Staying Regular
You should definitely read this post from Ta-Nehisi Coates. It’s a reminder that part of what drives the conservative meta-narrative about “authentic” working class conservatives versus liberal elites is the belief that black people — a bit over ten percent of the population, and usually closer to twenty percent of the voting base for a Democratic presidential candidate — just basically don’t exist. They’re invisible people. Likewise, Hispanics. And, indeed, white people don’t count either if they’re too poor:
Some of the numbers: Non-college whites in our latest poll split 50-41 percent for McCain over Obama. Advantage McCain. But whites with annual household incomes under $50,000 split by 49-40 percent for Obama. Advantage Obama.
But somehow this is all “inauthentic.” The only way to be a “regular person” is to (a) have white skin, (b) not descend from Spanish-speaking people, (c) not go to college, (d) not be poor, and (e) avoid living in a big city. Nevermind that a large majority of the American public falls into one of the Five Forbidden Categories of Irregularity.
43 Responses to “Staying Regular”
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September 4th, 2008 at 7:47 pm
sure, haven’t you seen those commercials that Jamie Leigh Curtis is doing for some sort of regularity promoting medicine? She talks to people of all sorts who had given up on ever becoming regular, and were resigned to lives of constant or intermitent irregularity. Is McCain/Palin the medicine that provides a dose of regularity along with the 2 inches (in height) and heterosexuality that Ezra goes on about?
September 4th, 2008 at 8:08 pm
Don’t see where you get that being poor precludes one from regularity. Seems you inferred it from the fact that they break slightly in Obama’s favor – but no one ever said that Democratic voters are necessarily irregular folk.
September 4th, 2008 at 8:14 pm
Some of the numbers: Non-college whites in our latest poll split 50-41 percent for McCain over Obama. Advantage McCain. But whites with annual household incomes under $50,000 split by 49-40 percent for Obama. Advantage Obama.
White voters without college degrees making more than $50,000 a year must REALLY love Republicans.
September 4th, 2008 at 8:18 pm
part of what drives the conservative meta-narrative about “authentic” working class conservatives versus liberal elites is the belief that black people — a bit over ten percent of the population, and usually closer to twenty percent of the voting base for a Democratic presidential candidate — just basically don’t exist.
I think it’s pretty clear that they are left out of the narrative because they are bound to vote 90% Dem in any election, because a key plank of the Democratic platform is to give various preferences and rights to blacks, and a key plank of the Republican platform is not to do so. Similarly with the very poor.
These votes are taken for granted — you might as well ask why bankers and CEOs and evangelical Christians are not included among “normal people”. It’s because they’re almost certainly going to vote Republican so there’s not a lot to talk about.
September 4th, 2008 at 8:57 pm
right is missing Matt’s point here. Plus, while people might not talk about bankers and CEOs, the metanarrative is that evangelical Christians are the salt of the earth and the most normal people in the country.
September 4th, 2008 at 9:01 pm
If you live in California, you also aren’t regular. In fact I am starting to think that some Republicans think that Californians (like Hawaiians, maybe?) are not even American, let alone regular. Although, chances are, if you live in California you fall into one of the other five categories. Because even our small cities are big compared to Wasilla.
September 4th, 2008 at 9:07 pm
I’m kinda curious about Ta Nehisi Coates ethnic background, given his first name. If he is as non European as his name implies, it kinda sounds like he is leaving himself off the “regularity” spectrum.
Before people get bent out of shape, there is no racism in my thinking here. Just curiosity.
September 4th, 2008 at 9:16 pm
I’d like to take any southern white out of that equation and then see what those numbers look like.
And I totally agree with your assessment. What’s the difference between someone who makes $40,000 and likes lattes and someone who makes $40,000 and likes NASCAR. They’ve both been crapped on Republican economic policies. I think the Obama campaign should tell people, “we’re not going to fight a cultural war – we are going to fight for the middle class, whoever you may be.”
