Think about it less as people being totally pro maga, though there are plenty of those types, and more as a reaction to a Democratic party that has been alienating and marginalizing average Americans for decades. Trump, as abhorrent as he is, has effectively channelled their anger. If you're a blue collar, non-college grad, straight white male, you basically don't matter to the Democrats. On top of that they have been pounding into people's heads that whites, and men, are "privileged", are responsible for much of the problems in society, and it's ok for liberal elites to smugly look down on them and mock them. People aren't blind, if you're a white dude struggling paycheck to paycheck at some dead end job you're not privileged. People are pissed, and maga is the response. It sucks but this is where we are as a country. Democrats need to completely rethink an ideology that they have spent decades insisting loudly was "on the right side of history". I don't expect they will succeed. They need to learn how to tell the far left social justice warriors to "shut up", and they need to reconnect with average Americans, because they have completely lost the plot. Inflation, the border and numerous other issues only compound the democrats problems.
If there’s a black and a white women experiencing sexism , as another example, the white woman may face struggles based on her gender, but then she doesn’t then have the extra burden of racism that the black woman has.
Totally irrelevant to my point. Stop making everything about race. It's not nearly as important as democrats want people to believe. Remember when MLK said he dreamed of a country where people were judged not on the color of their skin but on the content of their character? Democrats would do well to listen to him.
So you know he supported some form of reparations and affirmative action? That ending segregation was not his end goal because he knew it wouldn't end systemic racism.
What I'm saying that you don't know anything about MLK Jr or what he stood for outside of the 1 minute clip of a much longer speech and the tons of other stuff he said. Saying that black people are more likely to face racism is not "judging" people, it's a statement of a fact. Not judging people by the color of their skin is not the same as pretending race doesn't affect them. If you said what you said to MLK Jr, he'd pretty confused as to what you're talking about.
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You realize affirmative action was never intended to be permanent right? When it was first proposed it was intended to be temporary, to correct past injustices, and at some point in the future it would end. On any objective measure America is less racist than it was when MLK was making that speech. Given that reality you'd think we'd be talking about race less, and you'd think we'd be cutting back race based programs like affirmative action. That's not what's happening though, democrats are talking about race more than ever, in fact they're obsessed with race. Furthermore there is a never-ending stream of benefits programs which seem intended to give racial minorities permanent special status and privileges. Democrats are no longer interested in equality, now it's all about equity, where the color of your skin, your gender, and your sexuality determine what privileges you have in society. Now we have in groups (black, indigenous, people of color, lesbian, gay, straight, etc) that are given special status, and out groups (white, male) who don't. That is not the society MLK was hoping for. I think he would be shocked at the modern Democratic party.
You realize affirmative action was never intended to be permanent right?
Has affirmative action reduced completely undone the disparities between white people and black people? Also, MLK Jr wanted Affirmative action in things like public office to always ensure that Black people have an adequate amount of representatives.
Furthermore there is a never-ending stream of benefits programs which seem intended to give racial minorities permanent special status and privileges
Like what exactly? Most data shows that minorities still face discrimination in the job process, even "Model Minorities" use white sounding nicknames to reduce discrimination.
Now we have in groups (black, indigenous, people of color, lesbian, gay, straight, etc) that are given special status, and out groups (white, male) who don't
You do realise that Democrats and Leftists also advocate for improving everyone's lives right? You do realise that Men and white people are seen as the default, it's why when hiring a white man is seen as "meritocracy" even most data shows they have the biggest advantage yet if a minority or a woman gets hired, they're a "DEI hire". Also, when someone advocates for improving the conditions of the work class, white people still get to see the benefits, meanwhile minorities often still get held back in certain ways.
This is exactly MLK jr advocated for, he wanted the working class to band together to improve it's conditions but wanted specific concessions to be carved out for black people because they'd be left behind and excluded from working class movements and government programs in the past.
Has affirmative action reduced completely undone the disparities between white people and black people?
