Spotted this tonight …
Good grief. (Huffington Post - click)
The sight of Mitt Romney trying to out-Conservative the religious right’s darling Rick Santorum is breathtaking. Poll-driven fruitcakes.
It’s like that here in NZ (and everywhere I guess) when people throw up clichés and then pillory and demonize their ‘opponents’ — rather than argue or debate issues with them.
Here’s a clip of a conversation I was part of on Twitter last night … Cynical? Maybe. Too cynical? Hmmm
http://twitter.com/#!/FrancisUrquhart/status/171878064131809280
– P
Interesting article:
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/c4d281d6-5e24-11e1-8c87-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1nL3g4QSy
“Republicans are in transition between being one kind of party and another. Yesterday’s Republicans were an upper-middle-class party (small-town lawyers, shop-owners, managers) and tomorrow’s are a lower-middle-class one (landscape gardeners, construction workers, truckers).
In recent years, Democrats, traditionally the party of the vast industrial working class, found bigger fish to fry. They became the party of billionaires, academics, minorities and single women, driving white working-class voters into the Republican party.
Mr Romney represents the Republican party as it was back in the 1950s, probably the last decade when most Ivy League professionals joined it.”
Rgds,
*p*
Yes that’s a good thought about changing ‘constituencies’.
I’ve read that the Democrats, particularly those of the South were conservatives/Tories (in the sense of preserving existing privilege) in all but name … prolonging racist institutions and resisting civil rights reform in the same way the South resisted abolition of slavery.
So the civil rights reforms suggested but unlikely to be actually to be implemented by JFK (but passed ‘not a word changed’ by LBJ in the immediate aftermath of Kennedy’s assassination) were seen by Southern Democrats as a betrayal … and a recruiting opportunity by ‘moderates’ in the GOP.
The Southern white extremists who find their expression in the Tea Party (the real grassroots Tea Party not the beltway lobbyist construct) probably had parents or grand parents who were Democrats (and KKK members?)
It seems likely that ‘poor’ people with ‘aspirations’ vote towards where they want to go … i.e towards the right, the party of ‘enterprise’ (cough) although demographically one might expect them to be supporters of the left, the ‘workers’ parties…
Self-interest is a wonderful thing. So is altruism. Both are represented in politics on all sides of the spectrum.
– P
Peter,
Yes, of course Abraham Lincoln was a Republican, and the Dixiecrats (segregationists) were Southern Democrats.
The working poor or working class typically have views on race, immigration, and other social issues that might politely be termed “more socially conservative”.
It is interesting to me that the US working class is now loosely supporting the Republicans. The Democrats are now too liberal for this group. This would imply that the Republicans should have a strong chance of winning the Presidency if they chose a candidate that appealed to the working man. In this contect, it is something of an own goal to choose Romney!
I read another article which compared the television preferences of Republican versus Democrat voters.
Republican’s watched the working class reality TV shows – Deadliest Catch, the one about truck drivers on dangerous roads and the forestry loggers show. I have seen Deadliest Catch quite a few times – these guys have become celebrities, and are probably not bad role models in some ways (they certainly appear to work hard, in dangerous conditions).
Democrats liked the sitcoms and those late night comedy guys, and other “more sophisticated” fare.
I suppose this same process occured in New Zealand. Labour has traditionally been the party of the working class. Yet Ms Clark seemed more interested in the liberal concerns of the affluent elite, than the concerns of the poor working people. Consequently, I suspect that many of these people voted National in the last election.
Rgds,
*p*
Man, that show about the truck drivers sounds good!
Your comments reminded me about the introduction of The FOX Effect … see http://www.thepaepae.com/excerpt-of-the-fox-effect-book/21735/
wherein the authors claim that a town with Fox News has more Republican voters — implying it’s a *result* it seems:
Dunno.
– P
PS I remember years ago learning Lincoln was a Republican and thinking, Wow!
Peter,
I have never seen the truckers or loggers reality shows, but here is the wiki entry on the truckers one:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_Road_Truckers
“Ice Road Truckers (commercially initialized as IRT) is a documentary-style reality television series that premiered on History on June 17, 2007. It features the activities of drivers who operate trucks on seasonal routes crossing frozen lakes and rivers in remote arctic territories in Canada and Alaska, as well as Alaska’s improved but still remote Dalton Highway.”
Living in the UK, it was the working class who for obvious reasons, hated the mass immigrations from Eastern Europe (it was a threat to their jobs). They felt betrayed by Labour, and switched support to the Conservatives, the United Kingdom Independence Party or even the British Nationalist Party.
You can see the “ivantheterrible” here, who regards himself as a working class battler, voted for the socially conservative Mr Peters rather than Labour.
Fox News has an obvious constituency that used to be served by Democrats – working class people who are socially conservative.
I sense, Peter, that you don’t think much of the working class’ socially conservative concerns? They tend to worry about immigration from Mexico (economic times are tough), crime and other social issues. Certainly, my views on say immigration are the opposite (after all, I have been an immigrant for 17 years, and my employment is not threatened by immigrants).
