Regionalism in American Politics
One other interesting point from the Daily Kos data: despite all the noise about Obama’s falling approval ratings, outside of the South of 82% of those in the Northeast have a favorable view of Obama (vs. 10% having an unfavorable view), 62% have a favorable view (vs. 31%) in the Midwest, and 59% (vs. 34%) have a favorable view in the West. It is only in the South, where 67% (!) have an unfavorable view of the president (vs. 27% holding a favorable view) that Obama appears to have a serious problem. Again, the regional distribution is quite dramatic.
Taken together, I wonder if we’ve hit the point where the mainstream media ought to be reporting support for the president, congress, political parties, etc. not in terms of the country as a whole, but rather by providing two numbers: support in the South and support in the rest of the country excluding the South?
I certainly think it would be interesting to see these regional splits more. I wouldn’t want to overstate the point, on some level saying “Barack Obama’s super-popular if you ignore the southerners” seems about on a par with saying “Obama’s super-unpopular if you ignore the non-white people.” Obviously dislike of a Democratic president is going to be concentrated in the most-conservative part of the country. But it is an interesting angle. And it would be particularly interesting to compare southern whites to non-southern whites.
91 Responses to “Regionalism in American Politics”
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September 20th, 2009 at 2:39 pm
I don’t know why we can’t redefine “real Americans” as those being from non-secessionist states.
September 20th, 2009 at 2:48 pm
Of course that is true, but we never want to take our eyes off the electoral college. If Obama’s negatives are red-lining in states that he has little chance of winning under the most auspicious circumstances, and aren’t really rising in states he hopes to win, those would be important things to know.
September 20th, 2009 at 2:48 pm
I don’t think it’s going to far to say that “Obama’s popularity is declining nationally” is not the same thing as “Obama’s popularity is actually declining in areas that didn’t vote for him anyway.” They lead to very different political conclusions.
September 20th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
I don’t think it’s going to far to say that “Obama’s popularity is declining nationally” is not the same thing as “Obama’s popularity is actually declining in areas that didn’t vote for him anyway.” They lead to very different political conclusions.
Right. Similarly, “Obama’s popularity is declining in areas that are overwhelmingly represented by Republicans in Congress anyway” is not such a big story either.
September 20th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
And it would be particularly interesting to compare southern whites to non-southern whites.
Why would it be interesting at all, let alone “particularly interesting”? Why always the idiotic racial angle, and always from self-proclaimed ‘liberals’ and ‘progressives’, who, presumably, shouldn’t care about this crap. That’s what I find particularly interesting.
September 20th, 2009 at 3:02 pm
@abb
Huh? What makes you think liberals are opposed to looking at demographic trends in politics? They do all the time, and they’re pretty good at taking it into consideration. Which is why Democrats have been gaining ground lately while the big Republican tent has become increasingly devoid of people of color and their power has decreased remarkably fast because of it.
September 20th, 2009 at 3:02 pm
Abb1 –
Because Southern whites vote differently from non-Southern whites. It’s not about race, it’s about political culture.
September 20th, 2009 at 3:12 pm
Who are you to classify people as “whites” and “non-whites”, what business is it of yours?
Maybe people with a big pimple on their ass vote differently than people without the pimple, so what. What’s the significance of this break-down?
September 20th, 2009 at 3:20 pm
abb1, show me research that says the ass-pimpled vote differently than the non-ass-pimpled, and I will care.
September 20th, 2009 at 3:22 pm
The color-blindness schtick is getting old, and it’s all about you staking out some wrongheaded idealogical ground related to Zionism and then not wanting to walk it back. Instead you have to tear out your hear and beat your breast about noticing some obvious fucking problems with white southerners because they aren’t floating around in your perfect, color-blind, bullshit world.
September 20th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
Well, abb1, blacks were marching for their civil rights in living memory. They had to march a long way, for a long time to get those rights. They were beaten over the head with clubs, whipped, assaulted with fire hoses, and murdered for doing so. Race animosity did not disappear with legislation. Right now it appears to be in the “denial” phase. Someone here had a point, I think, when they said that Republicans are calling President Obama a socialist, communist, terrorist, etc. because it’s too unfashionable to call him a ni^^er.
September 20th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
Wiley, blacks were marching for their civil rights in living memory
People were marching for civil rights, not for “their civil rights”. ‘Civil rights’ are not some special black rights, it equal rights for everybody. That’s the whole point.
September 20th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
I have to give abb1 credit. After staking out an untenable opinion, he’s dug in his heels and followed that opinion to its logical conclusions, no matter how idiotic they are.
September 20th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
I have no love for the South or Southerners. They are (by and large), and always have been, regressive, hostile, whiny, and selfish children who dearly love to proclaim their victimhood and who are absolutely convinced of their own righteousness.
Try to get into a conversation with a Southerner about the Civil War and you’ll find there a shining example of what we already know about today’s Republicans: they cling tightly to a wide variety of beliefs that are factually untrue, and they become immediately enraged when those fantasies are countered.
These poll results surprised me not at all.
September 20th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
…about noticing some obvious fucking problems with white southerners
Granted, there might be some social and socio-economic problems in the South, peculiar to the South.
But if you frame it as “problems with white southerners”, then you need to get ready to discuss possible “problems with blacks” as well. In other words, you are just another racist, Ed.
September 20th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
What if I am a racist? If racism is noticing that hite southerners have racial attitudes towards blacks is your definition of racist, then yes, goddamn I’m a racist.
The sun is going to rise tomorrow and I revel in my bigotry for predicting such a thing.
At what point in your life did you decide that you were going to embrace moronic “color blindness”, talk radio, bullshit. You don’t think something went wrong somewhere?
September 20th, 2009 at 3:52 pm
abb1
This is not about race, it’s about regionalism.