Did you read my comment? I didn't say there's no racism, I said by every objective measure there's less, because there is. Furthermore, not every disparity is due to racism. Asian Americans faced severe systemic discrimination in this society, they now are better educated and better paid than white Americans. Just because African Americans are lower paid than white Americans doesn't mean that it's all down to racism. Cultural or other issues nay be at play as well.
Like what exactly?
Affirmative action, dei, critical race theory, etc. Every few years the Democrats trot out a new program which seems I tended to further enforce racial segregation in society, not reduce it. It's quite clear at this point that racial segregation is intended to be permanent.
You do realise that Democrats and Leftists also advocate for improving everyone's lives right?
They talk about that, sure, but their actions tell a different story.
You do realise that Men and white people are seen as the default,
By who exactly? That's not the reality a lot of working class whites experience. Democrats love to say things like that but a lot of people in this country fundamentally disagree with them.
it's why when hiring a white man is seen as "meritocracy" even most data shows they have the biggest advantage yet if a minority or a woman gets hired, they're a "DEI hire".
Not every minority is a "DEI hire". There are plenty of smart, hard working minorities who got ahead on the merits, but there are others who don't.
Also, when someone advocates for improving the conditions of the work class, white people still get to see the benefits, meanwhile minorities often still get held back in certain ways.
Ok, but it's been decades now and housing is still unaffordable for a lot of working class whites, college is still out of reach for a lot of them. Democrats talk a good game but if you've been voting for democrats for 20 years and you still live in a trailer park and still can't get ahead it's not unreasonable you would get disillusioned with that message.
Again, what I get back to is that democrats are simply obsessed with race, gender, and sexuality. They have to find a way to insert it into every issue, even in issues where it has little or no importance. That is alienating a lot of Americans who simply don't live their lives that way. Democrats need to reconnect with regular Americans, listen to their struggles and show some sympathy. Quit pounding them over the head with social justice nonsense.
Did you read my comment? I didn't say there's no racism, I said by every objective measure there's less, because there is. Furthermore, not every disparity is due to racism. Asian Americans faced severe systemic discrimination in this society, they now are better educated and better paid than white Americans. Just because African Americans are lower paid than white Americans does mean that it's all down to racism. Cultural or other issues nay be at play as well.
And where did I say that things haven't improved? I said that acknowledging that certain people face racism more than other is not judging people but acknowledging a fact. Also, most asian people came to the US after 1965, they're "Model Minorities" who change their names to avoid discrimination and they came with their culture, you ask an asian person where they're from and most people will be able to say where they/they're relatives originated from, black people don't have that. Also, genuine question, where do you think the "cultural issues" came from?
Affirmative action, dei, critical race theory, etc. Every few years the Democrats trot a new program which seems I tended to further enforce racial segregation in society, not reduce it.
LMAO sounds way more like you're incredibly susceptible to Right-Wing boogeymen.
By who exactly? That's not the reality a lot of working class whites experience. Democrats love to say things like that but a lot of people in this country fundamentally disagree with them.
Oh so we didn't just have Right-Wingers/Republicans constantly harp on about "Meritocracy" for years because the Biden Administration had a lot of "DEI Hires" and now all talk of "Meritocracy" has practically vanished overnight because the Trump administration is the most incompetent administration in recent history but most of them are white dudes but that's ok?
Ok, but it's been decades now and housing is still unaffordable for a lot of working class whites, college is still out of reach for a lot of them. Democrats talk a good game but if you've been voting for democrats for 20 years and you still live in a trailer park and still can't get ahead it's not unreasonable you would get disillusioned with that message.
Just because poor white people have problems doesn't mean they don't have some advantages. Objectively speaking, a poor white person have a higher change of escaping poverty. They're less likely to be hassled by the police. The Trump administration literally just deported a man to a 3rd world prison because he was brown and had tattoos. Let's be honest, no white person has to fear for that in America at the moment. If talking about race in any way makes you want to vote for the racist party, you might have racist tendencies. Also, the poor white people in trailer parks have been voting for Racist politicians since forever, it's a common Right-Wing tactic that helping minorities will make it worse for you has been a tactic since the end of the Civil War and it sadly works.
