Obama's approval rating among no-college whites is about 30%

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

In populist terms the white working class should be part of our base but is quite the opposite... kind of the anti-base.

Most racism is not crude and simple, like "I would never vote for a black person."

More like, "I would vote for a black man to be president but would be less patient with him and quicker to find fault because I am somewhat alienated from him... lacking the kind of empathy I had for Reagan or Bill Clinton."

Few voters would flat out say that sort of thing but I think it's an accurate description of the phenomenon.

Either way, they are people we need. Not to outright win the demographic, but to keep it from being a monolith.

[blondeatlast]

1. I think that's a valid point. The RW spinsters have gone to great lengths to exploit

the "differences" in Obama and to touch some latent racism nerves. That 30% of folks likely sincerely believe they aren't racist--but can they be convinced they are being explouited by those without their best interests at heart?

[foxfeet]

3. "Spinster" is an antiquated, sexist term.

Oh, wait...what? Nevermind.:P

[blondeatlast]

10. Tue. I tend to let my stupidity stand even tho I could edit. OTOH,

I'm a longtime Spinners fan, so :shrug:

[foxfeet]

14. I've done it myself many times.

That's why it causes me such glee when someone else does it.:hi:

[Ken Burch]

2. It's due, as much as anything else, to the embrace of corporate types by Dem leaders since '92

Only in the last couple of years has labor been let back in(a little) from the cold. Only very recently has our party's TOP brass(as opposed to the majority of Dem Congressmembers and Senators)been willing to admit that it's at least possible that backing "free trade" was a mistake and a betrayal of people who work for a living.

We need to be a party that backs the workers, not the bosses. The fact is, a "pro-business Democrat" is just a Republican with good manners.

[CBR]

4. Why then do Democrats have the strong support of working

class voters from other racial and ethnic groups? I think racism plays a LARGE role among that constituency. Dems and the GOP spend a lot of time pandering to them. When everyone talks about the "working man" and "average Joe" (whether from the left or right) it means a white person.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

9. Yeah, we went through this during the election. "Average American" means "white"

[SemiCharmedQuark]

8. ROFL. Yeah right. That's why they vote Republican.

The Republicans who have *never* embraced corporatism...truly friend of the working man. All of us dumb working minorities are just to stupid to realize it.

:eyes:

[Ken Burch]

13. I agree that Republicans don't DESERVE their votes

But our party has driven them away through the leadership's embrace of "free trade" and through acting like nothing can be done to protect U.S. industrial jobs. The GOP then gets their votes by pretending to care.

OUR party needs to fight for workers FOR REAL. That means breaking with globalization and fighting for Fair Trade instead. Only then can you get these people back, because a Democratic Party that allows "free trade" deals to go through likes like it cares about everybody else EXCEPT workers.

Globalization was never good for anybody who doesn't vote straight-ticket GOP and live in a mansion. Our party needs to include Rust Belt workers again.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

19. And magically only the white workers have been driven away, huh?

Funny that.

[Ken Burch]

22. They've been seduced by racism

because the GOP has been able to use it to direct white working-class anger away from their true enemies, the corporations.

And yes, other groups of workers did stay with this party, but only because our leaders pretended to care about them(like the last Democratic president, who had massive black and latino support but did nothing whatsoever to earn it).

The Democrats were unable to combat this loss of working-class whites because our party, since the Nineties(actually, since the end of the New Deal, in some respects)has been obsessed with looking "pro-business".

We've looked like we stood for progress for everyone EXCEPT this group of workers, to whom our leaders have pretty much said "tough beansies"(or "I feel your pain", which was the same thing).

We need to include them by having a strong anti-corporate message. That's the only way to get them back. You can't get those voters by appealing to altruism.

And I'm a strong supporter of the anti-racist part of the Democratic message. I'm just saying it needs to be accompanied by a class-conscious one as well. That's the only way to break the false consciousness that Republicans have cultivated in this group of voters.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

23. Hmm, I see what you are saying now.

Thanks for taking the time to explain.

[Ken Burch]

24. No problem.

What I've been saying is pretty much what Michael Moore's been saying since the Nineties.

[Number23]

45. Lord have mercy

That's the longest most painful attempt to find a reason for something other than the most painfully obvious one -- derrr, it's RACISM, Blanche! -- that I think I've ever seen.

[Hippo_Tron]

37. Which was a reaction to working class people leaving the Democratic Party in the 1980's

They left the party long before the DLC existed. White working class people are some of the most reliable Republican and thus the least persuadable voters in the country.

[HughMoran]

40. Ludicrous reasoning

:eyes:

[Ron Green]

5. "No-college whites"

That's a great name for this demographic! Thanks.

:hi:

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

6. Pollsters usually distinguish...

no college, some college, and college degree (and graduate degree) in their demographic questions

[Ron Green]

12. It has a nice ring to it. I'm gonna use it quite a lot, seriously.

[liberal N proud]

7. Is it the same as the target audience for FOX?

[Jackpine Radical]

18. No, I think that's Short Bus Whites.

[tritsofme]

11. Clinton and Reagan found themselves in the same hole at this point

in their presidencies. I don't have the data here, but it would seem for Clinton to be down to the 40% approval range, he would have to be doing considerably worse among whites, especially no-college whites, probably in the same range Obama finds himself today. So I don't how much of the dynamic is racial vs partisanship/reaction to the bad economy.

