culturally-affinitous government sitting just over the border whose explicit policies involve exporting their huddled masses to the United States. Add to this a block whose language is spanish and you're looking at a voting bloc more monolithic than blacks. As the Singaporean PM YK Lee noted, in multi-ethnic body-politics people make cause with their ethnicity rather than their class or religion.

No, the Mexican vote is likely to be even more monolithic than is the black vote. The kicker is that 13% of all US births last year were to UNMARRIED hispanic women under 30.

So, add in the fact that socially and financiall powerful Jews (not at all anti semitic here) place another two percent to locked-up democratic vote and you're looking at 25 to 30 percent of the voting public that is completely off-limits to voting GOP by about 2012, they will vote Democrat almost to a person.

By 2016 the GOP will probably need to capture 70 percent of the non-jewish white vote in order to even be competitive nationally, much less win anything.

Good luck with that.

My point is what you're seeing are people who are seeing the end of the American MIddleclass, and they see no salvation.

Good grief. You laugh at that kind of stuff coming from Dave Chappelle when it's meant as a joke, not when it's ignorant and bigoted like this.

I can't believe I have to share a planet let alone a country with people like this!

AsherJ,

what is interesting is how the changing demogrpahics of the U.S. are affecting internal migration patterns, the total number of whites in California is decreasing because of the low quality of life for middle class whites. If you are rich and white, you can afford to offset the problems caused by unlimited immigration. If you are middle class or blue collar whites, you are prey.

Even red states like Texas will eventually become strongly Democratic because of the growing Hispanic population and white flight to states further north.

Another affect of the growing black and Hispanic population will probably be an accelereation of the decreasing white birthrate. As more places become unlivable for blue collar and middle class whites and is the cost of living in urban areas increases for upper middle class whites, the white birthrate will decrease at a very fast rate.

The real question is who will the U.S. when it has the demographics of Brazil and the politics of Mexico.

Asher,
That is one of the more trite and bogus analyses I've seen in a long time. Only blacks and Hispanics vote for "more free stuff?" What is all the tax cut stuff all about then from the Republicans? Is that not also an attempt by wealthier whites to get more free money? Of course, they interpret it as "keeping their hard-earned money," but the reality is that there are so many government subsidies throughout the economy that the wealthy really do profit off of some kind of governmental intervention. And since, well, we all really do have to pay taxes, and no more than about 5% of the national budget actually goes toward programs targeted solely toward the poor, the upper middle class white population gets plenty back for their buck from the government. They just want to pay less because, like everybody else, they're selfish.

Look, everybody is selfish. Lower-class minorities are no more selfish than wealthier whites.

The real question is why do lower class whites often vote Republican - and WHERE do they vote Republican. It so happens that in states with a tradition of unionism lower class whites vote evenly between Democratic and Republican. All of the polls from PA, OH, MI and elsewhere in the Rust Belt show Obama tied with or ahead among white voters, including working class whites.

It's the SOUTH where lower class whites overwhelmingly vote Republican. And it's because of a tradition of racial anxiety and herrenvolk democracy that goes back to the earliest days of slavery. The racial hierarchy promised lower class whites that they would always be ahead of the highest black. It was a psychological as well as an economic "wage of whiteness." And cultural references like the one above only reinforced the sense of superiority that whites felt. Come here to Tennessee and you'll hear some whites openly and apologetically refer to blacks as "coons."

There are and were certainly moments outside the South where this same herrenvolk democracy "ideal" applied as well - especially during moments of racial unrest and neighborhood change. George Wallace captured that sentiment well when he traveled north in 1968. Reagan captured it too with his "welfare queen" reference, and it looks like you've swallowed it hook, line and sinker. But that generation is, fortunately, dying off by now as a younger generation in the Midwest and the newer parts of the South (and West) grows up accustomed to racial diversity. They don't see it as "the blacks get everything from the whites."

Only fools believe it's still pre-1965, and only liars insist things really haven't changed.

Elrod,

I am not a Republican and I am not defending current/past GOP tax cuts (nor am I attacking them). For starters, you failed to address my presmise that the welfare state is a net transfer of social resources from whites to blacks and hispanics. This is not because "only because blacks and hispanics are selfish", everyone is, but because all social programs in a welfare state will consist of more productive populations supporting less productive ones. Let's take a hypothetical single mother of three who works 25 hours a week and earns 1200//year. She pays very little, if anything, in terms of net taxation after you factor in EITC, in RAW DOLLAR terms. However, the state spends 30 grand on her family just in education spending alone (at least in my state, Washington). There are also all sorts of social infrastructure like roads, police, fire department, etc. that are free for her to use.

Let me give a clean example of a country with two populations. The first group is 80% of the population but pays 100% of the taxes, while the second group is 20% of the population and pays zero taxes. Any public/social infrastructure will be a transfer of social resources from the first group to the second. This is why I use the term "social resources" because the overall social infrastructure that is consumed by blacks and hispanics is largely contributed to by whites. It isn't that minorities are selfish, but that the poor are most sensitive to tax rates, so there's no possible way to transfer money from blacks and hispanics to whites. Let's say you decide that for one year you institute a policy where 50 percent of the income of people earning less than 15 grand is taxed and spent on middleclass social programs. What would happen is that all those people woudl simply stop working. See, the problem is that blacks and hispanics contribute relatively little to the common good because under current regimes of social policy there's no way to manage to get them to contribute. Any attempt to for such contributions would result in their simply refusing to do anything. It's not that whites aren't selfish but that they have no way of forcing that selfishness by transferring social resoruces from blacks to themselves (because blacks largely don't contribute any social resoruces).

But let's take another look about your comment about tax cuts. Let's even accept the premise that tax cuts are giveaways. Who would that money be coming from? Blacks and hispanics? Impossible, as they pay little taxes, so even if tax cuts are giveaways they are still being paid for by white people.

The bottom line, which you failed to dispute, is that the welfare state has been, is, and always will be a net transfer of SOCIAL RESOURCES (schools, roads, hospitals, police, fire, etc) from whites to blacks and hispanics. And since people tend to vote based on incentives, the GOP will probably get around 5 percent of the black and hispanic vote for generations.