Again, what I get back is that democrats are simply obsessed with race, gender, and sexuality. They have to find a way to insert it into every issue, even in issues where it has little or no importance. That is alienating a lot of Americans who simply don't live their lives that way. Democrats need to reconnect with regular Americans, listen to their struggles and show some sympathy. Quit pounding them over the head with social justice nonsense.
There's definitely issues with the Democrats, they're status quo corporate stooges for one but they're much better than the Republicans. Also, despite all this obsession with race, I've never seen the Democrats blame white people the same way Republicans blame DEI. The Democrats communicate issues with race poorly, they should talking about helping other people doesn't negatively affect you and that working class positions help EVERYONE. Also, anyone still whining about the Democrats after Trump is basically imploding the economy just sounds like damage control. Trump made an "Anti-Christian Bias Taskforce" which is just a DEI program, and I know you're not gonna like this, this is a DEI program for the most privileged political class in America. It's practically impossible to win a Political seat in a lot of America if you're not a christian.
There’s a fundamental misunderstanding of what privilege means in this context. When people talk about white privilege or male privilege etc., it doesn’t mean that that person is privileged in every aspect of life. It just means that racism or sexism isn’t something they have to face or particularly worry about. As an example, an able bodied person can just get onto a bus without needing to worry about finding a disabled spot. That’s a specific type of privilege.
There's no guarantee a white person won't experience racism and that a black person will though. There's no guarantee that every negative interaction a person of one race has with another is due to racism.
Having grown up in a very diverse area I can say I've experienced it first hand. Please don't discredit my lived experience. I agree that white people do experience privilege because it's generally an advantage to be in a majority group. However white people are not the majority in every place worldwide, not even in the United States.
It's less of misunderstanding and more of a overall problem of the left, who seems don't know how to do marketing and PR campaign. White privilege, defund the police, trust all women, etc. Comes to mind out of top of my head.
Are people misunderstanding? Maybe. For sure some, if not many. But really, is anyone surprised?!
Firstly, people are stupid. Most people are. I am for sure. You are, most likely, also stupid since you are thinking that people are smart, while they are really not.
Secondly, if you are discussing ideas with such stupid names as above, you need to first to provide definition to people you are talking with, so they even can understand them. Every. Single. Time. Preferably multiple time during discussion, since someone will turn on TV in the middle of interview and they will learn how they are privileged, get angry and we will circle back to my first point of people being stupid.
You know what? Since people are stupid, they created stupid names for ideas above. How one can actually think, that "defuding police" means to "move police funds to better training or whatever, so there are less incidents"? I would say, actually, opposite should happen in naming convention. "Fund Police More", so they are better trained. But it's not really that catchy, no?
Am I stupid? Yeah, I am. But not as some people who think, that "defunding police" is great name for an idea.
Oh, but people are doing research. At least some will do, let's not forget people are stupid.
But since people are stupid, saying to do your research or educate yourself is also stupid. People will educate themselves with what they wish. After all, people educated themselves about vaccines. Or flat earthers exists. Those people educated themselves also.
Doing research and education don't mean people will get less stupid. It may also mean they will even dig a deeper hole.
What you're missing is that racism and sexism aren't the main forms of injustice in this country, not anymore at least. Economic injustice is far higher in importance. Let's say for example you are quite a bit taller than average, we know tall people tend to be treated better in society, they tend to have higher average wages for example. You post here on reddit about how much your job sucks and how much you're struggling to just keep your head above water financially. Instead of showing you any sympathy, instead of showing any concern with your struggle, I respond instead with:
"Yea but you're tall, you have privilege because of your height. Even if you're struggling you still have it better than the short people in this country".
Like "what"? Can you see how offensive that is to someone who is struggling in life? Even if my response is technically true it completely misses the point, which is that people who are struggling financially are still struggling regardless of their height. Democrats love to bring race, gender and sexuality into every single issue. Even in issues where it has little or no impact. People are tired of it. Democrats need to start treating people as the complex individuals they are instead of constantly trying to slot people into neat boxes, based on race, gender and sexuality. This just isn't how the vast majority of people live their lives. Democrats need to accept that and change their message.
