Comment on Can you believe all those wildfires in [your country here]?
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 3 days agothe US, they never forgave Johnson for the '68 civil rights act
Johnson passed the '68 Civil Rights Act, but failed to actively enforce it. The subsequent Nixon/Reagan Southern Realignment involved some of the most deliberate and calculated voter disenfranchisement in the country’s storied history of voter disenfranchisement.
Consequently, states like Texas and Louisiana and Georgia and Florida can host enormous pools of liberal and progressive voters who are blacklisted, caged, gerrymandered, or outright felonized. The lay (white) American only kinda-sorta understands it is happening (thanks to the tsunami of “Record High Crime!” news hysterics), while voter turnout rates stay abnormally low relative to their global neighbors.
What we saw following the Kennedy assassination in '64 was functionally a coup. Blaming “the American voters” for the subsequent composition of Congress and the White House makes about as much sense as blaming Egyptians for el-Sisi or Russians for Putin. This is a white settler government running an armed occupation, not a liberal democracy in any meaningful sense of the word.
Univ3rse@lemmynsfw.com 3 days ago
By the numbers, the majority of whites continuously vote R. In fact, they haven’t voted majority D since, you guessed it, the civil rights act was signed. They are complicit and want these things. I’m not sure where this idea that they are being dragged about had come from, but they are actively choosing this every election cycle.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 3 days ago
By state, that’s clearly untrue. Vermont and Massachusetts and Minnesota and Oregon would be blood-red if the split was purely racial.
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This is a very regionalized phenomenon and heavily predicated on the way governors and state legislatures have historically dictated enfranchisement.
In 2008, Obama enjoyed a slight majority of support over McCain among white voters. And that’s without discussing the landslide support he saw in the Midwest relative to Clinton.
There’s also a strong youth vote trend that favors progressive politicians, even (perhaps especially) among white voters. Meanwhile, older Black and Asian and Hispanic voters lean conservative relative to their ethnic mean.
Even then, voter participation in the US is abysmal - hoovering in the 50-70% range. To crib from Beto O’Rourke’s favorite lines, America isn’t a conservative country, its a non-voting country. White people aren’t choosing, any more than their colored peers. They are having their politicians pre-selected and force-fed to them by a handful of wealthy, ideological radicals. This leads to some of the worst approval ratings for elected representatives in the world.
TempermentalAnomaly@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Your fact posting makes me feel what I imagine people feel like at a revivalist church. Preach on u/UnderpantsWeevil.
Univ3rse@lemmynsfw.com 3 days ago
Your link showed Obama receiving a maximum of 44% of the white vote. That is not a majority.
1964-present: …wordpress.com/…/white-voters-1964-2020/
Notice the shift…