"But that generation is, fortunately, dying off by now as a younger generation in the Midwest and the newer parts of the South (and West) grows up accustomed to racial diversity. They don't see it as "the blacks get everything from the whites."

I'm from Seattle, so I can only examine data at arm's length. What I can say is that whatever people say is rather irrelevant because of the objective facts that clearly indicate that the welfare state transfers social resources from whites to blacks. Now this article, interestingly, began with a reference to Gunnar Myrdal, who also studied Jim Crow laws and found that southern whites explicitly knew that such laws hurt them economically but that the price was worth keeping black men from mating with white women. Yep, that's all that Jim Crow and the KKK were about: stopping black men and white women from having sex. BTW, there is a good deal of literature out there that seems to indicate that all behaviors that we call "racism" originates in male sexual competition.

And while we may disagree with the methods of the KKK, I do, their fears are grounded in basic reality. Black men marry white women at almost 3 to 1 ratios to white male and black female, cohabitation ratios are about 5.5 to 1, and "dating" is somewhere around 10 or even 15 to 1 depending on how the question is asked. And you can be sure that the white women who are selecting black men are not of the social class that marries corporate executives. The black male/white female sexual combination, in large numbers, significantly reduces the chances of lower-class white males in finding a mate. The fact that people in the South are more racial moral, for lack of a better term, simply comes from the fact that whites have managed to segregate themselve from blacks using social class rather than race, and because many white males have resigned themselves to genetic extinction in the mating market, so it no longer matters.

Finally, I would invite you to take a look at superdestroyer's post. We are looking at a country with the demographics of Brazil and the politics of Mexico. He points out that white people do not have children where there are large populations of NAMs (non-asian minorities) or where they cannot culturally segregate themselves from NAMs. Are you a Republican? If so here's an interesting dataplot
http://www.laboratoryofthestates.com/cgi-bin/co...
There is an r-square of .91 between the number of years a white women is married between 18 and 44 (childbearing) and the GOP margin of victory. Since whites don't ahve children unless they can culturally or geographically segregate themselves from NAMs (aka white flight) you need to figure out a way you can do this without offending people's sensibilities.

What we're looking at is a truly one-party system, because the GOP in its current incarnation is doomed.

Elrod,

Who are you? Are you simply a leftist coming here to crow about your impending triumph? Okay, whatever. Or are you a GOP partisan? If the latter, then I'd be interested in what sort of policies you think that the GOP could devise that would make it competitive with blacks and hispanics? And outbidding the Dems doesn't count because the Dems can always outbid the GOP.

http://www.myfoxorlando.com/myfox/pages/News/Po...

12 year old girl called "racist" at school simply for wearing a McCain/Palin shirt.

This idea of non-whites voting for democrats because-they-get-free-stuff is old and wornout BS . Anyone should be embarrassed to still be pushing such an ignorant concept. All you have to do is look at the civil rights history of America and the respective voting records of both major parties to understand why people vote the way they do. It's not a mystery, and it can't be chalked up to some paraniod, cynical backwoods philosophy either.

"By 2016 the GOP will probably need to capture 70 percent of the non-jewish white vote in order to even be competitive nationally, much less win anything."


Asher-- since the GOP no longer represents:

blacks, Hispanics, recent immigrants, the poor, the middle-class, the northeastern academic elites, Hollywood, gays and lesbians,peace activists, environmentalists, women who want to decide what to do with their own bodies. Muslim-Americans, labor union members, teachers, scientists etc etc etc-- it sounds as though they will be enjoying a permanent minority status or totally imploding.

By instituting the divisive and destructive campaigns and policies that are holding us back from facing our very real problems they have earned their own defeat- let them now take responsibility for it.

Both parties have their constituencies-- the GOP's is evangelical Christians,Wall Street, American exceptionalists, white males who are dissatisfied with affirmative action, the haves and have mores, the xenophobes and the homophobes. They pander to their constituency every bit as much as the Democrats do to theirs.

kritt,

Since 2000, the Democrats have been in front of Congress arguing that separate and unequal are not only legal under the doctrine of compelling interest but are really good public policy. See Gratz, Grutter, Seattle, and Louisville. Since 2000 the Democrats who run the executive branch in Viiginia have had to be reminded that they cannot have a high school program for young journalist that excludes whites.

when was the last time that the Replubicans were in front of the Supreme Court arguing that the government should be able to discriminate against blacks and in favor of whites?

There is no equivalent for race norming, racial quotas, affirmative action, 8A minority set aside contracting, CRA that could be consdidered goodies for whites. There is no program where the government rewards people for being whites. Also, the voting rights acts draws political boundries so that blacks and Hispanics have their own districts where only the most liberal blacks or Hispanics are elected. Even the civil service is a racial spoils system where blacks are overrepresented.

Asher,
I don't know which Asher I'm responding to. You posted two divergent comments in succession.

I'll just say this much. It's a myth that the working class (black, white or Latino) pays little or no taxes. They pay payroll taxes like everybody else. And because of their lower incomes, they are more sensitive to taxation than wealthier people whose lifestyles are less inhibited by taxation - even if they pay a higher percentage of their income in taxes. There is only so much a human being NEEDS to live. That's not to say that people should not be allowed to become wealthy. It's just to recognize that there is a basic survival threshold out there, which is why we have a progressive income tax in the first place. (The alternative is a flat tax with a huge "no tax" bracket at the lower end of the spectrum. The problem, again, is payroll taxes. But even this flat tax model would "redistribute" resources to the poor as the progressive system would.)

As for who I am, I'm a Democrat. I'm not crowing about any triumph because nothing has been won at this point. 18 days is a long way in politics and some trackers are showing slight tightening. This race will be closer than people think unless something else intervenes.

In fact, over the long term, I actually accept your and Superdestroyer's suggestion that demographics will destroy the Republican Party as we know it. I'm not going to concern troll here and say that that bothers me. But I am concerned that the Democratic Party will factionalize in the majority and allow the Republicans to re-emerge by picking off those hurt by whatever the Democrats do going forward.