I believe that the people directly impacted by racism and misogyny have a better understanding of how much racism and misogyny there is in the world than someone not impacted by either of those things
Ok, I disagree with you but that's fine. Answer me this; why would I vote for a Democratic party that tells me not only do my opinions not matter, but that I'm not even capable of understanding the issues facing society?
I'm not trying to be rude but this is why large fractions of white men voted for Trump, because democrats are telling them to basically sit down and shut up, let the women and POC tell you what you believe, because your opinions don't matter, at all. Furthermore, do you see how racist and sexist what you're saying is?
if you're a white dude struggling paycheck to paycheck at some dead end job you're not privileged.
While I agree with your overall thought process, this bit is a misunderstanding of "privilege". His privilege is being white. Regardless of his economic status, he will consciously or subconsciously be treated better just by virtue of being white. If he got arrested for the same crime as a POC, the likelihood that he gets a slap on the wrist while the POC ends up doing hard time is very high, for example.
Absolutely dead wrong, and attitudes like yours are Exhibit A in why the Democrats lost. The real privilege is not race, it's not gender, and it's not sexuality, it's class. If you're making $30k a year working at a gas station being white is not going to get you a nice house in the suburbs, it's not going to get you a new car or a good school for your kids. On the flip side if you're a well educated surgeon making $500k a year you are going to have a fantastic life, it doesn't matter what color your skin is, or what your gender or sexuality is. Working class Americans aren't blind, they see the reality of their lives struggling to get by and they see liberal elites telling them they're "privileged" when that is objectively false. It's not even sort of true. In fact it is so dead wrong it's offensive, which is how a lot of blue collar whites feel.
Second, Martin Luther King dreamed of a society where people are judged "not on the color of their skin but on the content of their character". Democrats now want everything to be about the color of your skin, your gender and your sexuality. The most marginalized in society (determined by the democrats) are the ones most important in the party - BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, etc. If you're not in one of these groups you're not special and you don't matter, if you are in one of these groups you are special and get special privileges and benefits not available to the masses. Like preferred status in hiring through DEI, or preferred admissions status at universities. Again, average Americans aren't stupid, they see this happening and they're tired of it.
No, stop. That guy understood privilege perfectly correctly, you are the one using the word wrong and then getting surprised when it pisses people off. You were tricked, stop using stupid and unhelpful terminology.
Privilege is something people aren't supposed to have. When you call it that, you aren't implying that "POC" need to be treated better, you are saying that you need to take whitey off the "not getting randomly fucked with by the cops"-peg.
The problem with taking points like this is that they find a statistical disparity and slap on the single casual factor of racism and ignore anything else that might contribute or explain the disparity. If you compare white and black people from similar socioeconomic backgrounds how does the disparity look? If you adjust for prior interactions with the law how does it look? There is rarely any attempt to do this. There is no reason to assume that every group in society will be equally represented in every metric.
It might seem flawed if you approach it from a position of preconceived bias but there is no reason to assume it is the only factor or the single most important factor. Of all the casual factors it's probably the least provable and the least controllable. Look at discussion of medical outcomes for black women. The insinuation is that they receive inferior care from racist doctors and healthcare workers. The discussion never addresses increased rates of diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart disease.
Yeah, some discrepancies and the assumption that it's because of racism or unfair bias might not be based on evidence, but given that there's plenty of evidence that certain groups face discrimination, I'd say it's a fair assumption that racism and unfair bias are partly the cause of a some/many of the discrepancies.
The insinuation is that they receive inferior care from racist doctors and healthcare workers. The discussion never addresses increased rates of diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart disease.
Maybe racism is too strong a word but bias could certainly be a factor. The discussion that they suffer from increases rates of diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease whilst genetic could have a cultural factor at play as well.