September 4th, 2008 at 9:30 pm
Did anyone catch that one of Romney’s hits against Obama was that he would: “increase the number of people who pay no tax.”
Personally I thought that was the ultimate goal of all Republicans.
September 4th, 2008 at 10:10 pm
It’s simpler than this. To the GOP, blacks aren’t real Americans, whites are. Obama’s name could be Barry White (not the singer) and they’d still talk about him like he’s not an American.
September 4th, 2008 at 10:18 pm
The biggest problem is not so much that the GOP political establishment embellishes in this little game. No – the biggest story is how those who are Republicans who are not this sort of salt-of-the-earth types praise the salt of the earth types knowing full that they need their support every 2 years to continue to enact policies which favor only a select few.
As my father likes to say: I put up with the right-wing Christians because I need my tax cut. And face it, if you are white, wealthy and educated, chances are any of the social policies you might be for which the Christian right are against) really do not impact you.
I mean – prior to Row, was there any chance that a wealthy white girl would not get an abortion if needed?
September 5th, 2008 at 12:45 am
I’m pretty sure I’ve told this story on (one of) Matt’s blog(s) before but every time this subject comes up, I’m reminded of a friend of mine. This was back during the 2000 election when Gore had been, of course, supported by more than 50% of the electorate snd yet we were inundated with maps like this:
http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2004/images/counties-2000.gif
which clearly proved that the entire country supported Bush. This friend of mine, who I might add at this point was in fact a very intelligent and pretty liberal guy, was telling me how George Bush was incredibly popular. When I pointed out that Gore had, you know, gotten more votes than Bush, his response was, “Well, that’s just the coasts. If you take them out…”, at which point I interrupted to ask, “Why in the hell would you do that?” The answer, of course, would be that, well, the coasts just aren’t really real, you know? They’re just this strange anomaly occurring on the boundary of Real America.
This is perhaps the Republicans greatest success in terms of warping the American mind. It’s not just GOP hacks who think this way, it’s become a frame of reference for a large percentage of the population, both left and right.
PS. CalKate, everyone knows that Californians aren’t real Americans because they’re fags.
September 5th, 2008 at 12:48 am
Bob — Ta-Nehesi actually has a recent post which includes a little about his name. He’s African American from West Baltimore. The name “Ta-Nehesi” is an old Egyptian name for Nubia given to him by his parents during a time when African names were becoming popular with American blacks. Here’s a picture of him if you want to put a face to the words.
September 5th, 2008 at 1:10 am
Re: the apparent disconnect between “voters without college degrees” and “voters earning <$50k”…
It’s just like the so-called “marriage-gap”. It’s actually an age gap. A lot of 20-somethings with liberal arts degrees make a pittance, and vote Democrat. A lot of 50 and 60-somethings without college degrees have probably managed to hit their lifetime peak earning years somewhere between $50-70k, and vote Republican.
September 5th, 2008 at 6:22 am
The people whose votes McCain has to get to have any hope of winning the election do not fall into one of those five categories. He’s counting on the votes of people living outside of large cities, especially in the exurbs. Palin, “drill-drill-drill” and casting Obama as “the other” are clear plays for that exurban vote, which will be critical in the key swing states, CO, MI, NV, OH and VA.
September 5th, 2008 at 6:28 am
Anon– excellent story, and I think the conclusion you draw from it is accurate. I work with an attorney, a lifelong Republican, who recently remarked that “most” of America is rural, small-town folk. Neither of us had time to sort out the semantics of exactly what she meant, but I suspect that she, like many other people, make the category mistake of assuming that since most of the American land mass is either uninhabited or rural, most of the population must be as well. The former is true, I guess, but I’m led to believe that the latter hasn’t been true for at least a generation.
(That is, unless you systematically refuse to count anyone from Matt’s five categories, or count them as less than one– three-fifths, perhaps?)
