cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/25218510

THIS IS NOT A TROLL. I’d like a deeper dive into this as a black man.

For context, I’ve voted Democratic my entire life, same with my family & most of my friends, including most of my white friends. We tend to agree on the obvious issues in American politics like lobbyist & foreign affairs. But we continue to vote Democratic because we see it as the best way forward for progress compared to the GOP.

But my question is why are white people specifically so strong for the GOP? It seems like no matter which election you look at post civil rights, the GOP either comfortably wins the white vote, or narrowly wins it. Despite issues like the war on drugs, early 90s recession, war on terror, mortgage crisis, Trump’s abysmal response to COVID, cuts to Social Secuirty, Tax Cuts for the Rich, etc. It seems like the white electorate always backs Republicans in big numbers. No matter what.

You could say the same for black people and the Democratic Party, but we are a far smaller voting base that can’t really decide elections outside of a state like Georgia (I live in Chicago). But also, the Dems aren’t perfect, I don’t expect any political party to be, but their track record and policy positions work much better for the common man to me.

Obviously there’s a large contingent of white voters who greatly represent the progressive movements on the left more than any other group, but they’re vastly outnumbered by their Republican counterparts. And Trump did worse with white women in 2024 more than any Republican has post-civil rights.

TLDR; Why does it seem like no matter what Republicans do, white voters who always give them a large amount of support? If Dems held policy positions and had the rhetoric of the modern day Republican Party, I doubt black people would support them.

  • AA5B@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    7 hours ago

    I was fairly conservative as a teen and young adult. Looking back, the only thing we can really pick out as a cause is the echo chamber. There was no internet, but everyone I knew looked like me, talked like me, had a very similar life to me. It was all I knew.

    • I went to parochial school. For a few years the only non-white was a smoking hot Filipina so that was cool. However as the school started having money troubles, it accepted more “troubled” students … several of whom had darker skin. That just reinforced negative stereotypes I had been taught
    • in high school we had very few non-whites, but stereotypically the valedictorian was Chinese and half the football team were dark skinned.
    • in high school, “Health” was a required class, and I first met someone who was not at least middle class. Wow, that hit the negative stereotypes
    • my town was rural to suburbs, with few town services wanted or needed. However we did fund a good education system, while being fiscally prudent. Why couldn’t everyone else?

    So, how do you think I felt seeing headlines of massive budget deficits, welfare queens, crime-ridden cities, slums, racial unrest, the evil empire? Yes, I was conservative: so many scary things in the world could be fixed if they were just like my town.

    Then I went to college and got much more exposure to different people, different ideas, different walks of life, preferences, culture. Most of all I learned much more about the world and from more perspectives. I learned how naive and sheltered I had been. I learned that people different from me were people just like me, doing their best in a world from a wide range of starting points, with a wide range of obstacles and opportunities, toward a wide range of expectations.

    Do conservatives tend to come from small towns where everyone is just like them, as I did? Is the outside world scary and different? Have they never left - when I went back for a reunion, my best friend from then was small minded as ever and admitted he’d never been more than fifty miles from town

    Edit: to add to the development of stereotypes when I was a kid, and possibly offend everyone ….

    I was good at math, and computers. So were a few other guys. Girls were not. I tutored so many girls that couldn’t do math, gave so much help to the woman who couldn’t teach computers. Everyone grew up with traditional roles and developed toward those expectations.

    Heck, that was before Title IX, so there were very few girl athletes. I certainly was not either, but almost none of the girls were (shout out to Renee, an outstanding athlete and friend, the girl athlete, the exception that “proves” that stereotype)

    Most people weren’t intentionally racist or sexist, but we lived in a society where so many negative stereotypes appeared true, where ur small town was great but the outside world had all sorts of scary problems that everyone blamed on those stereotypes