Nothing scares the GOP more than a Democrat who treats Southerners with dignity and respect

[rudy23]

Just wanted to relate this, as I peruse the boards, and see insult after insult levied toward the monolith that is "the South" in so many DU'ers minds.

I see calls for "tactics" for how to "trick" Southerners into voting Democrat, or hopes that Northerners will move down South and show us what's good for us. I can't imagine anything more insulting.

I just want to remind DU'ers that the difference between a "red state" and a "blue state" is usually about 10 percentage points, or the difference between a state with 3 big cities, and a state with 4.

When Democrats stop treating the South like a foreign country, many of my friends and neighbors will stop treating Democrats like visitors from a foreign country. Try not to use the same stereotypes that freepers use on everyone else, towards the South. Just because you can find incidents that back up your prejudices doesn't make them warranted. Every bigot has instances which justify prejudice in his or her mind.

Again, I'm saying this not just to lecture, but because the benefits of overcoming this division will result in Repuglicans ABSOLUTELY CRAPPING THEIR PANTS. Democratic policies favor workers in the South. The only thing holding them back from voting for a Democrat is the perception that Democrats see them as "less than". Let's not back them up.

We've got another big election in 2008, and I promise, this HUGE group of the R's base is ripe for the picking if we just cut out this antiquated anti-South bullshit!

[Debau2005]

1. Amen!

[Shakespeare]

2. Apparently, it scared the shit out of Carville, too. n/t

[Name removed]

3. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[hlthe2b]

4. I agree totally...

[librechik]

5. yes--I believe I will follow the gentlemanly example the South has shown

toward Democrats, since 1980 or thereabouts. Isn't that fair? So modern and egalitarian!

:sarcasm:

The Dems stand for principles, not princes. There are many in the Souht who do the same. Let's be adults. If they like our stand on issues they can vote for us, or not. I'm not going off to court that segment of the country, they can follow or go their own way.

[skipos]

6. 3 best electoral runs: Clinton (AK), Carter (GA), Gore (TN). 3 worst:

Kerry (MA), Dukakis (MA), Mondale (MN)

(Of the last 6 Democrats to run for Pres).

[grizmaster]

7. The south can either wake up and jump onboard

the progress express or they can continue to be duped by the GOP. It's their choice and I see no reason to either pander to or vilify the south.

[conscious evolution]

11. Many of us southerners are awake

The resthave been brainwashed.The republicans have used the media and religion very effectively in creating a repub view point.Breaking up right wing control of these institutions will go a long way in helping people shake off the programming.
Doing this is not pandering to the south.Instead,it will benefit the country as a whole.

[grizmaster]

13. All I'm saying is that if southerners

don't see the value in the dem message and actions as they stand, we shouldn't reformulate, rephrase, or alter our message. To do so, I think is the most insulting kind of pandering you can do.

Put it this way. I find it insulting when southern candidates alter their message when they come up north. It makes me feel they treating me like a child. Speak your peace in your own way and have the confidence that the message's integrity will be clear.

[conscious evolution]

14. 'don't see'

That is the problem in the south.People are barraged with the rights viewpoint but the Democratic viewpoint is rarely givven in a straight forward manner.All we get is smears and attacks on progressive ideas instead of straight facts that people can use to make up their minds with.
Break the programmers and you can break their program.

[grizmaster]

20. So if

"the Democratic viewpoint is rarely givven in a straight forward manner." isn't the best plan to do exactly that, give the viewpoint in a straightforward manner?

I have a feeling we're basically in agreement here and just talking past each other somehow. Put it this way, "It's fvcked up right now, and it's up to us to get the message through." Does that seem like a fair assessment?

[conscious evolution]

24. Close enough

It shouldn't be up to us though.That's the medias job.Instead,they,along with the religous wrong, are distorting the message.
Like I say:Break the programmers.

[grizmaster]

26. On that I completely agree

What the press and religions are SUPPOSED to do compared to what they are doing is an insult to any who believe ethics has a real world value in how you conduct your life.


