Lots of talk about 'reaching the white middle class worker'. Tell me how your reach these people.

[flamin lib]

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/11/29/1605167/-Morons-who-voted-for-Republicans-now-worry-they-will-take-away-their-health-care-as-promised?detail=email1&link_id=1&can_id=e4496f52cc1158ba40681994e54450cf&source=email-morons-who-voted-for-republicans-now-worry-they-will-take-away-their-health-careas-promised&email_referrer=morons-who-voted-for-republicans-now-worry-they-will-take-away-their-health-careas-promised&email_subject=morons-who-voted-for-republicans-now-worry-they-will-take-away-their-health-care-as-promised

Morons who voted for Republicans now worry they will take away their health care—as promise

In Clay County, 60 percent of residents are covered by Medicaid. They voted for Republican Matt Bevin 71-27, and for Donald Trump 86-11. Neither Bevin, nor Trump, made their opposition to Obamacare secret.

So how does that happen? Because of shit like this:

"If anything changed with our insurance to make it more expensive for us, that would be a big problem," [Lisa] Botner, a community college student, said Friday at the Owsley County Public Library, where she works. "Just with the blood tests, you're talking maybe $1,000 a year without insurance."

But then ol’ Lisa Botner voted GOP.

"I'm just a die-hard Republican," she said.

Really. How does anybody reach these people?

[Skittles]

1. reaching racist voters

that will be tough

[Duckhunter935]

2. You won't reach die hard Republicans

You can reach millennials and independents

[Wellstone ruled]

3. Well FDR did,

and that was the result of Republican Policies coming home to roost. By 2018 we will see these same policies setting in,and those who voted for Trump will be most effected. My prediction is Trump looses both houses of Congress. And you know darn well,Fox News and Comcast will be running free Campaign Propaganda starting next fall.

Again,it will take the Tax filing of April 15 2018 to trip the Rethugs up. All the folks in the lower 60 percentile will see a Tax increase to off set the 1.1 Trillion of give backs to the 1%ers. BTW,kiss your Mortgage tax deduction good bye Contract with America part 2.

[frazzled]

4. The only hope I can see to make them understand the issues

is some kind of hit reality tv show (maybe with country singers or hot-shot businessmen and a few Kardashians thrown in for good measure, who push liberal memes as they argue and insult each other over trivial perceived slights). I'm not kidding. It seems to be the only thing that gets through to them. Maybe add a couple of bare-chested young studs.

[Blanks]

27. You'd probably have to fire someone every episode...

What would you call this show and what channel would you put it on?

[frazzled]

28. I'd put it on Bravo

and have Andy Cohen produce it. I'd call it "The Real Housewives of America, and their Kickass Husbands and Boyfriends."

Some glamorous 40-something ladies from Cincinnati and Pocatella, Idaho, could prance around their mansions in tight-fitting sequinned gowns, as they tell their adulterous husbands to raise the wages of the workers at their inherited family businesses, because otherwise they will be out of sequins and jewels in the end, because (taking a sip of their morning cosmos), we all rise together or fall together. Then they can dish on their Republican-leaning girlfriends and call them skanky or something (while emptying their afternoon champagne flutes).

[Blanks]

37. I think you've got a winner there. eom

[Iggo]

5. "I'm just a die-hard Republican."

Well you'll just have to die hard, then.

[HAB911]

6. Fly the Confederate Flag, boy..........n/t

[BigDemVoter]

7. Maybe reinstate Jim Crow Laws?

I bet PLENTY of them would be thrilled by that.

[Solly Mack]

8. The who am I better than today hierarchy (of racism)

is unwritten but ironclad.

You can be poor (middle-class, working-class, whatever class) white and struggling, and the guy in office might even be making it worse, but as long as that guy is white and telling you that your white skin makes you superior to others regardless of your circumstances, and that the fault for your problems lay not with people like the guy in office but those others, he's the guy you will support.

Doesn't make a wit of difference what they are complaining about - jobs, tuition, health-care, whatever - as long as they think someone understands that their white skin makes them better (so they deserve better), they'll continue to blame the "others", even when those "others" are in the same economic boat. They won't blame corrupt and greedy bankers or businesses, or corrupt and greedy politicians (well, they will blame those they see as selling them out to the "others&quot

The "good old days", "traditional family values", "real Americans", "our way of life" - it all screams take me back to the time when white, primarily male, and Christian dominated everyone else and those "others" kept their heads down and out of the way.

Spare me the outrage. They might start off talking about job loss but they always, without fail, work around to who they think is to blame - and it ain't Goldman Sachs or the GOP.

Who is getting attacked since Trump became P-elect? Are they attacking bankers? politicians? Hedge fund partnerships? Are they going after companies for sending jobs overseas? Do they even understand they sent a billionaire to the WH who has sent jobs overseas? Do they go after him for it? How about his cabinet? Are they going after them?

NO - they are attacking the "others". They are attacking black people and brown people and the LGBT community. They are attacking women, liberals, Democrats.


How do you reach these people?

Oman....that's for another time.

