Re: GEORGIA:roseofjulyNovember 7 2012, 01:40:34 UTC
Yeah, I noted that too.
I'm currently reading A People's History of the United States, and Zinn notes how landowning whites during the nineteenth century were in a pickle - they didn't want poor whites to band together with black people and start rebelling against the capitalistic order of the day, so they basically started playing up racism. THey started emphasizing what they believed were God-ordained differences between blacks and whites, and started hiring poor whites in positions of power over black people - overseers, that kind of thing. They also deliberately gave more rights to poor whites than blacks. This effectively created a wedge of separation between white people and black folks, and even the poor whites felt more solidarity with landowning whites than the poor blacks who were in the same predicament as them. That whole "country of embarrassed millionnaires" thing.
I think that's akin to what the Republicans do primarily with poor white folks who live in rural areas (and some other groups, too). Just going off pure political issues - social services, equal rights, labor rights/collective bargaining - these folks shouldn't even THINK about voting Republican. But the Republican party plays up their power as white, Christian, heterosexual, male, and/or [insert privileged group here] and subtly reminds them that if the other team wins, their power in those areas will slowly erode. That's why I don't think that these racist/sexist "slip-ups" by GOP candidates are mistakes at all - they are plants, the other side of the coin to the GOP emphasizing social policy issues to distract people from economic issues.
And just in case they are paying attention to the economic issues, the GOP creates this fiction of the folks in this case being those "embarrassed millionnaires" - using the rhetoric of "small business owners" or "good hard-working people". This idea that yeah, maybe I'm struggling, but I am on the brink of being upper-middle-class, goddamnit, and I need to protect my assets for when that happens. Or the whole meritocracy thing - yes, I am struggling, so that means i need to protect every penny I make! None for those freeloaders! while very carefully concealing the fact from these rural voters that most of the social programs proposed by the left will actually make life easier for them.
Sorry - just something I had been thinking about that was sparked by your comment.
I completely agree with you, actually. That makes a lot of sense. We've seen the Republicans divide people the past 20 years (the ones when I remember the most). I've seen it time and time again here. You can see the way they play into women ("slut" by Rush, implying good girls would never need birth control) and a way of making a woman feel better on the backs of another. So using race is much easier because it's a more tangible truth in warped view. It's just as dirty and wrong, but easier.
I'm currently reading A People's History of the United States, and Zinn notes how landowning whites during the nineteenth century were in a pickle - they didn't want poor whites to band together with black people and start rebelling against the capitalistic order of the day, so they basically started playing up racism. THey started emphasizing what they believed were God-ordained differences between blacks and whites, and started hiring poor whites in positions of power over black people - overseers, that kind of thing. They also deliberately gave more rights to poor whites than blacks. This effectively created a wedge of separation between white people and black folks, and even the poor whites felt more solidarity with landowning whites than the poor blacks who were in the same predicament as them. That whole "country of embarrassed millionnaires" thing.
I think that's akin to what the Republicans do primarily with poor white folks who live in rural areas (and some other groups, too). Just going off pure political issues - social services, equal rights, labor rights/collective bargaining - these folks shouldn't even THINK about voting Republican. But the Republican party plays up their power as white, Christian, heterosexual, male, and/or [insert privileged group here] and subtly reminds them that if the other team wins, their power in those areas will slowly erode. That's why I don't think that these racist/sexist "slip-ups" by GOP candidates are mistakes at all - they are plants, the other side of the coin to the GOP emphasizing social policy issues to distract people from economic issues.
And just in case they are paying attention to the economic issues, the GOP creates this fiction of the folks in this case being those "embarrassed millionnaires" - using the rhetoric of "small business owners" or "good hard-working people". This idea that yeah, maybe I'm struggling, but I am on the brink of being upper-middle-class, goddamnit, and I need to protect my assets for when that happens. Or the whole meritocracy thing - yes, I am struggling, so that means i need to protect every penny I make! None for those freeloaders! while very carefully concealing the fact from these rural voters that most of the social programs proposed by the left will actually make life easier for them.
Sorry - just something I had been thinking about that was sparked by your comment.
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