But I'm also genuinely horrified by this flier and what it represents. OK, fine, so it commits the GOP into oblivion. But I live in the South and I know many people who think this way. And frankly I worry about how those folks will respond to becoming politically irrelevant. Hard-right, Southern white conservatives don't have a history of going quietly into the night. My church here in Knoxville was attacked by somebody who, among other grievances, thought his life was ruined by the "liberal movement."

The GOP needs to make it abundantly clear that rejecting fliers like this is not "political correctness," but a genuine response to real racism. Yes, the girl called a racist for wearing a McCain/Palin button is a real victim of political correctness. But the flier shows that, just as there is a poisonous hard-left element in the Democratic Party, there is also an old-fashioned bigotry in the GOP. And just as Democrats have had to purge the Al Sharptons in their party so must the GOP eliminate the residual racism coming to the fore in this campaign.

Well said kritt. Thats a good summary, and it also expains why the democrats have the bigger tent. This isn't about some paranoia-tinged, convuluted, race-based rationalizing. It's very simply about representation and democracy.

@JSpencer

This idea of non-whites voting for democrats because-they-get-free-stuff is old and wornout BS .

Excellent!! So, you're saying that you have the precise policy prescriptions that will woo black and hispanic voters to the GOP ... probably not or you'd have answered the challenge I'd issued in my last post.

All you have to do is look at the civil rights history of America and the respective voting records of both major parties to understand why people vote the way they do.

Times change. The reason blacks voted 50 years ago are completely different from how they vote today. And you're still not answering my challenge. Also, you're not actually explaining why people vote the way they do, just assuming that it's *sooooo* obvious that everyone should know. Your post isn't an analysis it's a moral condemnation of me for pointing out facts on the ground.

@kritt11

By instituting the divisive and destructive campaigns and policies that are holding us back from facing our very real problems they have earned their own defeat- let them now take responsibilitu for it.

I. AM. NOT. A. REPUBLICAN. I don't know if that statement is above your level of reading comprehension, or if something else is going on. What terrifies me is one-party rule, with a party of locked in voting demographics who are essentially bought off by that ruling party.

Both parties have their constituencies-- the GOP's is evangelical Christians,American exceptionalists, white males who are dissatisfied with affirmative action, the haves and have mores,

Basically, the married, childbearing middleclass (that is overwhelmingly white). When people of middle or upper incomes do not have children they vote Democrat; they also consign their country to demographic oblivion. Democrat pollster Stanley Greenberg has noticed this phenomenon and even he thinks it's a problem (and he doesnt bother to know the the stuff that I know). This country's future depends on the fortunes of the CLASS of people who vote Republican, i.e. the married, childbearing middleclass. This does not mean I am a proponent of current GOP policies or current GOP politicians and candidates.

But the decline of the GOP is due to the decline of the class of people that make the future of America possible, the married, childbearing middleclass.

xenophobes and the homophobes

I'm a rabid atheist. I don't give a rat's ass who is doing whom. However, I am also scientifically-minded, and by that I mean attempting to attribute natural explanations to everything. Marriage is an evolved social institution, it exists for a particular purpose, that to enforce social monogamy among heterosexuals. Why is that necessary? Well, because our species is naturally polygynous, and our natural rate of mating females to mating males is probably between 4 and 5 to 1. So, if heterosexual monogamy, which only exists because of social enforcement, collapses you're going to have to figure out what to do with those other 75 percent of men.

Homosexuality is, loosely, what we call genetic. I say loosely because it's a little more complicated than simply one gene that dictates whether one is gay or straight. But so is what you call homophobia, which is genetic reaction to the disruption in male sexual competition. And, as I pointed out above, what you're calling xenophobia is nothing more than different communities competing for sexual access (males) and community space to raise children (females). Basically, "homosexuality" is genetic, but so is "homophobia". It always blows my mind how so many people think homosexuality is natural, it is, but if you claim that anything else is natural, say variances in intelligence or sexual activity, these same people will bring holy hell on your head.

Basically, all the commentators here, but me, are coming to gloat over the demise of the GOP. Fine, I think the GOP is rather screwed up, but I don't think you're going to like one-party rule.

I need to present my challenge again: what policies will make the GOP competitive with blacks and hispanics. Put up or shut up, because if you can't answer this question then you're admitting, by default, that my basic analysis is correct and that it is hopeless for the GOP to try and win NAM votes.

Asher, you need to take a closer and more objective look at history if you want to understand why certain demographics vote the way they do. Just parroting old wornout talking points isn't going to make your case. There are many legitimate reasons why non-whites vote the way they do, and many of the newest reasons are simply based on a rejection of the modern day GOP - for obvious reasons I would think.

Thanks, JS

Asher- I don't like one-party rule either- especially when you look at recent history --2001-2006- when Congress no longer functioned as part of our system of checks and balances. However, since Republicans are imploding, there is no other way unless a new political party gains strength.

And btw- I can read so save your condescending comments. I don't care what party you are affiliated with- your arguments are bogus and antiquated.

kritt,

The Repulbicans have had 60 seats in the Senate. The Democrats voted for many of Bushes proposals because they were big government, big spending proposals that created more civil servants and created flows of money that could be siphoned off by core Democratic groups.

There is no reason for the big government big spending party to splinter. As long as the groups are each getting a portion of the goverment largess, they will keep voting Democratic. A good example are how elite progressive whites tolerate the CBC. Both groups stay in their own lane and try to avoid having anything to do with the other group.

@elrod

I'll just say this much. It's a myth that the working class (black, white or Latino) pays little or no taxes. They pay payroll taxes like everybody else.

"Working class", today, is a completely nonsense reference, although it did have some meaning during the Great Depression and before. Today, you have the upper class, middle class and underclass. I am "working class" in that I don't employ anyone, but I'm also self-employed and make some fairly decent money. "Working class" lumps in the disparate middleclass and underclass, who have widely divergent interests, and obliterates real factual differences. A self-employed contractor is "working class", and so is a migrant tomato-picker. But they have almost nothing in terms of objective common interest, yet the contractor provides the vast majority of the social resources, schools, roads, hospitals, etc that is consumed by the migrant worker.