When Matt said “…it would be particularly interesting to compare southern whites to non-southern whites,” you replied:
I don’t know what you know about opinion polling, but I suspect it is very little. What Matt is interested in is a study of regional differences that controls for race to eliminate any possible skewing based on ethnic differences. If there are differences in opinion that cleave aong racial or ethnic lines, this sort of survey results would eliminate them.
One might think that you don’t think that politicans should consider race in their political decisions. Do you think that Republicans follow this policy?
Yes, we all know how color-blind Republicans are:
It’s why they lose.
September 20th, 2009 at 3:55 pm
It would be interesting to see a poll that would quantify how much of the criticism of Obama is coming from his left rather than his right. I think it would be fair to say that in the south, criticism is from self-styled conservatives concerned about increased government. But many people, including myself, are disappointed in Obama’s shift to the right in the interests of bipartisanship.
September 20th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
Bingo abb1!
This whole racial thing is related to Obamabot excuse making more than anything else. Yes there are still some racists in America but they are getting old and they NEVER supported barack obama (the banker owned fascist liar king). Obama’s poll numbers are dropping because there has never been an issue he hasn’t flip-flopped on and because more and more people are asking themselves and answering honestly… Is this the change I voted for?
September 20th, 2009 at 4:04 pm
One might think that you don’t think that politicians should consider race in their political decisions.
Who is a politician here? I don’t see any politicians.
The question is: why would a self-proclaimed “progressive” intellectual be so interested in “controlling for race”. Is this a characteristic “progressives” consider essential? What is this “liberal-progressive” shit all about anyway?
September 20th, 2009 at 4:09 pm
NO, abb1—they were fighting for their civil rights that had been denied them—the rights for them to sit in diners, sit anywhere on the bus, vote without challenge, etc. Whites who supported the Civil Rights movement and marched, were advocating rights for a group that had been historically, and legally excluded. It wasn’t a nebulous cause for an amorphous concept—it was concrete and specific.
September 20th, 2009 at 4:24 pm
It would also be fruitful source of study to explore the many ways in which the South remains politically immature, unable to assimilate with regions of the nation that are unlike it, and therefore unable to participate meaninfully in national politics except in a highly confrontational, winner take all away. So long as the South remained part of the Democratic coalition its extremist, separatist tendencies were held somewhat in check as the junior member of the liberal coalition. But once the South became solidly Republican where its natural conservatism and reactionary tendencies was given greater range of play there was always the danger that over time the South would dominate the conservative coalition to such an extent — pushing the party further and further to the right the more that hardcore elements were able to get hold of the purse strings and monopolize control of the party — that the GOP would become America’s “Southern Party” instead of a national party that simply has the South as one of its major constituencies. So much of the polarization we are seeing, and the pathologies that result, are classics of the Southern reactionary and tribalist worldview going back to at least the Civil War, and probably longer.
September 20th, 2009 at 4:27 pm
What Ed said said is his first comment. I suppose I could give some autobiographical anecdotes or link to some racists to back it up, but I’d think it shouldn’t be necessary; the word “super-obvious” really seemed fitting, unless one is living in a fucking cave, of course.
September 20th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
I think it would be fair to say that in the south, criticism is from self-styled conservatives concerned about increased government.
Sorry, but that makes no sense. There was a massive expansion of government under Bush–everything from ending habeas corpus to the unitary executive to massive spending increases that were all deficit funded. There was no significant conservative opposition to Bush or Congressional Republicans.
September 20th, 2009 at 4:36 pm
[...] about Daily Kos as of September 20, 2009 Regionalism in American Politics – yglesias.thinkprogress.org 09/20/2009 Joshua Tucker : One other interesting point from the [...]
September 20th, 2009 at 4:44 pm
maybe abb1 is really Dexter King
September 20th, 2009 at 4:54 pm
Rush Limbaugh is going around saying we need to segregate our schools by race. Thank God there is no racial prejudice in our country anymore.
September 20th, 2009 at 4:56 pm
abb1, I’ll try to explain this to you on a level you can understand. Bear with me:
The reason it would be interesting to control for race in polling is because it provides more information about the views people hold and why they hold them. As a “progressive intellectual”, I seek whatever information I can find about whatever question I’m pursuing. In this case, the question is “do southern whites, on average, have noticably different views on politics than non-southern whites?” As someone who is myself a white southerner, I am highly inclined to believe this is true. Polling that we have bears this out as well, and what Matt said was that it would be interesting if we had more such polling to further determine its accuracy. That’s what “progressive intellectuals” do – determine accuracy or lack thereof, instead of simply stating one’s beliefs to be true regardless of evidence.
Is this a characteristic “progressives” consider essential?
Race is one of many characteristics that make up a person. It varies from person to person how essential they consider their race. Even though many do not consider it essential, and in a perfect world far more would not consider it essential, the fact remains that views on many aspects of politics often differ quite noticably from race to race, just as they differ quite noticably from region to region, and from income to income. I see no reason why someone who not want to consider all the potentially relevant factors, to what extent they are relevant, and why they may be relevant.
September 20th, 2009 at 5:02 pm
Here are the numbers from Gallup: http://www.gallup.com/poll/File/122465/Obama-Weekly-Job-Approval-by-Demographics.xlsx. In the past month, roughly since the administration backed off from the public option, there has been a softening of his support among liberals by about 7%. The dropoff among moderates and conservative support from their respective peaks has been much bigger, though it has stabilized of late. 81% of liberals approve, so I’ll say about 20% disapprove (this is possibly overestimate, many are saying “not sure” and even some who call themselves “liberals” may be critizing Obama from the right). So 20% of liberals who are about 20 percent of the population amounts to 4% of the electorate. Maybe you could add a point or two for “moderates” who think Obama is too far right.
In general Obama’s biggest support is still among liberals and Democrats. Despite the fact that among the punditry it seems like the pro-Obama people are centrists like Sullivan, Brooks and Joe Klein (as well as the center-left people like Yglesias and Ezra), rather than lefties like Krugman, Greenwald and Chris Bowers.
