There are some comments by Joel Gehrke at the Washington Examiner that conform more to my sense, such as it is, of what’s going on in this election cycle more than most of what I’ve read lately:
But 2016 is hardly normal, as is clear both from Trump’s successes and socialist Bernie Sanders’ durability in the Democratic presidential primaries.
“It’s a ‘Coming Apart’ election,” Republican political consultant Brad Todd said in a reference to political scientist Charles Murray’s study of the class-based divisions among white Americans.
Murray analyzed “the state of white America [from] 1960-2010” and found a new upper class had formed in that time — a cognitive elite whose smart kids go score high on the ACT or the SAT, go to top-flight universities, marry their college classmates and use their high combined incomes to buy houses in “Belmont,” raising their kids in only the most desirable neighborhoods.
Meanwhile, back in “Fishtown,” Murray’s name for working-class communities, those who struggled as high school students go on to struggle as adults. They are less likely than the upper class to marry, and more likely to divorce and to have children out-of-wedlock. They’re not religious. They are poor, either unemployed or working in low-skilled jobs at wages that have been falling since the 1970s.
They believe politicians are corrupt, but they’re not motivated by rigorous ideological narratives. They don’t have the elite education to do so.
As noted in the linked post, these people are natural Democrats who’ve been ignored by the elites of both political parties.
They’re only natural Democrats if economics is the only metric. It isn’t. Not for them, not for many people. Hardcore pro-life people will not vote D regardless of economics. In fact the self-destructiveness of the white working class over issues like abortion, race and SSM is one of the great stories of recent times. Social issues are an essential element of party identification, deliberately used by the Money Republicans to split the working class.
The working class is just starting to open their eyes to what’s been done to them, but they still want to find someone further down the pyramid to shit on – blacks, Latinos, women, gays. People need someone to look down and mere self-interest is not always enough to change people’s perspectives. It’s worth noting that at the height of WW2, with production of war materiel running at a break-neck pace, white workers on several occasions went out on strike rather than work alongside blacks. Pearl Harbor and Hitler were not enough to get many workers to look past their prejudices.
If man behaved rationally economists would be able to predict future events with some degree of accuracy. And. . . they can’t.
“they’re not motivated by rigorous ideological narratives. They don’t have the elite education to do so.”
A little over the top. Moderates and independents average 3-4 points lower in IQ than self-identified liberals, conservatives, Democrats and Republicans. PDF This is the kind of claim that pissed-off John Personna, as I think he believed moderates and independents to be superior; though there is nothing in that study that would suggest they are not morally superior. According to my link, nonvoters average 8 to 9.5 points lower in IQ. In a higher turnout election, one would expect the distribution to skew lower, because its the more marginalized voters that turn out.
Higher education makes one more liberal, which is a learned trait, separate from cognitive ability.
Kristofferson said it better michael.
Jesus was a Capricorn
He ate organic food
He believed in love and peace
And never wore no shoes
Long hair, beard and sandals
And a funky bunch of friends
Reckon may just nail Him up
If He come down again
‘Cause everybody’s gotta have somebody to look down on
Prove they can be better than at any time they please
Someone doin’ somethin’ dirty, decent folks can frown on
You can’t find nobody else, then help yourself to me
Get back, John
Eggheads cursin’, rednecks cussin’
Hippies for their hair
Others laugh at straights who laugh at
Freaks who laugh at square
Some folks hate the Whites
Who hate the Blacks who hate the Klan
Most of us hate anything that
We don’t understand
‘Cause everybody’s gotta have somebody to look down on
Prove they can be better than at any time they please
Someone doin’ somethin’ dirty, decent folks can frown on
But you can’t find nobody else, then help yourself to me
Steve:
I will happily give way to Mr. K who knows quite a bit more than I do about all things lyrical. Bit more about music, too. And facial hair.
Come on!
Uggh!
Come on, although ya try to discredit
Ya still never edit
The needle, I’ll thread it
Radically poetic
Standin’ with the fury that they had in ’66
And like E-Double I’m mad
Still knee-deep in the system’s shit
Hoover, he was a body remover
I’ll give ya a dose
But it’ll never come close
To the rage built up inside of me
Fist in the air, in the land of hypocrisy
Movements come and movements go
Leaders speak, movements cease
When their heads are flown
‘Cause all these punks
Got bullets in their heads
Departments of police, the judges, the feds
Networks at work, keepin’ people calm
You know they went after King
When he spoke out on Vietnam
He turned the power to the have-nots
And then came the shot
Yeah!
Yeah, back in this…
Wit’ poetry, my mind I flex
Flip like Wilson, vocals never lackin’ dat finesse
Whadda I got to, whadda I got to do to wake ya up
To shake ya up, to break the structure up
‘Cause blood still flows in the gutter
I’m like takin’ photos
Mad boy kicks open the shutter
Set the groove
Then stick and move like I was Cassius
Rep the stutter step
Then bomb a left upon the fascists
Yea, the several federal men
Who pulled schemes on the dream
And put it to an end
Ya better beware
Of retribution with mind war
20/20 visions and murals with metaphors
Networks at work, keepin’ people calm
Ya know they murdered X
And tried to blame it on Islam
He turned the power to the have-nots
And then came the shot
Uggh!
What was the price on his head?
What was the price on his head!
I think I heard a shot
I think I heard a shot
I think I heard a shot
I think I heard a shot
I think I heard a shot
I think I heard, I think I heard a shot
‘He may be a real contender for this position should he
abandon his supposed obediance to white liberal doctrine
of non-violence…and embrace black nationalism’
‘Through counter-intelligence it should be possible to
pinpoint potential trouble-makers…And neutralize them,
neutralize them, neutralize them’
Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!
Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!
How long? Not long, cause what you reap is what you sow
And now you do what they told ya, now you’re under control
[…]
F*ck you, I won’t do what you tell me.