But I ain't waiting for them to convert.

[conscious evolution]

28. help them see the light

Send copies of this to the media.Remind them that there can be a price to pay.
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20031203-113817-3449r.htm

I also remember seeing an article on DU about a nun being sentenced for her part in war crimes.If I could find the link I would start sending it to the likes a falwell,dodson and robertson.

[grizmaster]

30. the moonie times

yikes, the worst of the media AND religious world.

great article though

Found this interesting-

The U.N. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, drafted in 1966 and ratified by 151 nations including the United States, says: "Any advocacy of national racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence shall be prohibited by law."


That means Rush, Coulter, Robertson, Falwell, and damn near all of the rightwingnutosphere talking heads should be indicted for violation of that law.

[conscious evolution]

31. Spread the word!

[rudy23]

12. I didn't say anything about pandering, I said quite the opposite

It's people who think the only way they can talk to Southerners is to "pander" that worry me. Why not talk to us like adults?

[Greyhound]

22. OMG! Your sig pic has made my day!

That is one of the funniest I've ever seen, just brilliant, thanks! :toast::hi::toast:

[RoyGBiv]

64. They, they, they ...

Yeah, "those" people...

Nice job missing the point entirely.

[TahitiNut]

8. Well, it really is an example of true charity.

:silly:

[txindy]

9. Uh-oh. You're making sense. Anti-South bigots won't like that.

And there are more than a few of them here. :eyes:

Meanwhile, repub 'geniuses' are shooting themselves in the proverbial foot saying that "white rednecks" let them down. This from a guy who looks like Howdy-Doody. http://hotlineblog.nationaljournal.com/archives/2006/11/post_122.html

I'm sure that'll go over well with the "white rednecks."

[On the Road]

10. Jeez, Even When You Point It Out So Nicely

Some people just harden their opinions. And wonder why the world doesn't agree with them.

I have lived in both the North and South. The South does get a bad rap. It is winnable, and Northern prejudice has a lot to do with it.

[geek tragedy]

15. You mean that treating Southerners like the cast

of Deliverance doesn't help us win elections down there?

It's frustrating to deal with the results in the South--they almost re-elected George freaking Allen--but we gotta be smarter than that.

[ms liberty]

16. Exactly right...

As a southerner, I get just a little too annoyed about the way we get all lumped together as one big group of ignorant, bigoted, racist rednecks, who live in shacks without running water and lament not having house slaves. Most of the south has moved on, and is nothing like the perception of it here. Fundy Xtians and RWnuts populate northern, midwestern, and western areas just like they do the south.
I have more to say, but I won't. Southern-bashing is a popular sport here at DU, and it's a beast that doesn't need much feeding to get it stirred up. All it does for me is to make me angry at people whose arrogance allows them to be condescending to people because of the area where they were born and live.

[rudy23]

17. Let me remind some of the geniuses on here about who elected Rick Santorum et al (nt)

[QC]

18. And whose governor is a B-movie muscleman and sexual predator?

Funny how seldom that gets discussed here.

[JeffR]

19. Nicely said, rudy

Pity that this thread, calling for tolerance and understanding, almost immediately drew responses tinged with the very bigotry you're speaking against.

K & R.

[Fleshdancer]

21. THANK YOU for this thread

I was born and raised in Texas which tends to be a fun state for people to dump on. Meanwhile you will not meet more dedicated Democrats anywhere else in the country IMO and all we ask is for a little respect and support. We work too damn hard to turn things around to have our efforts belittled by other people who insist on insulting the voters here.

[txindy]

52. Absolutely right.

:patriot:

[Aristus]

23. When Southerners stop flying the slavery flag, and insisting on

incorporating it into their state flags, when they stop with the idiotic "The-South-will-rise-again" bullshit, when they stop being a pro-secession, pro-slavery, pro-Jim Crow, pro-"Call-me-sometime-Harold-Ford"-wink-wink region, maybe I'll treat them with respect. And I say this as a born-and-raised Texan now living in Washington State.