There’s much less regional variation in that poll, by the way. Maybe because Gallup is asking about “job approval” rather than “favorability”? There’s also a lot of noise from week to week.
September 20th, 2009 at 5:03 pm
For now the southern reactionaries are indulging themselves in the fantasy that 2010 will be another 1994 – that in one fell swoop they will retake the congress and set the stage for a GOP presidential restoration. What will happen when this fails to occur? Will they fade back into the background, or, having already invented a narrative of socialist takeover by the kenyan-muslim usurper, will they become violent? What will be the 21st-century Fort Sumpter?
September 20th, 2009 at 5:04 pm
Wiley 21, no, I don’t think so. The most famous leader of the movement articulated the main concept as “…a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character,” but you fellas just won’t let it go. You just have to inject the skin color into every situation. It’s stupid, it’s pathetic, and I don’t understand what your purpose might be, other than to keep the population split along the racial lines.
September 20th, 2009 at 5:12 pm
The regionalism is certainly relevant when it comes to interpreting what shifting poll numbers mean, though.
The 24-hour news cycle would have us believe that the public has, for whatever reason, started turning against health care reform, against federal spending, against the stimulus, and so on, whereas these numbers imply that, outside of a regional echo chamber where Obama was dramatically unpopular to start with, his policies are still strongly supported.
September 20th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
Adam 28: the fact remains that views on many aspects of politics often differ quite noticably from race to race
Really? Why would it be so? Suppose a white middle class family living in a white middle-class suburb adopts a dark-skin baby. When she grows up, will her politics differ quite noticeably from her white brothers and sisters?
I hope your answer is “no, not likely”, but in that case this is obviously not about race at all. So, why do you insist on using race as a some sort of defining characteristic? You don’t really believe that different races are genetically predisposed to different kinds of politics, do you?
September 20th, 2009 at 5:18 pm
I guess I haven’t been paying attention because I didn’t realize that abb1 was one of those typical anti-anti-racists. There’s no point in arguing with these folk because they’re not arguing in good-faith. Instead, they take a silly absolutist race-blind position and claim that it’s the “true” anti-racist position. This is stupid and they probably know it.
For example, let’s say that you were worried about bigotry against the disabled and their (well, “our”, as I’m disabled myself) lack of access, both physically and socioeconomically. These folks would then argue—assuming they’re consistent—that the proper way to eliminate this bigotry and solve access problems is for everyone to pretend as if there’s no difference between people who are disabled and people who are not. Which, revealingly, means that while in theory (assuming anyone really does this) cultural attitudes about the disabled will eventually improve, there will be in the meantime absolutely nothing done about physical and socioeconomic access.
This comparison breaks down at some point because the barriers presented to the disabled are partly an inherent function of their disability while, in contrast, racial barriers are a function of cultural attitudes. So, in theory doing nothing more than changing cultural attitudes should eventually eliminate socioeconomic racial barriers. Eventually. In the meantime, we’re expected to simply hope this will happen someday and patiently await it.
Which is the whole point. The comparison is apt insofar as a practical matter, in the present, these barriers exist for both the disabled and racial minorities and so the real-world effect of this “cultural attitudes only” approach is to do absolutely nothing practical to improve peoples’ lives by removing barriers.
It’s a mistake to give people like abb1 credit for being well-intentioned idealists. They are not. They aren’t innocently letting the perfect become the enemy of the good; they have found a convenient position to take which has the dual benefits of being plausibly deniable while simultaneously obstructing attempts to improve the socioeconomic status of people who are victims of racism. An extra-delicious benefit is that they believe they can get away with accusations of racism against progressives for not being stupidly and simplemindedly race-blind.
September 20th, 2009 at 5:18 pm
abb1
Wow. I’ve seen people make the “progressive concerns about race make them racist” argument FAR better than you have so far. You’ll have to try much harder.
However, must say I like the “Who is a politician here? I don’t see any politicians…” feint. Sure, what’s REALLY important is what commenters on a blog comment roll think, right? After all, it doesn’t matter AT ALL that Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin was criss-crossing last year telling all-white crowds that she and they are the “real Americans.” Certainly nothing racial about THAT, and it couldn’t possibly be related to the fact that Republicans have ittle to no support or influence outside of the white racists of the Old South. Who would conceivably link these facts?
Everything that you and your Republicans cronies in Alabama et. al. hate: actual enforcement of civil rights laws, broader protection of the right to vote, affordable and protected health care for the poor/the working poor/immigrants/the middle class, more economic and political power for workers and correspondingly less for management, respect for international law, international multilateralism, and peace with justice. Racist stuff like that.
September 20th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
@31 Now you have descended into grade z conservatroll horse apples. A five year old could understand what’s wrong with your objections to noticing reality. You are obviously struggling mightily and conjuring up phantoms to keep from noticing it yourself.
September 20th, 2009 at 5:33 pm
Abb1’s sophistry is just a smoke screen and a troll’s diversion.
The bleak bottom line is this: the current Republican party and its narrow appeal to primarily Southern whites (not an opinion–a fact) is doomed. Their ideology has been exposed for the incompetent, anti-good-governance sham that it is, their policies have been repudiated, their moderates have been purged by the extreme right wing, and they face electoral defeat everywhere but in their shrinking Southern enclave for the foreseeable future.
You see, there’s a reason that Republicans try to block every progressive reform: health insurance reform, labor legislation, green jobs and energy, economic stimulus, and so on. Their slim hope, and they know it’s pretty much their only hope given the unpopularity of their party and their ideas, is that economic conditions, the job market, and lack of affordable health protection will get SO BAD that people will hold their noses and vote for them instead. How fucking sick is that? I think we all know.
September 20th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
Ed @ 36
He’s just upset that we’re judging Southern whites based on the content of their characters. Republicans hate that.
September 20th, 2009 at 5:41 pm
abb1 isn’t a republican, he’s more or less a Marxist who has walked out onto this rhetorical plank and can’t get off. It’s sorry.
