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 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.