When they stop with the "Dixie-Chicks'r traitors!", and the "George W. Bush is our divinely annointed leader" crap, I'll treat them with respect.

[rudy23]

25. Who are "Southerners"? When you say "they", who do you mean? Me? nt

[Aristus]

27. Yeah, I know. I hit on all cylinders, there. No, I don't mean you.

And being from an all-Southern family, I'm as aware as anybody that there is a grand old tradition of Southern progressivism; from Martin Luther King, Jr and Medgar Evars, to John Edwards, Morris Dees and the Southern Poverty Law Center.

But it still rankles to look at a political map and see a solid band of red all across the South. I was a rock-ribbed Washingtonian by the time I joined the Army in 1986, and all of the white Southern boys I encountered in the service were, to a man, Confederate-flag wavin', cowboy hat wearin', 'blacks should keep to their own' good ole boys. When are the Southern progressives going to take over?

[rudy23]

32. "Red" and "Blue" states only refer to one stat. Take heart that Louisiana has a female, Dem governor

I'm too lazy to do the legwork on this, but just look at how many Democratic governors, Representatives, judges, state and city legislators, and other fine Democrats that Southerners have elected.

It seems you made an honest mistake, and I'm not trying to nitpick. I'm just trying to break people of a habit that could cost us the 2008 election. If some Democrats could resist the urge to South-bash and stereotype, we could make the "northern elitist" stereotype obsolete, and rule this country for the next 50 years.

Again, who are the 40% of "Red-staters" who voted for Kerry if we're a bunch of knuckle dragging hillbillies? (not saying this to you, but to the other people reading this thread.) Enough with the black/white thinking!

[Aristus]

58. You make some good points, and as an open-minded liberal,

of course I acknowledge the truth of them. But still, no region in the country has made such a fetish of their racism as the South. The slavery flags, the Civil War re-enactments, the Trent Lotts praising the Strom Thurmonds, the notion that New Orleans will be Red again when the blacks are driven out, and so on.

Fetishization. That's the proper word for it; and it's the very concept of it that keeps the South what it is in my mind. I don't truly believe that the responsibility for the Democrats winning back the South falls to the Northerners and their need to "respect" the South. The responsibility for winning the South for the Democrats lies with Southerners.

[Fleshdancer]

29. this behavior exists in any of the Northern regions too

Racism exists everywhere. The Dixie Chicks were slammed all over the country. There are people up north who also blindly support W.

I'm back in Texas but I lived in Minnesota for a number of years and the biggest difference I saw was that down here, you know who the idiots are. When a racist waves the confederate flag or puts on the white hood then at least you know what you're dealing with and you can see the rest of the community react strongly against that behavior. Everyone wants to point out the few asshole racists down here but no one mentions the hundreds of non-racist people who protests them and belittles them and teaches their own children that the racists are bad people.

I'll take the southern approach over racism any day over what I saw in MN where racial profiling was big but no one talked about it. To know someone for months and think they're a good person only to find out that they believe that black people are all violent or that they all use drugs, etc. To see the shock on their faces when you challenge their bigotry because they're not use to that sort of reaction. I bought into the Northern stereotype of tolerance only to get slapped upside the head with reality.

No thanks to passive agressive racism. The south has its issues, no one is arguing that, but at least I know there's a lot more people fighting it than accepting it down here.

[rudy23]

34. The biggest racists I ever met were from Detroit, Chicago, Milwaukee, and Buffalo

They all showed their racism in very similar ways. They each came down here with this attitude, like "Boy, it's nice to be somewhere where you can call it like it is. Thank god there's no PC hippies here to shut me up." Then they would proceed to go on their diatribes, which were ten times worse than anything I'd heard down here from a native. If anyone thinks we have the monopoly on racism, I've got news for them.

Also, how many times have you ever seen this headline?:

Two white women eat lunch with two black co-workers. Race never mentioned once.