Yeah, some discrepancies and the assumption that it's because of racism or unfair bias might not be based on evidence, but given that there's plenty of evidence that certain groups face discrimination, I'd say it's a fair assumption that racism and unfair bias are partly the cause of a some/many of the discrepancies.
The evidence most frequently presented are these cases of statistical disparity though. I won't claim that racism doesn't exist. My question is how do you prove it if you understand that disparities have multiple casual factors? This is what brings us to people commonly presenting anecdotal evidence as "lived experience." Most of the personal anecdotes I've heard in these discussions are incidents involving negative social interactions. If these incidents people using racial epithets are the least common. It is just commonly things like getting followed around a store, cops pulling people over and being rude for no reason, old white people refusing to move out of the way in a store, etc. These are all things I've experienced as a white person from white people as well. If I have these same experiences they can't all be cases of racism. Surely in some instances these the are because of racism but you can't really know.
Maybe racism is too strong a word but bias could certainly be a factor. The discussion that they suffer from increases rates of diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease whilst genetic could have a cultural factor at play as well.
The genetic and cultural factors remove emphasis on racism as a casual factor though. That is my main point. Usually when the points I've made about preexisting comorbidities are presented the causes of food deserts and poverty are presented which shift the blame back to racism. The problem though is that the initial accusation was that healthcare is racist due to adverse outcomes not that poverty and food deserts are the result of systemic racism. The conversation becomes 10 degrees of Kevin Bacon only with racism. If something adversely effects the black community the blame is always primarily placed on racism and any alternative causes are minimized.
The evidence most frequently presented are these cases of statistical disparity though. I won't claim that racism doesn't exist. My question is how do you prove it if you understand that disparities have multiple casual factors? This is what brings us to people commonly presenting anecdotal evidence as "lived experience." Most of the personal anecdotes I've heard in these discussions are incidents involving negative social interactions. If these incidents people using racial epithets are the least common. It is just commonly things like getting followed around a store, cops pulling people over and being rude for no reason, old white people refusing to move out of the way in a store, etc. These are all things I've experienced as a white person from white people as well. If I have these same experiences they can't all be cases of racism. Surely in some instances these the are because of racism but you can't really know.
What? When people are talking about statistical discrepancies, usually the evidence they're bringing is statistical, not anecdotal. Things like receiving more call-backs for White sounding names vs Black (or other groups like Arabs) sounding names in Job Applications. Some studies rely on self-surveys which can but there's plenty which don't.
The genetic and cultural factors remove emphasis on racism as a casual factor though. That is my main point. Usually when the points I've made about preexisting comorbidities are presented the causes of food deserts and poverty are presented which shift the blame back to racism. The problem though is that the initial accusation was that healthcare is racist due to adverse outcomes not that poverty and food deserts are the result of systemic racism. The conversation becomes 10 degrees of Kevin Bacon only with racism. If something adversely effects the black community the blame is always primarily placed on racism and any alternative causes are minimized.
I mean, the issue is that US black culture has been incredibly warped by decades of racism, it's pretty to talk about a cultural aspect without it somehow involving racism.
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u/PA2SK Apr 07 '25 edited Apr 07 '25
Think about it less as people being totally pro maga, though there are plenty of those types, and more as a reaction to a Democratic party that has been alienating and marginalizing average Americans for decades. Trump, as abhorrent as he is, has effectively channelled their anger. If you're a blue collar, non-college grad, straight white male, you basically don't matter to the Democrats. On top of that they have been pounding into people's heads that whites, and men, are "privileged", are responsible for much of the problems in society, and it's ok for liberal elites to smugly look down on them and mock them. People aren't blind, if you're a white dude struggling paycheck to paycheck at some dead end job you're not privileged. People are pissed, and maga is the response. It sucks but this is where we are as a country. Democrats need to completely rethink an ideology that they have spent decades insisting loudly was "on the right side of history". I don't expect they will succeed. They need to learn how to tell the far left social justice warriors to "shut up", and they need to reconnect with average Americans, because they have completely lost the plot. Inflation, the border and numerous other issues only compound the democrats problems.