There is only so much a human being NEEDS to live.

The corrollary is taht there is so much that a person needs JUST to live. Look, what's going to happen is that our metropolitan areas is that as they reach carrying capacity any one child born to one person, or demographic, will be a child that cannot be born to another person or demographic. At that point you're going to see a large push for selective population control.

I'm not a free-marketer, in fact, I've gone from being a hyper-free-market libertarian to something of a market socialist over the past 10 years. So, I'm not making a moral condemnation of redistributive policies. The problem is that those policies are on the verge of creating a one-party rule, and that's a disaster.

As for who I am, I'm a Democrat. I'm not crowing about any triumph because nothing has been won at this point. 18 days is a long way in politics and some trackers are showing slight tightening. This race will be closer than people think unless something else intervenes.

I'm not a Republican and I don't give a rat's behind who wins this election, because the problems facing us are demographic not ideological.

But I'm also genuinely horrified by this flier and what it represents.

Again, you have reversed causality. The flier is an effect of the fact that the GOP is incapable of crafting policies that will ever draw black and hispanic voters in numbers that will make it electorally worthwhile. The flier represents the frustration and resignation of people who see that the game is ultimately rigged against them: Democrats are explicitly able to campaign on platforms of ethnic interests of blacks and hispanics but the GOP is not allowed to do so for whites.

Be very careful, it is axiomatic that if there is a specific black interest, and a specific hispanic interest, they are and they're political and material creations, then there is a white interest. That is how the GOP will pick up 70+ percent of the non-jewish white vote. There are objective material reasons for whtie flight, it is not irrational fear of "the other". And white flight, which occurred in inner cities, will begin in entire states. The white middleclass cannot do what the white upperclass does, which is buying security in gated communities and private schooling with controlled social environments. Forty years ago the solution was to move to the suburbs, but that option is no longer available in many metropolitan areas. Either the white middleclass will move to states where they can have families or they will not have children and consign themselves to demographic suicide. At that point what you'll have is isolated enclaves of super-rich whites surrounded by seas of semi-literate barrios, like in Brazil or Mexico City.

Yes, the girl called a racist for wearing a McCain/Palin button is a real victim of political correctness.

No, this event is a result of large numbers of people deciding that it's a moral duty to transfer social resources from whites to blacks and that anyone who opposes such transfers of resources is "racist". There is a joke that has quite a wide audience: Q: What's a racist A: Someone who's just disagreed with a Democrat.

And just as Democrats have had to purge the Al Sharptons in their party so must the GOP eliminate the residual racism coming to the fore in this campaign.

Lol, no silly, they haven't purged Al Sharpton from the Democrat Party. They've simply hidden him in the closet. Look, Al Sharpton is representative of the average black man in America, loud, brash, aggressive, low-anxiety (OCEAN 5 personality tests indicate that men of african origin in many different countries score high on aggressiveness and low on anxiety, so it's genetic) and committed to getting stuff from whitey. In fact, they'd rather have 30 grand from whitey than 50 grand from a career; the sweetest meat of all is that which is taken from others by force. Black people don't want to take social resources from white for the purpose of consuming, they want to do so as a demonstration of objective social power. If the Democrat Party were to purge the Al Sharpton's from their ranks they'd lose the black vote because Al Sharpton IS Black America.

No, the Democratic Party just hides Sharpton in order to mollify white moderates.

Thanks Steve K!

I managed to put it on a reply to an automated email that they sent me after I offered to become a McCain-Palin volunteer, LOL! Maybe someone will get back to me with the Senator's repudiation-- but I'm not holding my breath.

Kim

@Elrod

You still haven't answered my challenge as to what sort of policies would woo blacks and hispanics to the GOP. Hell, the charge of racism is used to ubiquitously against the GOP that I dont' think the flier you're discussing has any electoral impact at all. Seriously.

95 percent of blacks are going to vote Democrat anyways, the 5 percent that vote GOP do so for the one specific reason of abortion, and this flier is simply going to confirm biases that simply reinforce the already extant mantra of "racism". It's not going to affect the hispanic vote at all. Whites are either going to be in the "we always knew it" camp, or they're going to be in the "oh it's just one bad apple" camp, so it's not going to affect white voting patterns either.

The dangerous thing is that the ubiquitous charge of racism has made charges irrelevant, the people who think it's pervasive are simply having their biases confirmed and the people who think it's isolated will shrug it off as just on eof those isolated cases.

Elrod, it's beeen hours and you've still not met my challenge: what policies would woo blacks and hispanics to the GOP. Until you meet that challenge I think it's safe to assume that you concede my point, that blacks and hispanics vote for the Dems because they think they'll give them more free stuff.

SD- The GOP, the party of small government voted for the biggest expansion of government in our history.

Why? Because they got lazy and because they realized that money is power and thought distributing it to the insurance, defense, pharmaceutical, and oil industries would keep them in power. Remember the K st connection--- where DeLay helped lobbyists gain access to power in exchange for setting up PAC's for GOP candidates and hosting fundraisers??

They also saw an opportunity to give their consituents a large tax break and have attempted to make it permanent-- which of course led to deficit spending.

Asher--

I don't care about party affiliation--- I'm interested in knowing why you responded to Elrod's post. You seem very worried about losing white supremacy -- is that it? Don't want the brown people taking over? Are you a white supremacist? You sound like one.

Politics is the art of forcing one's will on another. Our species is inherently hierarchical and people gauge their prospects to the extent that they can command their surrounding social environment. Limited government was the Western solution to this political problem. The welfare state ended limited government, so what we're seeing is the resulting power-politics of people and groups expending large amounts of capital to force other people to their will.

The sweetest meat is that which is taken from others by force. Limited government suppressed that urge, but with the demise of limited government you will see that principle come to distinct prominence.