Nonetheless, it seems to me that the parties that represented these people in economic terms (Labour in NZ and Britain or the Democrats in the US) have taken these traditional voters for granted for a long time, and instead have concentrated on more elite liberal issues.
As the article above says:
“In recent years, Democrats, traditionally the party of the vast industrial working class, found bigger fish to fry. They became the party of billionaires, academics, minorities and single women, driving white working-class voters into the Republican party.”
It is easy to dismiss or ridicle predominantly white working class concerns. Your hated Fox News takes this ignored constituency seriously, and gives them a voice. I know that you don’t like this voice (it is often factually wrong and always biased), but sometimes you have to imagine wlaking in other people’s shoes.
Rgds,
*p*
“Your hated Fox News takes this ignored constituency seriously, and gives them a voice.”
It makes millions from them, taking them for fools and spoon-feeding a diet of ignorant, misleading dog-whistle fodder.
Outright lies and distortions are fed out Fox’s orifice while (in-joke, surely?) claiming to be ‘fair and balanced’ — and leading or re-treading GOP strategists like Karl Rove’s talking points and pretending to be a ‘news’ organisation.
Besides the cheerleading for America’s imperial adventures, the bs they’ve promulgated against ‘the left’ and Obama (alleging variously Muslim, Marxist, terrorist, atheist, Kenyan born etc) with a straight face – indeed, cries of ‘persecution!’ when challenged – have denuded them of all credibility in my eyes.
They are a laughing stock, but a dangerous one. In my view, claims of patriotism do not excuse lies and propaganda to the electorate.
Rant over. – P
Gotta correct you there – Ivantheterrible doesnt regard himself as a working class battler. Nor is it correct to assume he voted for Winston Peters either. I simply made and make observations purely from my own base of opinion – i dont claim they are right.
Thanks for the mention – but i’m not in the category you cite for me.
Peter,
You want to shoot the messenger?
Fine.
Yet be aware. In many respects, Fox are doing little more than reflecting the views of a real (and substantial) constituency.
You need to be honest. I suspect that you don’t so much despise the TV show, as you dislike a segment of society who like this channel.
Working class white males (the big constituency of these shows) arguably get little to relate to from what they would perceive as the sickly liberal elite mainstream media. This group believe that they have been abandoned by the Democrats, who are too busy being on elite issues (Warren Buffet guest host et al) to trouble themselves with ordinary people’s concerns…
These members of humanity, then, typically relate to Fox.
So be it. If the truth be known, social conservatism is not to my taste, either. Nonetheless, I sense a difference in our views. In my mind, it is not enough to dismiss a substantial percentage of the US population as “ignorant” and “fools”. This would be all too easy.
One of your concerns seems to be with the “bs” Fox have “promulgated against ‘the left’ and Obama.”
Sorry???
Obama is President of the USA. If he is not big enough to take all the critisism coming at him, he has no business being there. This critisism comes with the territory? (Note to self – if I ever become President of the USA, expect huge – often unfair – criticism). This is how democracy works? Obama is a big boy, and I suspect he can look after himself.
Nonetheless, my suspicion is that your views are nothing to do with the treatment of Obama. Instead, I suspect that you simply find the typical white working class views objectionable / ignorant / foolish. Fine. If so, then just say so.
Why is this distinction important?
In my opinion, it is always important to not just try to understand what people believe to be true, but more importantly, why they believe it to be true.
Trying this perspective can be informative and worthwhile. Can you?
Rant over!
*p*
Hi poormastery,
I think you’re being altogether too kind to the propagandists at Fox News.
Of course Obama can handle the criticism. By some accounts Chicago politics is fairly bare knuckle and he’s probably stepped over a few bodies living and dead to get to where he is.
I’m not concerned about *his* feelings, that *he* might take offence at ‘criticism’, rather, my concern is that the lies and disinformation spread by the proxies (and actual party office holders and candidates) employed by Fox are an offence against those whom you describe as their constituency. And the rest of us.
They are lying to their ‘base’, at times it seems attempting to whip them up into a nationalistic/’patriotic’ frenzy … provoking passionate but ill-informed and ignorant rage. A mob, as they say, is manipulable.
No, I don’t despise white working class males and their values or views — unless they’re misogynistic, racially bigoted or homosexual bashing – but my experience is that it’s *individuals* that hold those views … and, like spousal abuse, that can occur in any ‘class’ of home. See my posts about the source of conflict – a superiority complex.
I question this claim:
Reflecting? Did a significant proportion of that ‘real (and substantial) constituency’ *really* have the view that Obama was a Muslim, Marxist, terrorist, atheist, Kenyan born socialist hell-bent on setting up ‘death panels’ to kill grandma and abort Trigg … with Obama and his revolutionary feminist wife and her mates out to destroy the American way of life and suppress their religion … until that pap was fed to them by Fox’s coterie of liars?
I think not.
