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A God Damned Separate Thread On Political Outreach To Minorities
AngelHedgie
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Registered User regular
So, over in the Perry indictment thread, it was pointed out that as the population shifts to a pluralistic base, Texas would slide to purple, and potentially blue. The point was then raised that this viewpoint was paternalistic and insulting to minorities, because it was assuming that minorities would just default to the Democrats.
The problem with that argument, well - I would encourage you to read this piece. It's by a Muslim American blogger, who points out that Muslim Americans were a solid Republican constituency. Until the party turned on them, villifing them.
Which, ultimately, is the true heart of the argument.
You can argue policy all you like - but if you show nothing but contempt for the communities you are trying to bring into the fold, all those words will mean nothing. One only needs to look at the black community to see this - on paper, they have all the hallmarks of a moderate conservative community, yet it's pretty much agreed that Republicans in general have lost them for several generations - at best. The pattern continues over and over with other minority groups. To argue that policy is all that will matter is to argue that people are mercenary and care nothing for their own dignity.
And as we've seen, that's not a winning argument.
The problem with that argument, well - I would encourage you to read this piece. It's by a Muslim American blogger, who points out that Muslim Americans were a solid Republican constituency. Until the party turned on them, villifing them.
Which, ultimately, is the true heart of the argument.
You can argue policy all you like - but if you show nothing but contempt for the communities you are trying to bring into the fold, all those words will mean nothing. One only needs to look at the black community to see this - on paper, they have all the hallmarks of a moderate conservative community, yet it's pretty much agreed that Republicans in general have lost them for several generations - at best. The pattern continues over and over with other minority groups. To argue that policy is all that will matter is to argue that people are mercenary and care nothing for their own dignity.
And as we've seen, that's not a winning argument.
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Until republicans can get past this and make serious efforts at doing outreach with these people Minorities are going to continue to come together to form a giant middle finger to them.
Ultimately, the only way that minorities have a place on the conservative side is as long as they understand their place in the social hierarchy. Which is why they keep rejecting the deal. They may not fully agree with the coalition on the left, but at least they get a seat at the table.
I am unmoved by people who get offended by someone pointing to a clear demographic trend.
If 75% of X votes Dem, and suddenly X increases in size by 25%, the number of Dem voters goes up. This is not paternalism, this is math.
Is it possible that the GOP will find a way to reach out to minorities of different stripes? Hey, sure, stranger things have happened.
As to the logistics of the thing, I think it's at least possible that the GOP can continue policies that are, shall we say, unfavorable towards certain groups, if they find a better sales pitch. By way of evidence, look at the poor. The GOP is able to sell their platform to a lot of folks who would be measurably better off under Dem policies, even while overtly insulting that group. They can do this because they have expertly managed to make most of that group think they're not really talking about them. The GOP can tut-tut about moochers on the government dole, and people who are receiving MediCare or unemployment benefits or food stamps assert that they're not talking about them, they're talking about the real moochers, who are... you know, those other guys.
Part of this, I think, stems from the permanence issue. Sure, the rich are better than the poor, but I won't always be poor! Someday I'll be rich, therefore it's okay to sneer at the other poors! Sure, the non-moochers are better than the moochers, but I won't always be on unemployment! Someday I'll have a job, therefore it's okay to sneer at the other moochers.
A large part of the negative perception of the GOP is that it maintains a persistent racism, and that's harder to work around than a persistent classism. You might not always be poor, but you're always going to be Hispanic. You might not always be on unemployment, but you'll always be black. The GOP tries to distinguish between the good minorities and the bad minorities. It's not all Hispanics that are bad, just the ones who are here illegally! It's not all blacks that are bad, it's just the ones that talk and dress like thugs and won't get jobs! But there's enough undeniable racism* and dogwhistling going on that the minorities don't seem to care about superficial distinctions.
The GOP can get away with being dicks to the poor, and they can handwave-away a lot of their rhetoric there. I don't think they can get away with being dicks to minorities, though. They need to more vocally and more overtly call out their most objectionable elements if they want minorities to give them the time of day.
Of course, this all assumes that the goal of the GOP is to win the hearts of minorities without actually doing anything to directly benefit them. If they want to win them over, the ideal solution is to maybe, you know, help them out.
*This should not be construed to mean that a majority, or even a large minority, of the GOP are fundamentally racist. It doesn't take many to establish a narrative. Even if you want to assert that there are no more racists in the GOP than there are in the Democratic party, the fact is that the GOP has a stronger perception of being the party of racism, and that's what they need to work against.