Btw Asher, here's my prescription for the GOP, and I daresay it comes close to meriting the same degree of seriousness as your "challenge". First they need to put together a consortium of the most brilliant physicists in the world (which might be a challenge in itself given the short-shrift the GOP has given to the science community so far this century - maybe they can hire the best PR team ever!). Then they need to find a way to fund them (this may also be a challenge since they have proven themselves so adept at throwing vast amounts of money away as opposed to generating it). Then they need to set this esteemed team of scientists to the task of creating a time machine. (If they can't adequately fund such an enterprise, then maybe they can motivate them with threats of waterboarding). After the machine has been tested (perhaps on varous endangered species, since we know they are such losers anyway) they can assemble a team of time travellers (this should be easy, we'd all like a crack at it eh?) and send them back and try to change the past in a way that give the GOP more credibility among minorities in the future! As a general guideline think in terms of all the ways minorities have been exploited and marginalized during the course of the 20th century, and ways in which those trends might be reversed. Try to get the jump on the dems in any possible arena where it may seem as though they are about to advocate eliminating barriers to access to the so-called American dream. i.e. jobs, education, non-descrimination, etc. Now, I realize this is a far-fetched solution to your challenge, but the challenge is something of a strawman isn't it. I mean you want a quick solution that doens't depend on a historical timeline. The only one I can think of at present is the time-machine strategy, but it really isn't anymore far-fetched than is your imagining the GOP has to either get the quick fix or is SOL. I mean we know they are far from SOL, they are just in need of repair. The process of divesting the party of it's exclusive status will be a long and perhaps painful one, but if it results in greater unity and credibility as an American institution wouldn't that be worth the effort? OK, I already gave you at least as much as your "challenge" deserved, but I'm in a good mood, so you don't even need to thank me if you don't want to. ;-)

I don't care about party affiliation--- I'm interested in knowing why you responded to Elrod's post. You seem very worried about losing white supremacy -- is that it? Don't want the brown people taking over?

Depends on what you mean by "brown people". If you mean blacks and mestizo hispanics that's not plausible. The average black IQ is 85, even lower in African populatons outside the west, and the average mestizo IQ is around 87/88. These features are genetic and, therefore, immutable What you're going to see is an ever increasingly wealthy, white overclass throwing the white middleclass to the wolves, although some of the middleclass wlll make it up into the overclass, but still retaining all the power for themselves. In fact, the white overclass will be far more powerful than they are now without the checking mechanism of a middleclass.

I'll look like Mexico City where a tiny minority of European-descent families control everything, surrounded by teeming masses of what you call "brown people". BTW, I would point out that "brown people" are better off in a country with a white middleclass than in a country with a white overclass, based on the fact that they immigrate from the second to the first.

I live in America. My current neighborhood is quite nice and I like it just fine the way it is. I'm not sure why you think it's so horrid that I enjoy my neighborhood and social environment.

@JSpencer

Btw Asher, here's my prescription for the GOP, and I daresay it comes close to meriting the same degree of seriousness as your "challenge".

So, you're admitting my point!!!! Wow!!!! Thanks!!!!!! You admit that black and hispanic voters are completely lost to the GOP!!!!! Thanks so much for admitting my point!!!!!

Yes, the challenge is not serious, but only because the initial analysis is not serious. Black and hispanics who vote Dem because they think they'll get more free stuff.

Democratic politics is about winning votes. You JUST admitted that the GOP cannot get black and hispanic votes, so you just admitted that it makes no sense for the GOP to consider blacks and hispanics at all when crafting an electoral strategy. Blacks and hispanics go to the highest bidder and that bidder will always be the Democrat Party.

Thanks for admitting it. Your honesty is appreciated.

My goodness, to look at the above and to think that the Republicans' problem with minorities is that they don't provide enough freebies...

There is no such thing as "racial supremacism" of any kind. Human beings have a genetic predisposition to prefer people who are more related to them on the genetic tree, although this can be suppressed by rigorous socialization (thank god). I am not a white nationalist/separatist either*, because that is simply not feasible. We have too many social obligations and intertwinings to have a white America.

The problem is that we have a political situation where it is considered legitimate, even a moral duty, for blacks and hispanics to advance their ethnic interests but it is immoral, even nazi-esque, for white people to advance an ethnic interest. This creates a huge asymmetry that ends up with whites contributing in a massively disproportionate way to the common good/social resources. Something's gotta give, either you're going to see a resurgence of white ethnic interest in the middleclass or you're going to see white middleclass birthrates collapse and the US winding up looking like Mexico with a massive brown underclass and a minority white overclass. That's not the future I want to see.

*Not that there's anything inherently immoral about ethnic nationalism, as all sorts of communities do it all the time. All we see is this silliness that it is okay for everyone but white people to advance their ethnic interests.

@janinedm

My goodness, to look at the above and to think that the Republicans' problem with minorities is that they don't provide enough freebies...

Great!!!! So, you're going to be the one to provide the policy prescriptions to draw blacks and hispanics to the GOP ... heh, not likely

Moreover, I'm Black and college educated and everyone in family has a damn job. You know what matters to us? Taxes, healthcare, the war, Social Security... Imagine that, you'd almost think that we were born and bred in America.

You left out in the above that the original quote included a quote from a Black woman Republican on the mailing list who cried for 45 minutes when she saw that.

Asher, why would I do that when, as far as I'm concerned, the Republican party should get back to what it does best? That is, promoting family values on one foot and tapping bathroom stalls with the other and promoting small government up to the point where my body begins.

My heart goes out to that woman, but I'm interested in what is going to happen in America, but I am strictly looking at demographics and large-scale behavior. FWIW, I find the language appalling, but I'm pointing out that it is irrelevant in terms of electoral politics. However, I will say that pop culture in America has been one consistent assault on the white American middleclass, mainly through ridicule or insinuations of evil.

BTW, when I say "one party rule" I don't mean 6 years. I mean 80 years, and i think that's possible given the demographic trends.

janine, so instead of throwing away money on worthless social programs like Head Start, we need to look at programs taht actually integrate blacks and hispanics so that they contribute to the society they inhabit.

@janine

One more thing: this entire post is interspersed with comments deriding the American middleclass, so talk of hurt feelings will fall on deaf ears, at least with me.