It amplifies the point if you refuse as I do to count as rural suburbs of cities where people participate in urban economies but go home at night to gated and private communities to pretend that they live in small towns. Then on Sunday they go to churches that seat 10,000 people but pretend that they’re small-town churches. Where I live, those are the most solid Republican enclaves. Maybe that helps to explain the ability of so much of the GOP to live in such bad faith…
September 5th, 2008 at 7:09 am
the unanswered question is whether any conservative party and just not the not-very-conservative current Republicans can ever be successfull in appealing to blacks, Hispanics,or college students given the pandering done by the Democratic Party. The answer is obviously no and thus all current elections are fought over the few white middle class swing voters left in the U.S.
Of course, the the long term, The Repubicans will be unable to remain relevant as the U.S. becomes increasingly non-white. So, the long term question is what will politics be like in a one party state where blacks and Hispanics are the dominant political forces and whites are in the minority?
September 5th, 2008 at 9:04 am
Re: I put up with the right-wing Christians because I need my tax cut.
Does he also need the crappy economy, complete with high food and energy prices, out of control government spending, and the housing meltdown? As others have said, I’d gladly pay 90s tax rates if we had the 90s economy back– and the 90s gasoline prices. People like the above are severely myopic. They care about income tax rates (the GOP never seems to cut any other taxes, just income taxes) while ignoring the fact that they are losing much more money on their investments, their job (where they probably are having trouble getting good raises), their home and their daily bills and expenses.
September 5th, 2008 at 9:39 am
superdestroyer, “recognizing someone exists” /= “pandering.”
September 5th, 2008 at 9:41 am
Setting up a Hawaiian only government and letting that government review your ancestory to determine if you qualify is pandering. Demanding separate and unequal admissions standards at magnet high schools, universities, graduate schools, professional schools, and in hiring decisions is pandering. Awarding contracts based upon race and mandating that a certain percentage of contracts go to non-whites is pandering.
September 5th, 2008 at 9:48 am
Some of the numbers: Non-college whites in our latest poll split 50-41 percent for McCain over Obama. Advantage McCain. But whites with annual household incomes under $50,000 split by 49-40 percent for Obama. Advantage Obama.
I figure that a large percentage of the second group is made up of Non-college whites. If you take them out, McCain is doing monumentally worse with whites under $50,000.
September 5th, 2008 at 9:50 am
We saw some of this demographic parsing during the primary as well. We’d hear how Hillary Clinton was winning among white, working class, soccer moms, that is white women who have not graduated college but hold a job that keeps them above the poverty line and own a mini-van.
These very fine demographic were promoted as relevant, but the reality is that the news producers were looking for a demographic that was voting against Obama so they’d be able to illustrate a story line which they had already predetermined. The fact that they had to go to such specific demographics was a sign that Obama was actually doing quite well among most groups.
September 5th, 2008 at 11:51 am
Fletc3her, I think the claim with Clinton was a lot more reasonable. Sure, she wasn’t getting any black votes, but she was getting an awful lot of votes from older, white poor/middle class Americans. The Republicans don’t do nearly as well in the white poor class as they pretend. They just clean up in the white upper to upper/middle class demographic.
superdestroyer: Yes, those damn democrats, pandering to the minorities with their pathetic civil rights act. Seriously, man, if the Republicans were not the transparently closet racist party, we could have this discussion. I honestly think that if the Republican party truly embraced the concept of civil rights and did not consistently make it clear that they think only white people are real Americans, they might be able to appeal to minority voters. But that Republican party would look nothing like that one we see today, and they would have to give up their super-elitist economic policy to have a chance at winning elections, I imagine.
September 5th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
mpowell,
At least you could have answered my question of whether any conservative party can appeal to non-whites as long as whites are, on average, higher on the economic scale? Can any conservative political party support separate and unequal while still being conservative.