[flamin lib]

9. A much better reply than I anticipated. And unfortunately so true and painful to read. nt

[Solly Mack]

17. I'm sorry. I don't mean to cause anyone pain.

I was venting.

[Cracklin Charlie]

10. You have to show them...

The similarities between your beliefs and theirs.
Ask them what they want their tax dollars to pay for. This one works for me.

Most of us want the same things. Good schools, safe buildings, strong national defense, social programs to help those in need, etc.

Stop buying into the media-fed division.

Find common ground to benefit the public good.

Just my opinion.

[maxrandb]

11. Honestly, I think it's because they believe

that Republicans will take Medicaid away from "those undeserving black and brown people", but won't touch theirs. After all, they are "hard-scrabble, salt of the earth, working poor whites", not "lazy people of color".

It boggles the fucking mind.

It's like LBJ said; The least accomplished white man can always be convinced that he is better than the most accomplished black

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

16. What LBJ actually said makes the point perfectly:

"If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."

[maxrandb]

18. Thank you. I didn't look up the actual quote

You could say I paraphrased, but I appreciate the correction and that actual quote makes the point much better.

Thanks!

[brooklynite]

12. We don't need to...

...the "die hard Republican" wasn't the problem, because they never voted for Obama either. The problem was working class Democrats, INCLUDING SOME WHO voted for Obama who didn't vote at all.

[lumberjack_jeff]

13. Middle class workers, white or otherwise, aren't on medicaid

Part of the problem lies in describing poor and working poor people as "middle class" because they're white and thus enjoy a layer of privilege that makes their stomachs growl less loudly.

[NightWatcher]

14. The Dems should sponsor a Monster Truck show.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

15. '"I'm just a die-hard Republican," she said.' OK, Lisa.

I guess when you lose your access to affordable health care you just might end up dying hard.

[many a good man]

19. If we can't end gerrymandering and the Electoral College...

we have to find a way to win over some of them. Can it be done without compromising on our basic principles?

We need to find a way to create jobs for low skilled workers, especially in depopulated areas. Democrats seem to have abandoned this goal lately to focus on providing job training for city people for jobs that usually don't exist.

Maybe we should propose mining more coal in some states, but instead of burning it, pay people in another state money to dig big holes to bury the coal in.

[mythology]

23. Obama won enough of them to win.

[many a good man]

30. Yes but Obama is exceptional

A lesser candidate failed to turn out the vote this time around. He also benefited from the Bush failure. His failure (not entirely his fault) to deliver on hope and change also helped depress turnout for Hillary.

[randome]

24. It's a conundrum, isn't it? We can create nonsense manufacturing jobs.

But that's not going to work long-term. Maybe trumpeting the very principles the GOP pretends to favor: freedom of the individual as in gay rights, lack of government interference in reproductive and lifestyle choices. We don't hear arguments couched in those terms, at least not often enough to garner attention.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font][hr]

[Marr]

20. I'm sure headlines that describe them as 'morons' will help a lot. /nt

[world wide wally]

21. Welcome to America

[TygrBright]

22. I am white, middle-class, and I work.

You reach me by establishing a record of thoughtful, competent leadership, coming up with credible, implementable policies and plans to advance my well-being and my fellow-citizens' well-being, and provide ethical leadership for my country.

That's why I voted for Hillary.

helpfully,
Bright

[ProfessorGAC]

26. The "White Working Class" Thing Leaves Me Cold, Bright

There are millions of white, working males that voted for Hillary, so this "how do we reach them" is a canard.

There is no reaching them. They have had their minds made up about how the world should work since they've been 18.

They know less than they think, they don't want to know more, and they don't want to be bothered by the consequences of their choices as they affect others.

Like you i'm white, i'm also a male, i'm 60 and graduated from college and got my first job at 19. I've been working for a living a long ass time.

Yet, i've been voting anti-Republican since 1974 because their ideas were so vacuous. Yeah, i toyed with libertarianism for 20 minutes in the 80's, but that was because Reagan fomented a distrust in government for me. But, i've voted nearly exclusively democratic for 42 years so they have had no problem reaching me.

These people we "need to reach" are beyond reaching.

[TygrBright]

31. I'm getting fairly hacked-off by this attempt to equate "working class" with "buffoon asses."

"Working class" has always been a loaded term, of course.

But the notion that it represents primarily (or even solely) people who are somehow 'separate from' or 'looked down on by' Democrats is a lovely Goebbelsian attempt at re-framing.

Pretty much everyone I know works.

Pretty much all of them are classy, for what that's worth.

And a lot of them are white, too.

And all of them, I'm pretty sure, believe that pretty much everything the Nuclear Cheeto said on the campaign trail is toxic, vapid, divisive, opportunistic bullshit.

So where does that leave these "white working class" people in a world where we're redefining "white working class" to mean "people who want the power structure to reward them for having white skin, being Christian, and hating on people who live in cities, people who live on the coasts, people who appreciate education, diversity and progress, and people who understand that it's not our great-grandparents' world anymore"?

Sorry, fuck that noise.

I have lived in rural areas. I have lived in small towns. Living in a rural area or a small town does not automatically entitle you to some kind of special victim status just because you hate dealing with a world that's increasingly diverse and urban.