And despite any lack of empathy midway through their first terms, things turned out for those presidents as the economy turned around.

As a group, these voters are probably among the most sensitive to the 9.6% unemployment rate, and they likely won't come back into the fold until it is considerably lower.

[Jackpine Radical]

20. But Clinton lost his majority in '94.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

21. You make an excellent point (in contradiction to my OP)

Obama's approval rating is probably higher than Clinton or Ronnie's was.

On the other hand, Obama's support with AA voters is even more monolithic than Clinton and there are a lot more hispanic voters.

???

I have argued both sides of this... the racism is overt but the overall effect is that of typical Dem-hating.

My theory is that Obama's ethnicity both helps and hurts in polls. He gets a few points from people not wanting to sound racist, loses a few from semi-swing voters made unreachable due to racism and it all adds up to pretty much what any Dem would face.

[inenemyterritory]

15. I doubt (hopefully)

it is not regarding race.

My thought is that these are mostly the "middle class" working people who has had their job shipped overseas.

Maybe manufacturing workers or union members, etc...

[Radical Activist]

16. I wonder if the same is true of a few popular pundits.

I have to think about someone like Dave Sirota or Tom Tomorrow who supported John Edwards in the primary, despite his centrist record and being the DLC leader in the Senate. They were never nearly so forgiving of Obama who had a more liberal platform and voting record. I don't know how to describe their double standard.

[lumberjack_jeff]

17. A main reason for this is related to the ongoing gender discussions.

The other is our refusal to speak in economic-populist terms.

By no reasonable measure are they privileged, and they know it. They've been alienated by the Democratic party.

The approval rating for Hillary, Edwards or Kucinich would be no better. They hate Obama because he's a Democrat.

DU is a microcosm of the party. Our systematic dismissal of working class men is pervasive.

[xchrom]

25. I don't get race out of this -- I get disappointment in governance. Nt

[SemiCharmedQuark]

35. It's just a big coincidence & white people apparently disappoint more easily than everyone else?

Come on...

Obama's numbers with this group were always low. How do you explain this by "disappointment in government" when it started during the election?

[HughMoran]

41. Bizarre economic theories - thumbs up! Obvious racial bias - don't get it?

It's all about bias.

[Swamp Rat]

26. I suspect no-college white MALES skew that percentage downward

I also suspect no-college white males are responsible for most of the hate and bigotry we see in America, and wonder if there is a correlation between the two.

I include college dropouts in the 'no-college white males' category. The college dropouts are worse, in my opinion, because they are quitters and threw away opportunities that most deserving humans will never get. There are five no-college-dropout white males on the left in the pic below. The two dudes on the right graduated college, in business and *ahem* law:

[rucky]

27. Conservatism appeals to people who feel entitled to advantages over others

because they were born white
because they were born male
because they were born straight
because they were raised Christian

When times are tough, people ask "why me?" Things are supposed to be easier for them because of those birthrights, but they're not so much anymore - thanks to government and progressivism. Government (in theory) is the equalizer and therefore the enemy. Liberals fight for equality, and so we're taking away their birthright.

[Fumesucker]

29. Funny, I was born all of those things...

And I'm one of further left posters here on DU. Indeed you could even call me a "professional leftist" and have me drug tested.

Perhaps you should narrow your brush just a touch, you're smearing the paint something awful.

[rucky]

30. Do you feel entitled because of it?

Didn't think so.

[Fumesucker]

32. I feel entitled to be treated the same as anyone else..

Is there another group other than white males that you can paint with as broad a brush as you did on DU and not get called on it?

[rucky]

34. Oh for shit sake, I'm one, too.

Unbunch thy panties.

[Fumesucker]

36. Hmm.. I catch shit from my fellow white males here in red state hell..

For being a liberal..

Then I catch shit from my fellow liberals for being a white male..

I'm starting to understand why so many white males are not liberal, it's a tough row to hoe.

[rucky]

43. Read the first word of my first comment.

And tell my why you're choosing to take it personally.

[Fumesucker]

44. If you had stopped with the first word of your first comment we wouldn't be having this conversation

It was the rest of the comment that I found distasteful and overly broad.

[slackmaster]

28. Do they provide a figure for his rating among no-account sons of a bitch?

:nuke:

[RB TexLa]

31. Hardly the group you want to impress or care about.

[Fumesucker]

33. Yep, and they recognize that you don't give a shit about them..

Then they vote for your opponent..

It's funny how that works.

[Karmadillo]

39. Those bitter clingers are just durn vengeful. They should accept

the fact they don't matter and vote Democratic. It's their duty.

[RB TexLa]

46. Not always, they can be easily brought back by what you put on "da TeeVee"

You see the president talking over and over about a construction bill that will never come to a vote. We don't need it to come to a vote we just need it talked about On their "TeeVees."

[ProgressiveEconomist]

38. Where did you get this statistic? When was the poll? Do you have a LINK?

It's difficult to make sense of a poll result for one subgroup out of many, with no information about possible biases of a particular poll.

[POAS]

42. Shit like this makes me wish I had taken a month off from DU..sheesh..n/t