@janine

Asher, why would I do that when, as far as I'm concerned, the Republican party should get back to what it does best?

Bingo!!!! Thanks for admitting it!!!!! You just admitted that the GOP has no chance with blacks and hispanics, so it pointless for it to craft an electoral strategy based on wooing them.

Your honesty is appreciated. You're the the second person to admit to this. heh, it's amusing how people say one thing and then say the opposite just a bit later.

Now Janine, I'm sure Asher knows a lot more about what you think than you do! ;-)

Black people have a higher poverty rate, true, but most DO pay income taxes. Most of the wealth transfers you are talking about are from wealthy whites to poor, rural whites, who make up the lion's share of welfare recipients.

@JSpencer

Now Janine, I'm sure Asher knows a lot more about what you think than you do! ;-)

Actually, the best measure of people is what they do and not how they report their feelings. Maybe you missed the spate of psychoanalysis over the past several decades that purported to get deep in to the minds of america's middle class to what was *really* going on in there.

You may have missed it, but my claims implied that white Americans are far more race-conscious than they'll report, which is precisely what is claimed by many of their detractors. Of course, what those detractors fail to address is that race, what geneticists call population clustering, is real and has real-world effects, so this consciousness is empirically-based.

Meaning ain't in the head - WVO Quine

Zzzzz, careful, we wouldn't want to threaten any stereotypes here!!!

JSpencer - ha!

"I will say that pop culture in America has been one consistent assault on the white American middleclass, mainly through ridicule or insinuations of evil." I can not be held responsible for Everybody Loves Raymond.

Zzzzz, I dont' know where you get your figures. There is something called "porportionality". If Group A is 10 percent of the population but 20 percent of them have Feature X then we say they are disporportionately inclined to Feature X even if they are not the majority of people who possess that feature.

Secondly, I'm not just talking about welfare, but about the totality of social infrastructure, which is far greater a figure.

Also, resource transfers occurring between different groups of white people do not negate that transfers are also going from whites as a group to blacks as a group. Yes, blacks pay income taxes, although don't forget EITC, but they pay little in raw dollar figures. Also, large percentages of the black male population are unemployable so they live with their female relatives or the mother of their child/children or girlfriend.

People who are unemployable (but not on welfare) are still consuming social resources. They also drain social resources when they join the criminal underclass

Finally, I find it amusing that you're saying that there is already substantial wealth transfers from rich to poor. I mean all along leftists have been claiming that the rich dont pay their fair share. So, where is all this money coming from?

stereotype (n): Something everyone deep down knows to be true but only really, really bad people say out loud

stereotypes (n): false assumptions some people delude themselves into thinking are rules

@JSpencer

I have the facts, you have not. You, yourself, admitted that there is nothing that the GOP can do get black and hispanic votes because they'll always be outbid by Democrats.

Game, set and match. To me.

Next victim, please.

AsherJ, it seems to me that you're making what amounts to an economic argument and interpreting it in terms of race. To the extent I can follow your reasoning you're saying that blacks and hispanics won't vote for the GOP because the Dems offer them more free stuff. By and large, though, they're not getting "free stuff" because they're black or hispanic, but because they're poor. If too many of them weren't poor the argument would fall apart, wouldn't it?

So how do you get poor people off the "free stuff" train? Or do you simply shut the train down? The problem I see with the GOP is precisely that: they want to shut the "free stuff" train down. They don't have much interest in reforming it, they just don't want to deal with poor folks anymore. That, in a nutshell, is why the GOP is getting killed among those minorities.

But that's obviously too simple, too. The reality is more complicated than that. One complicating factor is that identity politics gets involved with the economics. Even among blacks and hispanics (and other minorities) there is a certain amount of friction. And that is especially true among the "underclass", as you define it. When you're fighting for a small piece of the pie, those in proximity with whom you identify with less become bigger adversaries than those which you identify with more. And adversarial relationships tend to flare when economic times get tighter, and less incendiary when economic times are better. Unfortunately, the GOP has done a bang-up job helping to define the relative space between different groups. The GOP lost the black vote many years ago when they decided to pursue the "southern strategy". They had a realistic shot at a sizeable segment of the hispanic vote until they decided to go all out demonizing illegal immigrants themselves rather than addressing the issue of why they were coming here in the first place. So now, thanks to the GOP's efforts (and again, especially within the "underclass"), blacks, hispanics, and to a certain extent every other minority, have more in common with each other than with the white segment of the "underclass". Worse, it seems to me the GOP is counting on that friction to benefit from the white "underclass" vote.

I'm not saying that the Dems are blameless, mind you. IMO the Democratic party is guilty of establishing a program of "thresholds" rather than "grades" in distinguishing between who gets "free stuff" and who doesn't. That's a whole other rant. But the fact is, it's usually the GOP that emphasizes identity politics wedge issues rather than trying to seriously address them.

AsherJ, you also spent a lot of space trying to explain on a genetic basis (using IQ scores and personality profiles) why, in your view, blacks and hispanics are likely to remain poor. I'm not going to waste my time arguing with you about the specifics. The question I have is... why does it matter? Even if everything you say is totally, completely true, so what? The economic issue remains regardless of how it shapes up demographically. So again the question goes back to... what do we do about poor folks?

Time after time when you look at it, it's not race, but culture. That includes peer-group and interest-group-related culture. (Perpetual victimhood)

Note that the illegitimacy rate among whites (to be more clear, if it helps here, non-Hispanic whites) has been climbing steadily. Bad news.

"The GOP lost the black vote many years ago when they decided to pursue the 'southern strategy'. "

Actually, no -- inherent in what you say is what illustrates the GOP's problem: conservatism was not only unpopular but against civil rights and other liberal "revolutions" that happened in the 1960s. Plus on the other side of the coin, since the 1930s the Dems' "tax and tax, spend and spend, elect and elect" welfare-state entitlement-driven strategy (augmented substantially in the 1960s) appealed to the recipients and the beneficiaries of that strategy, which numbered greatly and interest groups within which have been very active and vocal for ages.