Like, log cabin republicans are tolerated, but only because their "gayness" is purely anecdotal; the best they can accomplish is to keep fundamentalists from screaming about how gays are servants of satan.
the national republican party does not have the 'appearance' of being racist; it is racist, or at least, frequently advocates for racist policies. Eric Cantor just got his head knocked off substantially for being insufficiently nativist, and it wasn't because he equivocated about sealing the border with Canada.
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
Hispanics comes from a largely Devout Catholic background. Just about every hispanic family I know personally has a kindly old grandmother kicking around who is devoutly Catholic and highly respected by the other family members.
So you have to ask yourself...
1. How do you think most hispanics feel about gay marriage?
2. How do you think most hispanics feel about abortion?
3. How do you think most hispanics feel about highly secular groups that openly mock devout religious beliefs(IE make fun of grandma)?
Now that I think about it, I need to talk to my friends about gun control. I am honestly not sure how they feel about that issue. It has never come up.
Another one I have no idea about is Hillary. Hispanic culture is still very male dominated, I am not sure how they would react to a woman running for president.
To win over Hispanics, all Republicans need to do is focus on the common ground.
http://www.pewhispanic.org/2012/04/04/v-politics-values-and-religion/
Survey from two years ago on Hispanic political views.
1. Hispanics, and Catholics in general, have a majority (~59%) in favor of gay marriage. In fact, the only group in the US that views gay marriage extremely negatively are evangelicals.
2. First generation Hispanic immigrants are heavily against legal abortion, while later generations are in favor.
So no, Republicans aren't going to win over Hispanics by trying to convince them to fight the white evangelical culture war.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
A couple of points.
"their perception of Christianity is different" - It seems like the rift between Catholics and Evangelicals is going away. You can thank militant Atheism for this. Nothing like an external threat to bring people together.
"they're more communal" - This one can cut both ways. Once you earn the right to be a part of their community, you are basically considered family regardless of skin color or political affiliation.
I'm sure that they're concerned about Atheism, but the fact remains that Hispanic Catholicism has almost no crossover in ideology with southern evangelicals; the primary thrust of their religion is about compassion and forgiveness while that of evangelicals are driven by a fear of damnation.
Short of not being Abrahamic faiths they couldn't be further apart.
And they care more about economic issues anyway, for blindingly obvious reasons.
The being dicks to the poor is actually about being dicks to minorities, which is how they get poor people to vote against their economic interests in the first place (for the most part).
Militant atheism is an imaginary bugaboo conjured by a subset of evangelicals so they would have something to feel persecuted by.
Not only that, but the "culture war" isn't going to get them to ignore the policies and positions screwing them over on a day to day basis. No amount of "they're attacking your belief!" will make the fact that the right wing has consistently pushed to make them into second class citizens go away. (Again, case in point: the black community, which trends towards social conservatism and religious beliefs - and is pretty firmly on the left.
Except that the Dominionists are mainly breaking bread with the conservative arm of the Catholic clergy. And they're uniting against, among other things, the liberation theology wing of the Holy See (which, it's worth pointing out, the current Pope is a member of), which tends to be predominant tradition among Latinos.
Calling the first Latin American Pope Marxist and Communist is sure to win tons of Catholic Hispanic votes.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
Catholic views as policy and catholic views as practiced are so laughably far apart it's really hard to talk about 'Catholics'. As a group they rend to vote for the party of abortions. Most of them use birth control, etc.
That said of the younger generations of Catholics I know, they are definitely more like baptists in their bible trumpery, but that might just be because it's easy to be a true believe in your 20s. But I also think the US Catholic church has started to adopt the same language as the evangelicals, in a very calculated effort to stop shedding younger members.
Mass attendance is down to under 20%.
1/3 of Catholics are essentially 'ethnically catholic' ala ethnic jews. They check that box on the forms but that's it. Maybe you get some Christmas/Easter action.
In the last 2 decades the church grew roughly 15%, about 80% of that growth is from hispanics. But that 15% growth shifted the latino percentage of the church from 10 to over 30. So the equivalence of 'natural population growth' is actually negative. 2 Catholic parents today doesn't equate to 2+ Catholics a generation from now.
For most people, it comes down to whose pitch they like more. Democrats have a natural advantage in that pitch these days, because the other guys are basically saying "vote for us and we'll save you from the darkies". And while xenophobia is something of a deplorable American institution, it's not a great way to build your party in a country where a substantial portion of the population growth is in second and third generation immigrants.
So people gravitate toward the party that's not treating them like an active threat to the health of the Republic, then figure out that policies like unemployment insurance, low cost medical access, free quality schooling and the like also benefit them and their families, and they stick around. It's how African Americans became Democrats and it's why latinos of widely disparate geographical origin are going the same way.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Here's an honest question: how much do say, Mexican or Central American descended people in the US identify with a second generation Italian person from Argentina?