Where there's more interaction, there's more conflict. There just isn't any news angle to show how much good comes out of the more integrated areas down here.

[Bluebear]

35. What headline, am I missing something? nt

[rudy23]

38. Fixed it. Thanks. nt

[eridani]

60. Very true. On the west coast, bigotry is rarely outright

It's a lot like our rain here up in the Pacific Northwest. Sometimes the mist is light enough that you can't really be sure it's actually raining, but walk around in it long enough and you'll get wet for sure. The undercover variety of racism is much harder to confront and fight.

[Fleshdancer]

70. such a wonderful analogy eridani

While the subject is ugly, your analogy is incredible...sounds like something I would want to read in a novel.

[eridani]

59. What about the 40% of southerners who DON'T do those things? n/t

[Texasgal]

33. Agreed Rudy...

Here's what's sad.

Dems here in the south have to fight and work ten times harder than the blue states.

We here in Texas we are busting our asses to get things done and all we seem to get is a bunch of ignorant twits who have no clue.

That does not go for all of DU, just the ones who seem to be clueless regarding all things "southern".

It is actually sad to come on DU and see this trash.

[madmusic]

36. K & R

EDIT: And the Southerners could do their part by debunking the myth that freepers speak for them.

[Odin2005]

37. South-bashing is a form of CLASSISM.

"South-bashing" is actually a veiled way of bashing ALL working-class rural Americans. It is based on snobish prejudices of upper-middle class urbanites.

[depakid]

69. Oh, come on now

Seems to me it has A LOT more to do with the ignorant polices that are their representatives advance, along with the fundamentalist bullshit that's so prevalent in the region. It would be one thing if these folks would be content to enact poor public policies in their own states- and leave everyone else alone- but as we've seen time and time again, that's not how it works.

[AdvancedProgress]

39. Just my experience...

But since I've lived in the South most of my life, it appears that a lot of younger voters simply vote the same way their parents and grandparents do. This may be because they are not doing their own homework or feel they will be ostricized for voting any other way. I am attending Thanksgiving in Louisiana surrounded by hard core right wing Repubs, and they either take that stance because they're afraid of speaking their mind in front of my WWII Marine grandfather, or they just haven't done the research to view things from all sides. It's really sad to be honest with you.

[texanwitch]

40. The best way to keep the south republican is to talk down to people who live in the south.

There are lot of Democrats down here, my precinct which is large and getting bigger voted Democratic 2 to 1 in the last election.

We have a saying in Texas about being a Yellow Dog Texan, which means we would rather vote for a old yellow dog then vote for a republican. This saying is really old.

We are not the enemy in the south so stop treating us like we are.

Reach out to the people who would vote Democratic, talk about who is still fighting the Civil War.

[Zodiak]

41. I'm from Texas

and though I live in Ohio right now, I consider myself to be Texan.

The OP's words are so true. Dems can win in the South. Bring them populism and treat them with respect (as they deserve) and you will see more Democratic victories in the South.

Ignore them and they will vote for the only game in town.

Abandoning the South to the Republicans was the worst thing our party did in 30 years.

[Clark2008]

42. Kicked and Recommended

And a great big :hug: from this Southerner.

Thank you! :loveya:

[DoYouEverWonder]

43. Well said

Thank you.

[w4rma]

44. I agree. Btw, the actual split is more rural vs. urban than South vs. North. (nt)

[Strawman]

46. Right. Just look at an electoral map by county.

It's pretty clear.

[Joe Chi Minh]

45. A informative post. Thank you.

[Kolesar]

47. Some examples & citations would be nice

Honestly, when I read DU, I don't see *any* of these things you cite, and certainly not in the quantity you describe. What I see in DU is a preponderance of posts about our decayed political system and how to revive it. I have learned a lot here.