The Dems _gained_ the black vote in the 1930s. Beginning around that time and onward, the Jewish vote, too? Why? What did they suffer?

Ricorun

I agree -- even if its true which is debatable it doesn't make the GOP ad less offensive.

If 10% of African-Americans vote for the GOP that could still make a difference in a close race. If the above ad circulated among that group, don't you think it would turn off even that 10%?

My point is that they are not only failing to lure minorities into the party, but actively taking steps to turn them away- and at the same time turning off white progressives and moderates. Talk about low IQ's- now that doesn't seem exceptionally bright now does it?

DLS- but the administration that actually cut back welfare was a Democratic one- Bill Clinton's- blacks still stayed with the party and even called Clinton the first black president.

Look at Congress- there's a reason that the GOP doesnt' need a black caucus. Black voters see the Democrats backing black candidates and those candidates rising to positions of power in Washington and as mayors and governors. Did you ever think you'd see Democrats choosing the little-known Obama over the Clintons??

Rico : "they just don't want to deal with poor folks anymore. That, in a nutshell, is why the GOP is getting killed among those minorities."

They don't have much of a track record with the middle class anymore either. Advocating for only 5% of America is bound to catch up with you eventually.

JSpencer: They don't have much of a track record with the middle class anymore either. Advocating for only 5% of America is bound to catch up with you eventually.

I tried to keep my comment short, but point taken. I left a lot of things I could have said unsaid. But I have to say, it really ruffles my feathers when someone claims they are somehow in possession of THE FACTS, and everyone that disagrees are idiots, even though they present not a single shred of documentation to back up their claims. That, among debating circles, is called an "appeal to authority", and it's very transparent. But not only did AsherJ do that, he coupled it with another popular technique: dissembling. He tried to make a tangential issue (in this case race) the central one, which is economics. And that's what the ad in question did as well.

Sometimes I don't know what to think. I mentioned before that my reaction to McCain's original "celebrity" ad really pissed me off. I calmed down when it became apparent that the racial connotations I saw in it were not generally appreciated. Following that I suggested that maybe everyone needs to calm down. Then this "watermelon" graphic surfaced and the connotations became all too real again. It is a blatant attempt to tie black folks to poor folks, as if they were one and the same. And that is very indicative of the GOP's basic problem. IMO, they want it both ways -- they want to play one marginal group against the others so they don' t have to address the truly fundamental problem that makes it all work: income inequality.

AsherJ, it seems to me that you're making what amounts to an economic argument and interpreting it in terms of race. To the extent I can follow your reasoning you're saying that blacks and hispanics won't vote for the GOP because the Dems offer them more free stuff. By and large, though, they're not getting "free stuff" because they're black or hispanic, but because they're poor. If too many of them weren't poor the argument would fall apart, wouldn't it?

No. One does not need to be poor to take free stuff when it's offered. The people offering free stuff are, themselves, largely white. Affirmative action is an example of transferring social resources from whites to blacks. Again, let me be clear, I am not condemning resource transfer as some absolute moral bad but noting that it is threatening to create a permanent one-party system.

So how do you get poor people off the "free stuff" train? Or do you simply shut the train down? The problem I see with the GOP is precisely that: they want to shut the "free stuff" train down. They don't have much interest in reforming it, they just don't want to deal with poor folks anymore. That, in a nutshell, is why the GOP is getting killed among those minorities.

No, the GOP will get killed because they will always be outbid by Democrats. As I noted above, one does not need to be poor to take free stuff when it's offered to them. Yes, the middleclass and the upper classes do not want to deal with the poor anymore. The upper classes do this by buying expensive high-rise condos or residences in posh neighborhoods and sending their children to expensive private schools, and the middle classes do this by moving to the suburbs, exurbs or small cities and sending their kids to high quality public schools. Both methods are de facto segregation and both are used equally by white Democrats and Republicans, although Democrats throw in childlessness to ameliorate the burden.

The segregation is hugely expensive to the respective populations and is ANOTHER form of resource transfer, despite the fact that there is no actual transfer of funds.

Even among blacks and hispanics (and other minorities) there is a certain amount of friction

In Compton, 56 percent of the residents are now Hispanic, and within two generations hispanics will now probably be about twice as numerous as blacks. And hispanics, unlike whites, have no evolved moral feelings of guilt over slavery, while having a friendly govenment sitting just south of the border to run to if confrontations get dicey. Blacks are gonna get overrun by hispanics big time. However, whites will always lead the coalition that is the Democratic Party and so when election time comes the groups will run to the polls and vote to get more resources from whites.

The GOP lost the black vote many years ago when they decided to pursue the "southern strategy". They had a realistic shot at a sizeable segment of the hispanic vote until they decided to go all out demonizing illegal immigrants themselves rather than addressing the issue of why they were coming here in the first place. So now, thanks to the GOP's efforts (and again, especially within the "underclass"), blacks, hispanics, and to a certain extent every other minority, have more in common with each other than with the white segment of the "underclass"

You are reversing cause and effect. The southern strategy relied on the reality that whites need to have communities that are probably 90 percent NAM (non-asian minorities), or more, in order to thrive and that the GOP offered a break from the explicit segregation of the old democrats. Basically, the southern strategy acknowledges that blacks are full members of society and deserve the rule of law, but taht whites need to be in communities where they can pursue their common interests that are radically different from blacks. It was a moral means to a practical compromise. Also, the hispanic population in America is getting less and less european; cubans are about 85 percent european ancestry, while migrant farm labor coming from the south is now about 70 to 80 percent amerindian ancestry. The difference between those to specific groups is about 10 to 12 IQ points.

The amerindian population produces huge numbers of individuals who lack the cognitive capacity for anything beyond directed manual labor. The cuban population is little different from the average immigrant coming from Spain today. Given that huge segments of the amerindian population is capable of little beyond directed, manual labor it means that they're going to need a social infrastructure run for them by other ethnic groups in perpetuity, aka a transfer of social resources. Therefore, they'll vote with the group that promises them bigger transfers.

Worse, it seems to me the GOP is counting on that friction to benefit from the white "underclass" vote.