I was wondering that myself. Latin America isn't monolithic. I kind of take for granted that most of Latin America would be happy someone from the area was chosen to be Pope, but how does that break down across each country?
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
Most reporting emphasizes that he is from Latin America. I think this is the first time I've actually read that he was the child of Italian immigrants. I wonder how widespread that knowledge actually is.
I think we can get a sense, though, from a similar situation here. How much does black America identify with Obama, despite him being a first generation child of white and Kenyan parents? Quite a lot.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Still has to face and overcome the pervasive racism of the US, which is where the identification comes from, I think. Dude signals black culture kind of frequently. It's certainly possible that they do quite a lot. But Mexico and Argentina (for example) are radically different places.
This poll seems to indicate Francis is popular everywhere in Latin America, the lowest popularity being in Central America, where its 50/50, with a clear majority in favor everywhere else.
But the poll is "will he bring positive change to the church" and not "do you like him".
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
As a side note: I've used the word "Catholicism" more times today then I have in the past 7 years.
Your first two points have been addressed already, but I just wanted to point out that secular organizations that mock religious beliefs are uncommon outside the paranoid fever dreams of white evangelical Christians, and the few that exist are in no way considered representative or emblematic of the Democratic party.
Subscribing to the view that Texas Republicans can appeal to Hispanics (whatever that category even is) based on issues presupposes that Texas Republicans are Republicans because of issues. No doubt the head is looking right, but I think that's generally because it's the direction the neck is pointing it.
So I guess I remain confident, if that's the right word, that the political division within Texas isn't going to shift substantially.
The southern cone is actually overwhelmingly populated by the descendants of European immigrants.
Yes, the issues we want resolved politically are heavily influenced by other cultural aspects. That's because culture shapes how we have to approach the world. What I find amazing is the attitude that this somehow delegitimizes the positions held.
I guess you'd have to unfold your amazement for me a little before we were on the same page.
"The issues we want resolved" seems like kind of an interesting way to phrase the the mix of identity, interest and happenstance that craft that precious cultural artifact - the "issue."
Is your idea that the issues are there like an array math problems and it's our worldview-emerging-through-culture that makes us select one rather than another?
Eh, there aren't militant athiests, but when asshole and athiesm combines, you get very angry people (usually men) who think that any sort of religious adherence is pathological.
"We believe in the people and their 'wisdom' as if there was some special secret entrance to knowledge that barred to anyone who had ever learned anything." - Friedrich Nietzsche
Well, my point is that if you were to hold a tug-o-war between all the asshole atheists and all the asshole theists, it's pretty clear which group's going in the mud.
I think the important thing to consider is that the average fellow who asserts that he's come to his informed political stance through lots of soul-searching and critical analysis is greatly mistaken. Because he's typically come to his informed political stance through a combination of cultural osmosis, and just taking for granted that his preferred talking heads have done their homework. And this applies to both sides of the aisle.
Which is why arguing politics with someone, with a goal of actually changing their mind, is generally futile. You can't use reason and logic to combat a point of view that was not born of reason or logic.
Speaking to what Hedgie wrote, I don't know if this delegitimizes the issues, per se. I do think it hamstrings the link between position and philosophy, though. There isn't anything impressive about happening to stumble across a "correct" policy position based on the environment you happened to grow up in, any more than someone correctly predicted the outcome of a series of sports games through a series of lucky coin flips.
And this implies two things: First, you can't praise someone too strongly for acquiring the same enlightened stance as everyone they've been surrounded with for decades. Second, you can't condemn someone too strongly for acquiring the same unenlightened stance as everyone they've been surrounded with for decades.
It's more that I find the term "identity politics" to be exceptionally weasely. Most of the time, it's used to delegitimize minorities and the underclass from organizing and pushing for their common interests, by undercutting the basis of their coalition. People choose which positions they hold based on their worldview, and that is in turn informed by culture and the sorting it provides in many ways. That doesn't make those positions any less legitimate.
Homerun AH.
I don't think that equating political positions based on cultural absorption with a coin flip is fair, though - it's not something random, but follows from principles. For example, one of the major positions in the black community is reform of the legal system - which comes from (as we see all too often) the way the legal system becomes a force for oppression for them. The vast majority of what gets called "identity politics" is minority groups standing up for themselves by seeking political solutions for the poor treatment they receive.
Then perhaps you should be careful with the terms you choose to use. If you want to use a phrase that has baggage attached, go ahead - but you don't get to complain when it gets pointed out.