September 5th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
24: I’m pretty confused by “separate and unequal” part. Could you clarify or confirm what you mean? Also, I’m not sure that the conservative party has to be defined by economic elitism, which you seem to be implying, but I don’t think that’s strictly a problem anyhow. If minorities are overwhelmingly poor, it probably is, but if they are doing well enough that they don’t feel a strong need to vote according to identity politics, I don’t think it’s a forgone conclusion that they will. But there is another possibility entirely, that conservatives choose not to try class based politics and instead simply push an agenda of furthering similar values through different means. Think ‘trickle down economics’, but without all the lying. There is a place for a conservative view of how to effectively run an economy that could gain traction among anyone who stands to benefit from an improved economy (which is everyone, right?), it’s just that those views are not what the current party represents.
September 5th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
Mpowell, How can you mock the Republican point of view when you do not even recognize the Gratz Vs. Bollinger Supreme Court decision where the Supreme Court rules that the State of Michigan violated the civil rights of white students because it had a lower admission standard for black and Hispanic students than for white students. In addition, under 8A contracting, the government uses different standards for minority contractors.
September 5th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
I’m not sure what in my last post looked like mocking. It is one thing to argue that the affirmative action policies of certain universities go to far for the requirements of civic justice. But I don’t think that minorities dislike of the Republican party is due to that single position. First, the Republicans are opposed to a wide variety of affirmative action policies which have the courts have not decided are unconstitutional. Secondly, the Republicans opposed the civil rights movement, and it’s unclear that they wouldn’t repeal it if they could. Third, the repeatedly make it clear that only white Americans count as real Americans. And finally, they have a history of using closeted racial terms to solidify their base. The whole point of my argument is that focusing on Republican opposition to a few points of affirmative action is just willfully overlooking the disgraceful views of the Republican party on race relations from the 1950s on.
September 5th, 2008 at 2:53 pm
mpowell,
If you look at the voting for the Civil Rights Act, I believe that more Republicans voted for it than Democrats. Democrats began to lose the white vote not from the voting rights act or the civil rights act as much as forced busing, government hiring quotas, affirmative action, and especially when the Democratic party failed to act when the crime rate when sky high in the 1970’s.
The real question is there anyway that a conservative party can exist without looking racist. As long as party is opposed to race based quotas and affirmative action (which almost always loses when it gets to the Supreme Court), then it will be seen by non-whites as racist. Thus, no conservative party can appeal to non-whites.
September 5th, 2008 at 3:09 pm
The vote breakdown on the 1964 Civil Rights Act:
Yes No
HOUSE
Southern Democrat 7 87
Southern Republican 0 10
Northern Democrat 145 9
Northern Republican 138 24
SENATE
Southern Democrat 1 20
Southern Republican 0 1
Northern Democrat 45 1
Northern Republican 27 5
September 5th, 2008 at 3:10 pm
Don’t know why the formatting got screwed up, but you can probably figure it out.
September 5th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
I think it’s pretty obvious from CJColucci’s numbers where the south stood on the issue. But it was LBJ who pushed the act through Congress and it was Republicans who actively pursued the political benefits. So I don’t think the vote breakdown matters a whole lot here.
September 5th, 2008 at 4:38 pm
SD,
Yeah and those are the Republicans who have been driven out of the party. And most of those Democrats in the south are Republicans now.
September 5th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
Going back to your original question, SD, I’ll answer that I’m not in the least concerned that we won’t be able to sustain a conservative party in the United States due to a lack of ‘pandering’ to minorities.
I don’t know what you’re trying to prove bringing up an issue like that around here. More likely, you’re just trolling for a response. But I think it’s pretty clear from the discussion here that you, and many conservatives, are in deep denial about the poor record of the Republican party on race relations in this country. And that’s why nobody is actually worried about this issue.
September 6th, 2008 at 3:10 am
Eric,
I doubt if there is a single Democrat that could attract significant minority support is they changed to the Republican Party. There just is not conservative Democrats left to claiming that they are the ones who would have been Republicans in some previousy times.
Mpowell,
So you would argue that the U.S. is headed to becoming a one party state where the real elections will be in the Democratic Primary and that elections will be over race and class. I doubt that is what the progressive whites want to hear since it means that there will be fewer positions where they can ever hope to win.
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