Shoot them? No, good god no. I don’t even think we should put bullseye graphics on them. Look where that leads.
But call them out as the liars, fantasists and cynical propagandists they are? Yes.
– P
Never ever watched Fox News apart from in passing.
However Poormastery has a point it seems. there is an ignored constituency often dismissed with all sorts of accusations and negative descriptions by those with ‘liberal’ viewpoints.
The clark regime in NZ was an example of that dismissive attitude. The Key Government continues in the same vein.
Churchill – commonly regarded as the saviour of Britain and the free world – probably made many decisions drunk (dunno for sure … ) and was an unabashed elitist aristocrat and believer in the divine right of the British Empire and as i understand it – even switched political sides etc. However – on many fronts it didnt make him wrong …. in fact when most favoured appeasement – he was in fact right and war may have been averted had his message been heard and acted on earlier.
Many will back the horse that makes more commonsense and identifies the emperor as having no clothes.
Simple really.
There is often a lot of expressed truth in seemingly extreme views. We ignore those truths at our peril.
Peter argues that there is no “real constituency” of white working class males drifting to the Republicans. Those that have been doing so are apparently simply following the relentless propaganda from Fox News (a conspiracy, if you will).
Another FT article discusses the voting trends of the working class in the US:
“Come November, many American men such as these – white, blue-collar and angry – will turn their back on the Democrats and vote Republican.”
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/1cdafed6-6342-11e1-9245-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1o6PSeoX7
“After a slight swing back to the Democrats in 2006 and 2008, conservative inroads into the white working class accelerated in the opening years of Obama’s term. In the 2010 mid-term elections, 63 per cent of white working-class voters backed the Republicans and only 33 per cent the Democrats. This was the “highest in the history of modern polling”, according to the National Journal, which compiled the figures.”
Personally, I think it is a dangerous game to pretend a sizeable constituency of people does not exist, purely because you believe their views to be distasteful or even dangerous. This constituency exists.
Perhaps Fox News should be closed, for giving a voice to a sizeable proportion of citizens who are often quite frankly overtly racist and ignorant?
I think not, even though I find racism distasteful. Pretending race based conflict doesn’t exist helps no-one.
The fact that the Democrats are now perceived to represent the elites, the middle class liberal intelligentsia, academics and just occasionally the feckless, as opposed to their historical base constituency of the working poor, has arguably led to this voting change (if you dismiss the Fox conspiracy theory).
These people were already angry. Fox may provide the rhetoric to provide some words to express their deep seated frustrations, but Fox News did not create the sense of disenfranchisement and disillusionment, in my view.
Each to their own!
Rgds,
*p*
Hang on. What you said doesn’t represent my argument:
Yes, there is relentless propaganda, and I am scathing of that, dressed up as it is in the guise of a ‘news service’.
The ‘white’ drift to the republicans has been a factor since Nixon’s ‘Silent Majority’ strategic appeals to resentment against liberals … the ‘Old Man’ recognising a shift in the social tide before the Democrats did themselves.
We’ve discussed the Nixonland theory how that shift was a *reaction* to the massive and rapid upheaval of the 1960s reform — a real conservative right-wing backlash/blowback to the ‘radical’ and ‘unAmerican’ social protest movement — feminism, anti-war, increased visibility of homosexuals, as well as black consciousness. The Republicans worked to appeal to that that resentment. The GOP is still doing it.
http://www.thepaepae.com/richard-nixons-dirty-dirty-tricks-2011/17422/
Obama’s memorable line about people in certain states clutching their guns and religion, while perhaps unfortunately phrased, is probably, like the ‘white working class flight’ to the GOP, demographically demonstrable.
We’re not in disagreement about that flight, nor that it is a ‘real’ constituency. It is. (Not sure what I said to confuse that point.) Just as Ronald Reagan and a posse of ‘Hollywood liberals’ became Republicans.
But I despise the lack of truthfulness I detect in Fox News. I think they’re playing a dirty, corrupt game.
‘Closing’ Fox News? No, I’m satisfied to just ‘expose’ them. People have a right to choose.
Racist-based attitudes will be with us always. Racist-based laws — at any level — need not be.
The term ‘politically correct’ comes in for a lot of stick and self-described ‘firebrands’ like Andrew Breitbart (or ‘haters’ some might call them) have tried to make ‘tolerance’ a bad thing. Screaming about ‘liberal media’ trying to ‘silence them’, they set out to destroy people’s lives by holding up the very same ‘politically correct’ banner and protesting others’ right to hold an opinion that doesn’t match theirs.
I learned a long time ago the folly of supposing ‘oppressed people can do no wrong’. Oppressed people are just folks — good, bad and indifferent.
– P
Peter,
You disagreed completely with my comment:
“In many respects, Fox are doing little more than reflecting the views of a real (and substantial) constituency.”
Now you agree with this comment. Or you don’t? What is it?
Rgds,
*p*
Ah good.
I agree there’s an identifiable constituency, disagree with your benign description of Fox News’s role and actions toward them.
– P
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