Yes, I *get* that rural areas have special problems and challenges, holy FUCK, do I get that, I LIVE IN A FRONTIER STATE and we have, like ONE nurse practitioner for whole counties that cover hundreds of square miles and have no towns larger than a few hundred people. And grotesquely polluted waterways and toxic land thanks so much to the extraction industries that extracted, dumped, and then moved on to places where labor was even cheaper. But wanting the mining companies and the gas and oil companies to come back and pay big wages for a few years while extracting some more and dumping more toxic crap into the soil and water to give our grandkids cancer is NOT going to solve our problems.

Yet the dumb shits in the oil and gas fields expect the Democratic Party to stand respectfully back, bow, and say "oh, okay, we'll stop trying to clean up the earth so everyone's grandchildren can live, just so Y'ALL can get back an oilfield job and buy a new truck, no problem"?

Well, fuck THAT, too.

Except, yanno...

...they don't.

Not the ones I know.

Oh, yeah, there's some that think like that, and I have no sympathy for what they're going to feel when they realize they're not only going to get buttreamed again, but they dropped their own trousis and bent over for it.

But, honestly, I don't really know who these "white working class" people that are the salt of the earth- you know, MORONS- are, other than a noisy, willfully ignorant bunch of nativist, racist dickheads that I want no truck with anyway. Sorry.

I'm really, really, REALLY sorry that there appear to be so MANY more of them, than I ever imagined-- enough more of them to provide cover for a putsch that is installing a parliament of putzes into the Executive Branch of our nation's government.

I'm damn' sorry about that, indeed.

But if it comes down to a choice between brownnosing a much larger group of mean, ignorant, fearful assholes than I suspected existed, or sticking with people who care about my grandchildren's future, the air they breathe, whether they can marry anyone they love no matter what gender they are or where they immigrated from-- that's a damn' easy choice for me to make.

I guess that's a very long-winded way of saying "I agree with you."

But now it's said.

sheepishly,
Bright

[ProfessorGAC]

36. Long Winded, Maybe! Dead On, Definitely

We agree for certain!

[pnwmom]

25. Trump showed how: by appealing to their racism and misogyny.

That is not an option for the modern Democratic party.

[doc03]

29. First of all quit calling us morons. I am white middle class and I voted

for Hillary. The Democrats lost the white middle class because they signed on to
Republican programs like NAFTA causing us to lose our good paying manufacturing jobs. To most everyone
in the rural areas of Ohio and PA it was obvious we were going to lose this election. Myself and many others
brought that up here on DU and we blown off as "Concern Trolls". If you want to get the white middle class
vote get your ass out of Cleveland and Philadelphia and work for the vote. Oh I voted for Obama twice so don't
call me a fucking racist.

[senaca]

32. That and Donald Trump ran away from republican economic issues.

He was going to expand Social Security and Medicare
He was for family leave pay
He ran against big business corruption.
He ran on creating infrastructure jobs.
He ran on what was affecting peoples pocketbooks.
He was against the TPP

It was a scam on his part, but the takeaway is that these are issues that resonate across the board. These are our issues.

[doc03]

33. What gets me is NAFTA was a Republican plan by GHW Bush. He couldn't get it

passed without Democratic votes. So Clinton/Gore picked it up and ran with it and got enough Democrats in the House and
Senate to get it passed. The Democrats in the House and Senate both voted it down but enough voted for it that it gave the
Republicans the votes to pass it. But ever since then the Republicans hung it around the Democrats neck. Trump told so many lies it was impossible to debunk them it was like the Gish Gallop on steroids that Romney used in his first debate in 2012.

[Tatiana]

34. Off the top of my head, I would say stop protecting them from natural consequences.

Allow them to lose their Medicaid and/or Obamacare health insurance.

Meanwhile, I do believe that local government in blue states should begin to put together a model for single payer at the state level. Once we can get people to experience what it is like to participate in a single-payer system, they won't ever want to go back to the insanity of the health insurance industry.

Let the people who vote against their economic interests experience some of what they voted for.

[sarisataka]

35. I guess we don't

since every "white middle class worker' is a die hard republican

[Bettie]

38. I live among these people

I'm related to a scary number of them.

They have been buying the marketing for years.

"The Government is the Enemy"

"Union Members are the Enemy"

"That guy over there is getting free stuff"

"HRC is corrupt"

There are others, but the fact is that this is a long-term and well thought out marketing campaign aimed at people who don't really use critical thinking skills.

They are very religious and are used to being told what they believe. This marketing is just a small step farther. Churches preach Republicanism and its attendant hate from the pulpit these days.

I suspect we need to write off a lot of these people for pretty much ever. Even when they get screwed over by the talking yam, they will blame Obama, Mooslims, people who are not white, and a host of others....everyone but the ones who screw them over.

ETA: The thing to remember is that there are some reachable people in this group and there are more than you'd think of us (white people) who are liberals and didn't buy the line. But, there is a segment (my brothers and in-laws are part of it) who can not be reached. Ever. Orange Hitler could literally shoot one of their kids dead in front of them and they would blame Obama or whoever is their current object of hate.