There is no white underclass. Yes, there are whites who are poor, but they are a fragmented, isolated lot who have zero group identity. "Underclass" is an actual identity for groups of people. Don't confuse "redneck" with "underclass" because they operate in completely different fashions. Yes, you can mock that southern redneck who makes 30 grand/year framing houses. But he has an IQ of 95, is married, has kids from that marriage, pays his taxes, has a long-standing place in society and doesn't break the law. The recent amerindian migrant has an IQ of of 80 (remember we're comparing whites and amerindians from the bottom half of their respective curves), is functionally illiterate, comes from a society that is corrupt in every nook and cranny, can barely read in his own language, has a cultural allegience to a different country and likely has kids outside of marriage (the hispanic illegitimacy rate is 55 percent and climbing, and is skewed toward amerindian hispanics rather than euro hispanics, see above).

But the fact is, it's usually the GOP that emphasizes identity politics wedge issues rather than trying to seriously address them.

Excepting a small segment of the population, politics IS about identity, about heuristics, about intuitive social knowledge and belonging. Most people like the cognitive capacity to rationally analyze huge, complex, interrelated batteries of policy, and even fewer have the time. The lower the IQ of any given demographic the more likely it is to vote based on "identity" lines.

So again the question goes back to... what do we do about poor folks?

Many of our metropolitan areas are reaching carrying capacity, the Malthusian limit, so any additional individual is going to severely impact the potential for other additional individuals. There is a zero-sum game for population growth; growth in one demographic will necessarily lead to decline in another demographic. I live in Seattle, which is overwhelmingly Democrat, and 90 percent of my friends and acquaintances are Democrats. Your average middling Democrat voter is no bleeding heart, despite what blowhards like Rush Limbaugh might say. Most Democrats I know want licenses for breeding.

What you're going to start seeing is a push for selective population control.

Eugenics, soft, and it will be supported by lots of voters who usual go Democrat.

Rico, I would challenge you with the same challenge that I presented to others: give me a set of policies that the GOP could propose that would make them seriously competitive with blacks and hispanics.

If you cannot do this then I assume you are conceding the point that the GOP cannot ever win these demographics and that any electoral strategy must consist of getting 70 plus percent of the non-jewish white vote.

One more thing: when the GOP has managed to get small increases in black votes it has done so by appealing to fundamentalist religious fervor in the black community, mainly revolving around abortion.

Amusingly, it's hideous for the GOP to appeal to religious fervor among whites, but leftists make an exception for the GOP doing so to blacks. Black religious fundamentalist: good. White religious fundamentalism: bad.

Hilarious.

Asher

back up the claim that leftists make an exception when the GOP appeals to blacks???

@kritt11

back up the claim that leftists make an exception when the GOP appeals to blacks???

Did you even read my post? If so, then you'd know that I already addressed this. What blacks the GOP does manage to get, they do so by appealing to "fundamentalist" reasons like abortion and gay marriage. So, when Democrats tell Republicans that they have a moral duty to woo the black vote what they are implying is that it is laudable to push abortion and gay marriage to appeal to black fundamentalists, but then they turn around and mock white fundamentalists.

Look, you people are not even serious. The point is that the GOP has aboslutely no reason to appeal to black voters at all, and you all here have admitted as such.

I'm just pointing out the hypocrisy.

Describing Republican supply side economics as capitalism is definitely a sign of someone drinking the kool-aid (no chicken, ribs or required). It turns the free market on its head and rewards mediocrity. Unless you understand the fungible nature of money you are a "slave" to the magic tricks of the Republican party. In other words, you are a tool. But hey, that is your choice. Just don't expect me to buy into your insanity.

You see, unlike McCain who sold his soul when he kissed Falwell's ring, I will not sacrifice what I know is right to please or pander to the moronic elements. No matter the cost.

We watch the Republican President beg congress to vote for the largest corporate welfare package ever and then listen to McCain calling Obama socialist?

Sir, you are definitely free to ignore reality all you wish. Just don't expect the rest of us too also.

I disagree with your premise that Democrats are implying that

it is laudable to woo blacks on the issues of abortion and gay marriage.

Are you saying that those are the only two issues that they can appeal to blacks with??
Republicans accuse Democrats of pandering to blacks, but when African-Americans watch how they run their campaigns they realize they have no choice. If I were African-American I would never vote for a party that put out this kind of racist garbage.

I disagree with your premise that Democrats are implying that it is laudable to woo blacks on the issues of abortion and gay marriage.

Of course not. Democrats aren't seriously suggesting that the GOP even try and win black votes, my conversation with you demonstrates this amply. You, and everyone else, here knows damn well that the GOP has no shot of winning anymore than a sliver of black voters.

Are you saying that those are the only two issues that they can appeal to blacks with??

Ding, ding, ding!!! We have a winner!!!!!! Yes, what few votes the GOP does get, it does so by appealing to black religious fundamentalists on the issues of gay marriage and abortion. It's probably been decades since black voters voted for the GOP for any other issues than strict social conservative ones.

So, if you tell the GOP it has a moral duty to try and appeal to blacks, you are telling the GOP to appeal to oppositions to gay marraige and abortion. To say one is to say the other.

Republicans accuse Democrats of pandering to blacks,

I don't actually see that much talk about this phenomena, at least no widespread analysis. But "pander" is rather soft-pedaling it. Blacks are bought, pure and simple.

If I were African-American I would never vote for a party that put out this kind of racist garbage.

I already addressed this very specifically and at length. This particular event has aboslutely no effect on electoral politics. Blacks aren't going to vote for the GOP anyway because the Democrat Party offers them more free stuff. And whites who are at least open to voting for the GOP are not going to change their vote based on this event.

It's irrelevant, but it does allow white Democrats to get their panties in a bunch and congratulate each other on how more enlightened they are than are people in the other party.

It's just hypocrisy and silly gamesmanship.

When I say hypocrisy, I mean that no one really believes that there are any sets of policy arrangements that will lure black voters to the GOP.

You are all just engaged in preening, moral posturing.