Maybe it is as that proverb goes: "as you seek, so shall you find". Maybe you are finding the anti-Southern antipathy here. Well, don't obsess over it. It will burn a hole in you.

as I peruse the boards, and see insult after insult levied toward the monolith that is "the South

Insult after insult? That's overstated.

I see calls for "tactics" for how to "trick" Southerners into voting Democrat

Never seen that myself

When Democrats stop treating the South like a foreign country

How so?

The only thing holding them back from voting for a Democrat is the perception that Democrats see them as "less than".

I think people vote against Democrats because they have different views than me/us on war, abortion, and the environment.

Your original post reminds me of the two posts that I read here and on Dailykos.com with the thesis: "don't come down South and tell us what to do". Sigh

[rudy23]

48. How does "treat us with dignity and respect" amount to "dont come down South and tell us what to do"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=2732399&mesg_id=2732399


If you haven't seen any South bashing threads on here, then maybe they're not registering with you like they are with me. Believe me, I don't go looking for them. They show themselves time and time again. If there isn't another thread just like the one above by the end of this month, I'll be pleasantly surprised.

[Kolesar]

50. The theses of yours and the old DU &DKos thread were not the same,

...but the material presented is overstated and a notably divisive subject. That is how they are alike.

I don't think bryant's original post was that offensive. I mean, this is a message board after all, not the parliament. We don't need to address "the good gentleman from...wherever you are". We can risk a little rough and tumble (All the chairs thrown in this chamber are virtual). Cannot a poster restate Schaller's thesis with a little profanity for emphasis?

[rudy23]

54. My intent was not to divide, it was to break a very costly habit before it kills us in 2008.

You say that Southerners vote Republican mainly because they see things differently anyway.

To an extent, you're right. There is more religious influence in pockets of the South, but if you think, like the OP of the thread I linked to, that this means we should give up on the South, you're overestimating that influence. Right now Democratic policies favor Southern workers, but in their eyes, Republicans treat them with more respect. So will vote for policies that are against their self interest, if the candidate accepts them as one of them.

I promise you, right now, even hardened rednecks are fed up with the GOP. The Republicans are at absolute rock bottom down here, but still, many people will not vote for a Democrat because it's a firmly held belief that Democrats see us as the unwashed, uneducated, backwards rabble. If ever there were a time to make inroads, now's that time. I'm telling you, many people here are ripe for the picking, and surprisingly open to an alternative to today's GOP.

I'm saying we could poll 10-15% higher if we start erasing these negative Southern and rural stereotypes from our political vocabulary. TODAY. No, we're not going to convince everyone down here that the Democrats really respect them, but I think we can make some major headway if we just TRY.

[Shell Beau]

55. These south bashing threads may not happen daily, but

they DO happen. And more often than they should. I have seen several of them myself, and it really blows my mind to see how some people can be so bigoted.

[merh]

49. Thank you for this post!

And btw, Dean had it right when he said the difference this time was that they took the time to ask the voters to vote for the dems.

Nothing means more to a southerner than to be asked to consider voting for a candidate. Assuming that my vote is a given is a big mistake.

:hi:

[rudy23]

51. I liked that too, when I heard Dean say it. I think I said "Yes, yes!" aloud when he said it. nt

[merh]

53. You don't know how many letters, faxes and emails I sent out in

the 2004 campaign to candidates, letting them know that the South was not "unreachable", that there were plenty of folks that cared, they just don't like to be written off. It's such an important thing to folks in the South to have someone ask for your vote. Maybe Dean got a hold of one of my emails?

Hell, at least he got the message! :patriot:

[mom cat]

56. I have been saying this for years!

[rudy23]

57. More and more I hear "I'm through with the Republicans" and "they all suck" from the most hardened

conservatives. I really do believe many of them are more open to Democrats now than ever before. Especially with younger Southerners like myself (and I 'aint that young) who grow up having to learn how to talk to people on all sides of the table. We aren't as sheltered and attached to tradition as our Southern forefathers. It's only going to get better--I can't believe some people want to write us off!

