General Discussion

Last edited Sun Jun 21, 2026, 02:11 PM - Edit history (1)

because identity politics."

"For many years, whites with less formal education had not mapped their views about race onto their broader political views. Because they tended to follow politics less closely, they had not fully learned or internalized the long-standing divisions between the Democratic and Republican parties on civil rights and other issues related to race. But once Obama was in office, whites with less formal education became better able to connect racial issues to political politics. There was a large increase in the proportion of non-college educated whites who knew that the Democratic Party was more supportive of liberal racial policies than was the Republican Party. Then racial attitudes became more connected to whether whites identified as Democratic or Republican.

"Of course, these Obama-era trends also coincided with the onset of the Great Recession. But it is unlikely that economics was driving defections from the Democratic Party among whites with less formal education or less favorable views of racial and ethnic minorities. For one, the recession began under a Republican president, George W. Bush, and both he and his party received most of the blame -- which is exactly why Obama won so handily in 2008. Moreover, rising unemployment has historically favored the Democratic Party ... perhaps because Democrats are perceived as caring more about the issue of jobs and employment than do Republicans. If anything, then, the Great Recession should have driven the voters experiencing economic hardship to Obama and the Democratic Party. And even if voters did blame Obama, one would then expect defections from the Democratic Party to reverse themselves as the economic recovery took hold, but instead the defections accelerated over the course of Obama's presidency. This is why racial attitudes appear to be the more likely culprit."

From "Identity Crisis"

Make people angry about race and culture wars and tell them it's about economics, conspiracies by liberals or oligarchs or establishment or centrists or AIPAC or elites or revisionist propaganda that Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were bad terrible neoliberal sea monsters.

That and 100% Republican obstruction with the goal of making government dysfunctional, even voting against their own bills if there's the slightest possibility it might make Democrats look good (bipartisanship); then blaming Democrats. Media and pundits blame both sides, people think their vote doesn't count, anger from other directions that Democrats don't want to do anything, spineless, corporatists, elites, status quo, don't fight, etc. Everyone whining about Democrats.