September 20th, 2009 at 5:47 pm
@35: you don’t need to convince me that politicians play the race card all the time, I know that. What I don’t understand is why the “progressives” must do the same.
@36: your objections to noticing reality
Well, buddy, this “reality” you’re noticing here is exactly the mirror image of “reality” the wingnuts notice with their crime statistics by race, what race is on the dole, and so on.
You are a mirror image of a wingnut – a “libnut”? I’m sure you’re oblivious to it, though.
September 20th, 2009 at 5:48 pm
This kind of puts the enthusiasm gap in another perspective. If the most passionate Obama haters are concentrated in one region, then the number of seats the GOP can take back next fall is limited.
September 20th, 2009 at 6:06 pm
abb1:
Adam 28: the fact remains that views on many aspects of politics often differ quite noticably from race to race
Really? Why would it be so?
Well, that’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it? But what I think you’re not realizing that just because it shouldn’t be so, or because you can’t think of a good reason why it would be, doesn’t mean that you just get to declare that it isn’t so. As far as I’m aware, Republicans have won the white vote and Democrats have overwhelmingly won the black vote in every presidential election since 1968. In every close election at every level of government the same thing happens. For you to claim race has nothing to do with this is being willfully ignorant of the massive body of evidence that indicates that it is.
Suppose a white middle class family living in a white middle-class suburb adopts a dark-skin baby. When she grows up, will her politics differ quite noticeably from her white brothers and sisters?
I hope your answer is “no, not likely”, but in that case this is obviously not about race at all.
What you’re going for is that differences in opinion are entirely driven by things like income and culture. I would say that income, culture, and race all have an effect. That’s why it’s so useful to break polling down to control for certain variables – for instance, to see if white and black people of the same income level vote the same. Here’s a well-done graphical comparison of this:
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/05/how-did-white-people-vote-how-did-rich.html
What stands out to me from those graphs is that the lower the income level, the more race affects voting patterns, and even more so the more region affects voting patters. That is, poor white Southerners are far more likely to vote Republican than either poor black Southerners or poor whites in other regions. Like I said – all three factors matter.
So, to answer your question: it’s complicated. It might, it might not. Based on this data, it’s more likely not to if said household is not in the South, which was the whole point of Matt’s post: white Southerners think differently than whites elsewhere.
So, why do you insist on using race as a some sort of defining characteristic? You don’t really believe that different races are genetically predisposed to different kinds of politics, do you?
It’s no more of a defining characteristic than income or region. But it is a characteristic that can influence one’s behavior, like many others. As for whether people are genetically predisposed to different kinds of politics, I’ll simply say that I think every race has some inclination to disapprove of political parties that directly or indirectly favor policies that hurt people of their race. Blacks didn’t always vote Democratic and southern whites didn’t always vote Republican – that started in 1968, after Nixon and the Republicans decided to become the party that opposed civil rights legislation and run on the Southern Strategy of appealing to racist southern whites. Republicans haven’t changed how they do things much since then, which is why they’re now a party that has such a large proportion of white southerners. My guess is that if they did change their rhetoric and policies, there wouldn’t be such a massive difference in voting between races.
September 20th, 2009 at 6:08 pm
Nevermind, with the “on the one hand, on the other hand” shit, you have convinced me. You aren’t being a stubborn asshole. You really are that stupid.
September 20th, 2009 at 6:13 pm
I have no love for the South or Southerners.
But, but, I’m one of the good ones!
September 20th, 2009 at 6:17 pm
Suppose a white middle class family living in a white middle-class suburb adopts a dark-skin baby. When she grows up, will her politics differ quite noticeably from her white brothers and sisters?
I hope your answer is “no, not likely”, but in that case this is obviously not about race at all.
Uh, yea, they will, because she’s a black female, irrespective of her socio-economic status. That might shield her from personally experiencing the ugliness directed at women and minorities, but if she’s not completely blind, then she’s going to notice how American society deals with those groups.
And so, she’s overwhelmingly more likely to be a left leaning Democrat than her brothers and sisters, who could join the Republican Party without ever experiencing the treatment that would be meted out to her. I ordinarily don’t like “very special episodes”, but there’s one of Will Smith’s old Fresh Prince of Bel Air, where he and his cousin are stopped driving Will’s Uncle’s law partner’s luxury car.
As Will says,
There are still times, abb1, in this country, where your money or your education don’t matter shit. And where being born white is pretty damn lucky.
September 20th, 2009 at 6:32 pm
For you to claim race has nothing to do with this is being willfully ignorant of the massive body of evidence that indicates that it is.
Adam, your body of evidence points to a correlation with race, but you behave as if it was causation.
People don’t vote for the Democrats because their skin is dark or because their ancestors were brought from Africa; there is a different reason. I’m sure black CEOs do vote Republican (and notice that the only black supreme court judge is a real wingnut), it’s just that there aren’t too many of them.
Due to historical factors (slavery, etc.) a large portion of the black population comprise the underclass in this country, this where their consciousness and their voting patterns are formed. This is also how racial stereotypes get created and sustained.
Race itself is meaningless, unless, of course, you’re a racist. You can talk about public opinion of the underclass, voting patterns in urban ghettos vs. small towns and suburbs – that makes sense, but map it onto the race is silly and extremely tasteless.
September 20th, 2009 at 6:32 pm
Adam,
You’re simply wasting your time talking to Mr. Abb1. Besides being an anti-semitic pigf*cker, Mr. Abb1 is also a f*cking idiot.
September 20th, 2009 at 6:44 pm
Abb1, race is one independent variable in an attempt to explain a phenomenon, in this case, voting patterns and political allegiances.
Ignoring it would create opacity rather than clarity, it would be like trying to analyze wages while ignoring age. Aren’t you interested in trying to discover what’s actually happening?
September 20th, 2009 at 6:51 pm
Adam, your body of evidence points to a correlation with race, but you behave as if it was causation.
Very good. You seemed to be denying previously that even a correlation existed. So now that we agree the evidence points to that, let’s discuss whether a causation exists.
Due to historical factors (slavery, etc.) a large portion of the black population comprise the underclass in this country, this where their consciousness and their voting patterns are formed. This is also how racial stereotypes get created and sustained.
This is quite true.
Race itself is meaningless, unless, of course, you’re a racist. You can talk about public opinion of the underclass, voting patterns in urban ghettos vs. small towns and suburbs – that makes sense, but map it onto the race is silly and extremely tasteless.
There’s nothing silly about at least investigating the possibility, unless you’re so utterly convinced as to the correctness of your views that you feel any attempt would be a waste of time. As one of your progressive liberals, I very rarely feel that way. Perhaps that’s the difference between us.
Anyway, let’s look at an example: Mississippi. I’ve lived there. It’s a shithole. But what it doesn’t have are significant urban areas. There are tons of white trailer parks and tons of black trailer parks, often in the same towns. But the poor whites vote 95% Republican and the poor blacks vote 98% Democratic. It’s not a city/small town issue, and it’s not a poverty issue. Everyone’s in poverty and everyone’s in a rural area. It’s race that makes the difference. Specifically, that one party has for 40 years actively opposed policies that help blacks more than whites, whether civil rights, voting laws, affirmative action, whatever. For you to claim that would have no impact on how a black person or a white southerner would vote is downright laughable. And you have no data whatsoever to back it up.
September 20th, 2009 at 6:53 pm
You’re simply wasting your time talking to Mr. Abb1. Besides being an anti-semitic pigf*cker, Mr. Abb1 is also a f*cking idiot.
Of course I have no expectations of changing his mind significantly. Mostly I engage trolls and idiots (whichever abb1 is) for my own amusement, kind of an intellectual game where I argue the way I would with someone who actually held those beliefs. I like to see the responses I get from the troll.
Also, there’s always the off chance that someone is actually arguing legitimately and I can show them the error of their ways. It’s part of being a bleeding-heart liberal, I guess. But even if that weren’t the case (like with Al), I still consider it a worthwhile use of some of my leisure time, and particularly work time.
September 20th, 2009 at 7:00 pm
Mike,
exactly, I am interested in what’s actually happening, and this race crap only muddies the water.
Look at the crime stats by race, for example; something the wingnuts bring up all the time. They show it to you and say: look, the blacks commit disproportionally high number of violent crimes, therefore (”it’s obvious!” as you fellas like to point out in this thread) they are more violent by nature.
Well, no. There are other reasons, the reasons I already mentioned a few comments above. Would you agree that these stats shed no light, absolutely no light on the phenomenon? They are simply meaningless, completely meaningless. And they are also dangerous, because they imply causation where there is none.
September 20th, 2009 at 7:13 pm
Adam, the plural of anecdote is not data, I would like you to prove that the poor whites vote 95% Republican while the poor blacks in the same town vote 98% Democratic.
But:
Specifically, that one party has for 40 years actively opposed policies that help blacks more than whites, whether civil rights, voting laws, affirmative action, whatever.
Well, if that’s the case, if there is a party that helps poor blacks more than equally poor whites, that would explain it. That would also seem to be racist, wrong, and illegal. Like I said: the idea is to treat everyone equally.
And I would like you explain how the poor blacks in Shithole, Mississippi feel the love of the national Democratic party.
September 20th, 2009 at 7:19 pm
Look at the crime stats by race, for example; something the wingnuts bring up all the time. They show it to you and say: look, the blacks commit disproportionally high number of violent crimes, therefore (”it’s obvious!” as you fellas like to point out in this thread) they are more violent by nature.
I’m glad you correctly see that as ridiculous.
Well, no. There are other reasons, the reasons I already mentioned a few comments above. Would you agree that these stats shed no light, absolutely no light on the phenomenon? They are simply meaningless, completely meaningless. And they are also dangerous, because they imply causation where there is none.
I would completely disagree that statistics that blacks commit more crimes shine no light on the phenomenon. We should see that, note it, and figure out why that’s the case, not look at everything from a race-blind perspective. Why do blacks commit more crimes? Well, one reason is that significantly more of them are in poverty. Significantly more of them grow up in areas with poor schools and poor nutrition. Significantly more of them grew up in single-parent households. And some small percentage is because of stuff like police racial profiling and disparate drug and other sentences (look at death sentences vs life sentences by race for the same crimes – it’s shocking).
So when it comes to voting behavior and political views, we do the same thing. Why do blacks and whites differ so much? Obviously it’s not because blacks are genetically more liberal. Part is because they’re more poor. But not all of it. Part of it is a natural reaction to what the parties actually stand for. That’s not because of some inherent black gene, but it is because someone happens to be black and one party has repeatedly advocated policies that hurt black people. Thus you see a difference in voting behavior by race even controlling for every other variable. In some places (like Mississippi) it’s a massive difference. The causation lies with the behavior of the politicians. But causation it is nonetheless.
And back to the original point of the post: a similar difference exists between white southerners and white non-southerners, even controlling for every other variable. You originally dismissed that as being ridiculous and decried anyone who would even compare the two. I hope I’ve shown why that was an incorrect view. You can’t say a middle-class black person is more likely to commit a violent crime than his white neighbor. But you can say he’s more likely to vote Democratic than his white neighbor. Far more likely.
September 20th, 2009 at 7:27 pm
Race hasn’t got anything to do with it… Wingnuts protesting Obama are no damn different than liberals protesting Bush.. Same caca differnent day. Sans for abb1 (who seeks to understand cause and not muddy the water with skin color (which could just as easily be height, weight eye color etc)) you’re all no damn different than the wing-nuts you despise and the elites who pull your strings with this divisive shite laugh their increasingly wealthy ass’s off at you dumbed down name calling un-washed masses.
Again… the cause of Obama’s sagging popularity is once thought extinct critical thinking. Peoples see him say one thing and do another ALWAYS. People say… this is not the change I voted for. You idiots bought yourself a pig-n-a-poke potus who is beholden only to the banking elite.
September 20th, 2009 at 7:27 pm
Adam, the plural of anecdote is not data, I would like you to prove that the poor whites vote 95% Republican while the poor blacks in the same town vote 98% Democratic.
I’ll see if I can find a good data source for results that far down. But the overall 2008 Mississippi results were whites 11% Democratic, blacks 98%. I said 5% for poor whites as poor whites are virtually never Democrats, but it might be a few points higher. Regardless, very large parts of Mississippi are rural and very poor, and I would be willing to bet that in no county in the state was the white vote above 20% or the black vote below 95%. It wouldn’t surprise me if there were none over 15%. I think it’s clear based on those numbers that a massive degree of polarization exists, one that absolutely cannot be explained by any of your income/location factors. It’s race. They vote how they vote because of the views of the two parties towards race.
September 20th, 2009 at 7:33 pm
Well, if that’s the case, if there is a party that helps poor blacks more than equally poor whites, that would explain it. That would also seem to be racist, wrong, and illegal. Like I said: the idea is to treat everyone equally.
And I would like you explain how the poor blacks in Shithole, Mississippi feel the love of the national Democratic party.
You’re correct. The idea is absolutely to treat everyone equally. So, for instance, when Republicans and Dixiecrats opposed civil rights legislation that gave everyone equal rights, it wasn’t because they were upset that blacks were being given more than whites, it’s that they wanted to keep the status quo where blacks had fewer rights and wanted to prevent everyone being on the same playing field.
As for the poor black in Shithole, Mississippi, he could stand to feel a lot more love from the Democrats than he does now. But he’s not getting lynched, he can register to vote and not face harrassment at the polls, he can use the same lunch counter and water fountain as whites do, and his children can go to the same underfunded schools. I would say his quality of life has certainly gone up. But there’s obviously a long way to go.
I think the more interesting question is what the poor white in Shithole, Mississippi has gotten from the Republican party. As far as I can tell, it’s a lot of pro-gun and anti-gay legislation, some lip service on abortion, and virtually nothing to help improve the quality of their life. I’ll leave it to you to determine what that says about things.
September 20th, 2009 at 7:40 pm
[O]n some level saying “Barack Obama’s super-popular if you ignore the southerners” seems about on a par with saying “Obama’s super-unpopular if you ignore the non-white people.”
Others have already touched on this, but there are reasons why packing your political party’s support into a relatively small number of states is more relevant than most such cross-sectional issues. The immediate concern is finding your party underrepresented in the electoral college and the Senate. The longer term concern is finding your party locked into this position due to the nature of your party base. And that regional lock-in can be pretty strong in part because while a party like this may not be viable nationally, it could be dominant on the relevant state and local levels, and there is a decent amount of power to be had and interests to be served at the state and local level in our system.
Indeed, you might think national Republican leaders would be sounding the alarm at seeing this regionalization of what is supposed to be a national party. The fact that they are not is itself an indication of how difficult it could be to climb back out of this position.
September 20th, 2009 at 7:44 pm
abb1’s argument boils down to if I cover my eyes, I’m invisible.
September 20th, 2009 at 7:47 pm
Unfortunately, race is still a proxy for something as yet unmeasureable (culture?tradition?) so it’s still necessary to include that variable or the models lose lots of power.
Yes abb1, it’ll be wonderful when dr. King’s dream is fully realized and we can merely use age, income, education, region, ideaology etc… for analysis of political fealty, but that day has not arrived.
September 20th, 2009 at 7:50 pm
Adam, well, if parties actually tailor their policies to the races, then of course blacks and whites should vote for their corresponding race-based parties, no question about that.
But that’s illegal: government officials can’t take the race into consideration. If they still do it, you (as a progressive) should insist that they stop; and these stats still tell us nothing: proving (trivially) that black people vote for the black people’s party and white people vote for the white people’s party; of course they do.
My impression is, though, that government officials don’t care much about race. It’s simply a matter of Democrats being more likely to increase the minimum wage, to finance Medicaid, to pass less draconian anti-crime legislations. And that affects the underclass, not the blacks.
September 20th, 2009 at 7:56 pm
Wiley, but you argument is: the most superficial characteristic that meets the eye must be the cause of everything.
race is still a proxy for something as yet unmeasureable (culture?tradition?)
Race is not a proxy for culture, environment defines culture. Race shouldn’t be a proxy for anything, it a superficial, meaningless characteristic. Unless, of course, you’re a racist.
September 20th, 2009 at 8:05 pm
Whether you disaggregate by race or region depends on whether you want to make predictive assessments of upcoming elections or congressional votes, seek normative judgments about the expected social impact of public policy, or tease out causal dynamics. Political scientists regularly include a “South” category variable in their statistical models based on the widely documented difference in causal dynamics with respect to public opinion between the former Confederacy and the rest of the country (hint: it has something to do with race). To put a finer point on it, noting that public opinion is only against Obama in the South lends credence to the opinions recently expressed by President Carter, Maureen Dowd, and Bob Herbert (among others), that disapproval (and the intensity of disrespect and hostility) is due to his non-white racial makeup. Furthermore, if the purpose is prediction, then previous commenters are exactly right: we would be best served by a public opinion breakdown that addresses prospects for changes in the congressional balance of power in the midterm elections.
September 20th, 2009 at 8:20 pm
Re: Race shouldn’t be a proxy for anything, it a superficial, meaningless characteristic.
It was certainly a meaningful characteristic for those African American men who found themselves on the wrong side of a lynch mob. But hey, why pay attention to lynchings when you could spew some nonsense about racist Zionist progressives, instead.
September 20th, 2009 at 8:25 pm
But that’s illegal: government officials can’t take the race into consideration.
It’s illegal to tailor policies to race? I think the word you’re looking for is unconstitutional (sometimes). Nothing prevents a party from running on an explicitly racist platform and enacting its agenda if elected (some have tried). It just wouldn’t be successful. See the famous Atwater quote.
proving (trivially) that black people vote for the black people’s party and white people vote for the white people’s party; of course they do.
It’s not the black people’s party, it’s the party that doesn’t want to enact legislation that unfairly fucks over black people. And yes, of course it’s trivial that they vote for that over the white people’s party. That’s why it was so ridiculous that you were arguing they were just doing so because of income or whatever.
My impression is, though, that government officials don’t care much about race. It’s simply a matter of Democrats being more likely to increase the minimum wage, to finance Medicaid, to pass less draconian anti-crime legislations. And that affects the underclass, not the blacks.
“You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can’t say “nigger”—that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now [that] you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites.”
That’s why a middle-class suburban black is much more likely to vote Democratic than his white neighbor. They didn’t come up with the Southern Strategy because they really liked states’ rights. They did it to win over racists. And they haven’t changed all that much since then.
September 20th, 2009 at 10:47 pm
abb1, if you don’t think race is a proxy for anything, here is what you should do. Create a model for voting behavior which doesn’t include race as a variable, but is at least as predictive as the best models which do. This will be greatly appreciated by political scientists and surely bring you credibility, prestige, fame, etc.
September 20th, 2009 at 11:01 pm
It’s not just interesting, but actually important and relevant, for the simple reason that our democratic system – electoral college, Senate and House districts – are geographically-based.
A drop in support that’s limited to the South will do much less damage to the re-election chances of Obama and of the Democrats in Congress than a similarly-sized drop among, say, poor people or left-handed people, for the simple reason that the unhappy people can swing a lot fewer elections.
September 20th, 2009 at 11:11 pm
Abb1 gets hired as a bank examiner.
He goes into a bank in South Carolina, and discovers that they’re approving 90% of white applicants’ loans, and denying 90% of black applicants’ loans, despite the two groups having identical incomes and credit scores.
He reports back that the bank is approving 50% of its loans, and doing so in an apparently random manner, then congratulates himself for striking a blow against racial stereotyping.
Woo! Willful blindless towards issues involving racial disparity is awesome!!
September 20th, 2009 at 11:50 pm
Why would it be interesting at all, let alone “particularly interesting”? Why always the idiotic racial angle, and always from self-proclaimed ‘liberals’ and ‘progressives’, who, presumably, shouldn’t care about this crap. That’s what I find particularly interesting.
This seems a weird statement considering that the title of this post refers to regionalism and Yglesias makes no argument that this apparent regional difference is the result of distinctly regional differences vis-a-vis race. In fact, the only reason he gives is ideology.
September 21st, 2009 at 12:34 am
This seems a weird statement considering that the title of this post refers to regionalism and Yglesias makes no argument that this apparent regional difference is the result of distinctly regional differences vis-a-vis race. In fact, the only reason he gives is ideology.
And the ideology of the white South is the ideology of obstructing the functioning of the national government, destroying any kind of social welfare safety net, and embracing militancy out of fear.
I wonder why those people are so vehement.
As the man said, you can’t say the words any more, and you can’t even really do busing, and you can’t do tax cuts because we’re in a recession, so you’re left with increasingly abstract arguments.
All of which have, completely coincidentally I’m sure, the side effect of hurting black people more than whites.
September 21st, 2009 at 2:31 am
All of which have, completely coincidentally I’m sure, the side effect of hurting black people more than whites
There are still people – probably a lot of people, politicians and ordinary people everywhere, in the North and South, East and West and Center – who think that race is an essential characteristic of a person. That’s a fact of life, I’m not denying it.
What I am disappointed about is a slightly different fact, the fact that you all – self-proclaimed and proud liberal progressives – are made of the same fucking cloth. That you believe that “the whites” do this and “the blacks” do that, you fucking idiots. Your basic assumptions about the race are exactly of the same kind as those of the racists you presumably despise; you fully accept their framing and the terminology, you morons. Racists you don’t like believe that something is wrong with “the blacks”, and the racists that you do like believe that something is wrong with “the southern whites”, you stupid jerk-offs.
Is this so complicated that it’s impossible to understand, or is it that your fucking brains have turned to Jello?
September 21st, 2009 at 3:24 am
Well this doesn’t appear to accept “strike” tags, so I’ll just put them in brackets:
“Well, I don’t know what “heritage” is, but I really do dislike [s]my parents’[/s] Southern White culture. Provincial, narrow-minded [s]Eastern-European Jewish[/s] Southern White culture. It’s sooo [s]boring and stupid[/s] racist.”
September 21st, 2009 at 3:27 am
Easy, eh? And it doesn’t even require discussion of slavery, Jim Crow, the KKK, Confederate flags at Obama protests, or any other aspects of, you know, reality.
September 21st, 2009 at 3:38 am
OK, once again… I suspect that every ethnic culture is racist to one degree or another, Godoggo. But you don’t have to be; that is: you don’t have to believe that these “controlled by race” statistics and race-based generalizations have any significance.
September 21st, 2009 at 8:05 am
If 82% support Obama where I live, why do I have to listen to a “This Week” panel in which three are bashing him and two supporting him?
September 21st, 2009 at 8:06 am
abb1, do you not grasp that its possible that while we wish such things were not important, in the reality we live in they are, and thus we need to investigate the ramifications of that fact?
Its called being “reality based”, where you accept that the world is not necessarily how you wish it would be, instead of sticking your fingers in your ears and humming really loudly.
September 21st, 2009 at 8:37 am
Fencedude, in fact, in reality these things are not important, they only seem important to you for some reason.
I don’t see any real-life significance to comparing “southern whites to non-southern whites”, it’s just that, for whatever reason, it seems interesting to Yglesias and you. There is also absolutely no basis in reality for gratuitous slandering of tens of millions of people categorized as “white southerners”, the way Ed Marshall does in #10.
This is not “reality based”, it’s just that you can’t break out and free yourselves from this silly (and unpleasant) frame.
September 21st, 2009 at 8:46 am
Point of order.
I’m a white southerner.
I think the results of such an inquiry would be fascinating.
September 21st, 2009 at 9:15 am
Fine, whatever turns you on, man.
September 21st, 2009 at 10:06 am
That escalated quickly.
The salient point here is: if Obama’s popularity is constant everywhere else, then the story isn’t “Obama’s approval rating is dropping nationwide” but rather “Obama’s approval rating is dropping in the South, which is making his national approval rating drop.”
Looking at the Gallup tracker, approval is down in the West in the past month but stable in the South.
Similarly, economic numbers are going to be brought down by ongoing disastrous California issues. It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do anything about the numbers, it means you don’t put Neosporin on your whole body for a cut on your foot.
September 21st, 2009 at 10:42 am
The republicans for years one elections by adopting a Southern Strategy. It’s recently looked much as though that was all they had left (although more recently less so). Also, blatantly racist southern politicians hold power in context. To the extent that a blog is interested in elections and the passage of laws, it makes sense to be aware of these dramatic regional differences in typical attitudes.
September 21st, 2009 at 11:12 am
Damn, that was a classic Yglesianism I typed there. That’s what I get for reeding this dam blog.
September 21st, 2009 at 11:28 am
Yes, it was.
I have nothing against controlling for regional differences, these are objective meaningful characteristics: different economies, different social conditions.
But comparing “white southerners” against “white northerners” in the context of Obama’s approval ratings – what does it mean? Does it mean that the “whites” who disapprove are racists? WTF?
September 21st, 2009 at 1:13 pm
It’d be nice to split out non-Southern whites and other whites. White people should realize they can support Obama and not be some kind of n***** lover.
September 21st, 2009 at 3:25 pm
But comparing “white southerners” against “white northerners” in the context of Obama’s approval ratings – what does it mean? Does it mean that the “whites” who disapprove are racists? WTF?
Exactly. We must never, ever even look at things that might make us uncomfortable, no matter how statistically significant.
It would be like looking the the approval numbers of Southerners in general, and breaking that out into the 90-something approval rating in the Black community, verus the 20-something approval rating in the White community. What possible good would it do to know this. It’s only devisive.
Like Stephen Colbert, abb1 doesn’t *see* race…
September 21st, 2009 at 3:29 pm
Same with the phenomenon during the Democratic primary last year, where we saw that Obama’s popularity fell by something like 15-20 points versus Hillary in the old Cotton Belt and the poorest areas of White Appalachia.
Ripe for study you say? Nonsense! That sort of thing can only lead to trouble…
September 21st, 2009 at 3:33 pm
Well who would have thunk Matt was a racist?
But I guess I am not surprised at the white southern bashing.
I have been seeing it for a long time at DKos too and more so lately.
So all we white Southerners should pack our bags and move on to some other party?
Okey dokey.
I guess I should first fax this article to my white southern cousin who is a dem congressman in NC to let him know he’s in the wrong party and needs to probably go independent
Then fax my dem Senator Kay Hagan to let her know.
It’s past time to get serious about a third party anyway. I can barely tell the difference between the racist rethugs and the racist demo’s anyway.
Actually this feels very liberating, very freeing..to be done with both parties..
See ya.
September 21st, 2009 at 3:44 pm
Really?
If I give you my e-mail address, will you put down some money – some REAL money, something in the four digits – about the results of the 2010 Congressional elections?
We’ll bet $100 on the outcome of each election. You look at polling data that isn’t broken down by race and region, and I will, and then, we’ll put down $100 on each seat for which we come up with different predictions.
Please?
Pretty Please?
Since you’re so certain there isn’t anything significant to be found in disaggregating the data that way, there really isn’t any reason for you to fear.
September 21st, 2009 at 3:47 pm
Piss off, “American.” You’re a damn liar.
I defy you to quote a single word from this post that bashes anyone.
September 22nd, 2009 at 4:18 am
Joe, I already addressed this phenomenon (African-Americans being heavily represented in the underclass, urban underclass) many times, in this thread or elsewhere. The fact that you might be able (sometimes) to substitute a meaningful characteristic with a correlated meaningless one and get some results is not surprising.
But why would you insist on using it, insist on using race to get your predictions, that’s what I want to know. I’m sure you’re aware that a black individual is not different from a white individual in any meaningful way. I understand that there are people who believe that black people are different, but you (I assume) are not one of them, so why do you insist on treating it as something significant?
@84, oboe: Exactly. We must never, ever even look at things that might make us uncomfortable, no matter how statistically significant.
So what is the significance of comparing “white southerners” against “white northerners” in the context of Obama’s approval ratings? I asked the question, you’re claiming that it’s statistically significant, but you provide no answer. Try again, please.
September 22nd, 2009 at 8:54 am
Stop being a bloviating dumbass out of your own ignorance and then demanding everyone else school you.
Good god, there have been 8 fucking million poli sci and sociology articles about the role of race and region in U.S. politics, with every possible fucking permutation imaginable.
Google for a while through Google scholar or even essays on the GSS and have something to say before coming back yet again with your ‘deductions from first principles in the midst of complete ignorance’ bullshit.
If you don’t know something, then for god’s sake go out and read something and stop demanding others respond to your idiot taunts.
September 22nd, 2009 at 9:54 am
@90, so, you’re an asshole, you make it clear, I get it. Still, there is no answer on the significance of comparing “white southerners” with “white northerners” in the context of Obama’s approval ratings.
You don’t need to educate me, one phrase would be enough.
Good god, there have been 8 fucking million poli sci and sociology articles about the role of race and region in U.S. politics, with every possible fucking permutation imaginable
Exactly, and that’s the problem: they inject race into everything and anything. Presidential approval by race? Race and healthcare? Race and homosexuality?
Sure, I may be dumb, but I’m not that dumb.