[HardRocker05]

61. when the south treats me w/ respect, that's when i'll treat them w/ respect.

until then, i'm telling it like it is; face it, the south has consistently been the most backward part of the nation and they are dragging the rest of the country down. i'm not saying abandon the south, but we certainly shouldn't cater to their prejudices.

[Virginian]

62. If everyone had ancestors from each continent,,

There would still be bigotry.

It seems as if it is OK to pick on overweight people and to pick on people from the SE US. I have fought this battle in a thread before the election. The poster accused us of having the Stars and Bars on the VA state flag. I asked when we changed it to that. He never apologized. He also said a really confusing thing. He said we were stupid because we have too many counties. He told me we deserved George Allen. Allen must have chosen VA because we most closely reflected his racist views.

So, in this country and in this forum, it seems like it is perfectly all right to have bigoted attitudes against people who live in the SE. Maryland seems to be exempt from this even though it was also a slave state.

[kwassa]

71. Probably because Maryland is such a blue state

many who live here don't know it was a slave state.

[kdpeters]

63. Hear! Hear!! Say it as often as it takes.

Those of you who feel the need to tell Southerners how worthless, racist, and backward we are, you've done your part. I think we've benefitted from your input as much as we're ever going to. Please. You really must go offer your assisstance to someone in greater need than us.

Certainly you'll be of greater use whereever you go than you could ever be staying here. We just don't deserve what you have to offer. But, thank you so much.

Bye bye, now!!

[RoyGBiv]

65. Just as a modifier ...

I'd like to point out that those 10 percentage points, in real terms, often represent a margin of difference far smaller than in many so-called blue states. Ten thousands votes another way puts certain, perceived hardcore red states firmly in the "blue" camp while those same ten thousand votes another way in a blue state goes the other direction.

And just as one more modifier, the more solid red states areas are more in the West than the South. Don't tell anyone though. That doesn't matter because the South is inherently evil. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.

K&R, btw. :kick:

[sofa king]

66. I'll quit the antiquated anti-South bullshit when the bullshit ends.

And I will treat the South with dignity and respect when it earns it.

I live in the South now, so deep in the South that if I told you where this message was being written from at 4 a.m. you'd choke on your mint julep.

While I very much like the people I live amongst and work with, I have to say I was stunned at how completely ignorant these people are about politics and their own civic duty to understand their government. One person asked me if we were "re-electing the President again." An entire tableful of people were confused as to whether the House, or the Senate, or Congress was up for re-election--all seemed convinced that they were three different things. Several didn't know that the President cannot create new laws. When I mentioned Jack Abramoff to a group of people, they thought I was making a rude masturbation joke.

Now admittedly, I'm currently working from a small sample--fewer than forty people, but I've seen no indication whatsoever that they are an anomaly, except possibly in one obvious way: most of the people I described above appear to have voted Democratic in this election, and the official voting record for this county suggests they are therefore a minority. The fact that they were discussing politics at all in this land of NASCAR and bear hunting may be what distinguishes them from their more numerous neighbors. Democratic or not, they still have no idea what's going on, and in my book ignorance is deserving of neither dignity nor respect.

[depakid]

67. Sounds A LOT like projecting to me

Every time - I mean EVERY time I visit my family in North Carolina, Tennessee or Georgia, I hear nasty cracks about the West Coast- or even about Yankees. I have to deal with bullshit parochialism and listen to fundamentalist crap and right wing delusions.

It's Southerners who set their own sorry region apart from the rest of the country- not the other way around- and the quickest way to lose the current majority and the presidency in 2008 is to pander to these types- and legitimize and enable their dysfunctional- and often abusive policy choices.

What Republicans fear is debate on issues that in poll after poll show widespread support for progressive positions- and traditional Democratic values. These positions of course would also benefit Southerners, too- if they ever sat back and thought rationally about them. Unfortunately, time and time again, the majority in many states have proven that they won't.

[Robeson]

68. And Dr. Dean has said much of the same....

...nice post....:thumbsup: