Texas

[B S Magnet]

So why do you think that heavily Latino counties in TX are turning towards the GOP?

I don’t know, and I also don’t care. I know what Texas represents at its core.

 

[Herdfan]

I don’t know, and I also don’t care. I know what Texas represents at its core.

You should care, if for no other reason that even a small movement of Latino's to the GOP would be a huge impediment to Dems winning elections.

 

[Yoused]

... anyone unfortunately can work to maintain that structure of whiteness — even as doing so works materially against their own best interests ...

My guess is that the minorities see what happens when the white people get pissed off, so they work against their own best interests because they do not want to deal with white-ugly.

So why do you think that heavily Latino counties in TX are turning towards the GOP?

For example, Zapata County on the Mexican border is 93% Latino and voted 65-32 for Hillary in 2016. They voted Trump 52-47 in 2020.

You know what I see there? In 2016, Ms Clinton was of the in-party; in 2020, Individual-ONE was of the in-party. There does not seem to be a major trend happening there. The Latinos are merely voting TPTB.

 

[B S Magnet]

You should care, if for no other reason that even a small movement of Latino's to the GOP would be a huge impediment to Dems winning elections.

I don’t care, because Texas is a place I consciously left during the 1990s, despite being, like, born and raised there (with up to seven generations of ancestors who were born and raised there).

Whether some niche demographic votes for one party there or another won’t improve my general safety; my ability to have a secure, over-the-table job; or access to equitable, informed health care. That’s why I got tf out and as far away from there as I could.

Further, joke’s on you: I’m not a democrat.

 

[lizkat]

You should care, if for no other reason that even a small movement of Latino's to the GOP would be a huge impediment to Dems winning elections.

Uh... Even John Cornyn has said that Texas is no longer reliably a red state.. which of course has led to new efforts to design stronger chances for redness back into the polling places in time for 2022 congressional races.

Texas may not flip for a Democrat in the White House really soon now (didn't happen in 2020 even after a lot of excitement about the chances) but it's finally edging towards giving Rs the boot on control of state politics. We'll have to stay tuned to see how Latinx choices affect near term outcomes.

 

[JayMysteri0]

My guess is that the minorities see what happens when the white people get pissed off, so they work against their own best interests because they do not want to deal with white-ugly.

You know what I see there? In 2016, Ms Clinton was of the in-party; in 2020, Individual-ONE was of the in-party. There does not seem to be a major trend happening there. The Latinos are merely voting TPTB.

What's being ignored is that Latinos as a group have voted more & more for republicans, but it wasn't just 2020. It was in 2016 as well, as it's believed that some are attracted to candidates who present themselves as authoritative figures. In each case though the numbers didn't exceed what the democratic candidate got. The largest support was of course with Cuban Americans in Florida who consistently favor republican candidates, because of the issue of Cuba. It isn't as if Texas was some outlier or signal of things to come in the last election, it's a trend that's been going on for awhile. It's something that you will hear from those on the right when not worried about triggering their dwindling base, that they have made some gains in anyone that isn't conservative White.

Chart: How U.S. Latinos Voted in the 2020 Presidential Election

There’s a lot more to see when you look beyond Florida.

www.as-coa.org

 

[Yoused]

... joke’s on you: I’m not a democrat

It occurs to me, if we had viable middle/middle-left options, the Republiopaths would genuinely be terrified. They are able to maintain traction because, eww, Democrats, but if they were to get cheated out of the binary, the R party would fade to the strength-level of, say, the Natural Law Party.

 

[B S Magnet]

It occurs to me, if we had viable middle/middle-left options, the Republiopaths would genuinely be terrified. They are able to maintain traction because, eww, Democrats, but if they were to get cheated out of the binary, the R party would fade to the strength-level of, say, the Natural Law Party.

I mean, there’s also the way the presidential republic model of governance in U.S. politics sort of hard-bakes the inevitability of two major parties as the only applied model of governance. The moment one major party disintegrates, historically, another major party fills in its stead.

 

[lizkat]

It occurs to me, if we had viable middle/middle-left options, the Republiopaths would genuinely be terrified. They are able to maintain traction because, eww, Democrats, but if they were to get cheated out of the binary, the R party would fade to the strength-level of, say, the Natural Law Party.

Well this is after all why the Rs had no platform in their 2020 convention. They focused on solely on Trump as the candidate because Trump! -- and because to do anything else might have split the party formally right then and there.

They haven't resolved that problem yet, and to me it's just a treading-water movement that the RNC reiterated support for him as nominal leader of the party in their winter meetings. They're hell bent on retaining his base as part of an electorate they can count on, despite unlikelihood of that, and so are trapped in a policy-free Trump-mode unless and until it becomes clear that Trump no longer holds that much appeal even to his die-hard base.

It's not a great look and feel for the Rs heading into the House races at midterms, and I would expect there to be an effort by Republicans NOT to nationalize those contests but to focus on state-by-state and district-by-district wish lists and pet peeves. And hope Trump is still distracted by his ever more irrelevant focus on how to correct the fact that he lost the 2020 race. Trump out on the hustings in 2022 sounds like an ill-advised dice roll.

Anyway one hopes that cartoon about Trump's incitement as the ignition source for the waiting bombs in his rally audience is a nightmare behind us as of the debacle of January 6th. In a way he defused them in part by letting down the side after saying he'd be right there with them but not showing up as they invaded the Capitol building. But it doesn't solve the problem of the RNC regarding how the hell to detach the party from the husk of Trumpism.

 

[B S Magnet]

Anyway one hopes that cartoon about Trump's incitement as the ignition source for the waiting bombs in his rally audience is a nightmare behind us as of the debacle of January 6th. In a way he defused them in part by letting down the side after saying he'd be right there with them but not showing up as they invaded the Capitol building. But it doesn't solve the problem of the RNC regarding how the hell to detach the party from the husk of Trumpism.

Even if they unhitch that guy, they still have a white supremacy problem.

 

[Hrafn]

Even if they unhitch that guy, they still have a white supremacy problem.

And both the massive stupidity and every conspiracy theory in the book problems. And the anti-science stance. And the sheer hypocrisy. And the general lying. And the specific lying. And the inability to see that they don't want to play fair, and that's ok.

 

[B S Magnet]

And the inability to see that they don't want to play fair, and that's ok.

The trick is to not play with them. At all.

 

[lizkat]

Even if they unhitch that guy, they still have a white supremacy problem.

Without that problem they don't have enough votes any more to fend off the Dems in national contests. So they need to ditch Trump and the white nationalists who came up strong after Trump put a few of their own into the White House as advisors. But they also need to reach out to Hispanics and Asians and they've messed that up --while pandering to xenophobes-- by stereotyping Americans in those groups as foreigners and prone to spreading covid.

It does not look like an easy road to try to rebuild before 2022. Particularly with idiots like Cawthorn and Jordan now carrying on about vaccination information programs as stealth preludes to taking your guns and Bibles. Do they really think they're making hay for the midterms this way? They're going to lose more suburbanites and women this way.

I often think the Dems are terrible at messaging (or else obsessed with national messaging and forgetting to run for town council) but the Republicans in the House lately are terrible in stepping on any practical plans the RNC might have for rebuilding a conservative electorate for the future.

 

[B S Magnet]

Without that problem they don't have enough votes any more to fend off the Dems in national contests.

Whiteness is what conservatives work doggedly to conserve.

 

[Yoused]

Whiteness is what conservatives work doggedly to conserve.

It may be an issue that eludes clear resolve. The biggest problem I have is "conservatives". When I was in HS, we (of a certain clique) participated in a mock Democratic Convention, about 3 months before the actual one (before our state had even voted). I think my school was playing Oklahoma, and we were pledged to Fred Harris, but he was dropping out, so our votes were being transferred. By rule, at the time, the Harris camp could direct our votes on the first ballot, and I was not happy to be told to vote for that Carter guy. He was just too conservative.

FF to the '80s and we have a pool of scum telling us "'conservative' means this thing we tell you it means", oh, and "liberals are evil". Carter was by no means a "liberal" in the era – some of Reagan's worst fuck-ups were actually policies put in place before he shuffled into the WH. And, of course, by today's standard, Reagan would be called a flaming liberal.

So this is a non-small thing that needs to be fixed. Rs are not even sorta conservatives. They are some other thing, Alt-White or White-Wing or Tories or whatever, but we absolutely must not allow them to continue to well-poison and defy reason by calling themselves "conservatives"

 

[B S Magnet]

It may be an issue that eludes clear resolve. The biggest problem I have is "conservatives". When I was in HS, we (of a certain clique) participated in a mock Democratic Convention, about 3 months before the actual one (before our state had even voted). I think my school was playing Oklahoma, and we were pledged to Fred Harris, but he was dropping out, so our votes were being transferred. By rule, at the time, the Harris camp could direct our votes on the first ballot, and I was not happy to be told to vote for that Carter guy. He was just too conservative.

FF to the '80s and we have a pool of scum telling us "'conservative' means this thing we tell you it means", oh, and "liberals are evil". Carter was by no means a "liberal" in the era – some of Reagan's worst fuck-ups were actually policies put in place before he shuffled into the WH. And, of course, by today's standard, Reagan would be called a flaming liberal.

So this is a non-small thing that needs to be fixed. Rs are not even sorta conservatives. They are some other thing, Alt-White or White-Wing or Tories or whatever, but we absolutely must not allow them to continue to well-poison and defy reason by calling themselves "conservatives"

I stand by what I wrote.

I bear witness to people calling themselves “liberal” — the “white moderate” — and then pulling off hostile acts of whiteness stuff to my face — which is why the Loudon County news incident comes to me with no surprise in the slightest, or why folks who think of themselves as “oppositional to conservatives” still don’t want me to be able to use the toilet in the public realm.

In several ways, I see the “liberal” or “white moderate” as a much graver threat to my basic welfare than whiteness-defending “conservatives”: with the latter, there leaves no ambiguity with what they’re upholding to conserve, whilst with the former, they will attempt to engage with fascism, as if fascism can be somehow negotiated, debated, or reasoned with. They’ll “defend the fascist’s right to say” or do a fascism. No thanks.

 

[User.45]

I bear witness to people calling themselves “liberal” — the “white moderate” — and then pulling off hostile acts of whiteness stuff to my face — which is why the Loudon County news incident comes to me with no surprise in the slightest, or why folks who think of themselves as “oppositional to conservatives” still don’t want me to be able to use the toilet in the public realm.

I'm so frustrated by the toilet thing on many levels.
1) Instead of people worrying about others' equipment used to deposit waste, we should worry about people successfully using the equipment designed to collect that waste. The bar is so fucking low.
2) Cis hetero people can get a hint of how gendering of bathrooms can get unnecessarily stressful when you are taking out your small opposite sex kid without your partner...
3) Male bathrooms without diaper changing stations are still the norm. Men. Do. Change. Diapers.

(Most of y'all know my opinion on the US political spectrum).

 

[B S Magnet]

I'm so frustrated by the toilet thing on many levels.
1) Instead of people worrying about others' equipment used to deposit waste, we should worry about people successfully using the equipment designed to collect that waste. The bar is so fucking low.

Spoiler: it’s not about the toilet.

It’s about having control and domain over our bodies in the private sphere and control and domain over our presence/participation in the public sphere.

If they had their druthers, they would eagerly and completely erase us from existence.

 

[SuperMatt]

I stand by what I wrote.

I bear witness to people calling themselves “liberal” — the “white moderate” — and then pulling off hostile acts of whiteness stuff to my face — which is why the Loudon County news incident comes to me with no surprise in the slightest, or why folks who think of themselves as “oppositional to conservatives” still don’t want me to be able to use the toilet in the public realm.

In several ways, I see the “liberal” or “white moderate” as a much graver threat to my basic welfare than whiteness-defending “conservatives”: with the latter, there leaves no ambiguity with what they’re upholding to conserve, whilst with the former, they will attempt to engage with fascism, as if fascism can be somehow negotiated, debated, or reasoned with. They’ll “defend the fascist’s right to say” or do a fascism. No thanks.

I don’t doubt that a lot of “moderates” and “liberals” intentionally uphold racist systems. Even on the MR forums, we had people who loudly insisted they were “independent” but somehow they always agreed with everything Trump did. However, I’m not sure that is the situation in Loudoun.

Loudoun county has always been a very conservative area, at least by reputation among us DC residents. The region’s voting habits haven’t changed because the largely white, conservative residents became “woke” - it’s because a lot of non-white people moved to Loudoun as DC housing prices kept climbing.

In 2000, Loudoun went 56% for Bush and 40% for Gore. By 2008, it went 53% Obama and 45% McCain.

In 2000, it was 169,000 people and 82% white. In 2010, 312,000 people and 69% white, and 2019, 413,000 people and 67% white, but if you exclude Latinos, about 55% white.

That is a massive shift, and the conservative whites are not happy about losing their dominance, which IMHO is the reason you see insane outbursts at school board meetings.

As for the “liberals” they quoted in the newspaper article... As long-time white Loudoun residents whining about CRT, I promise you they aren’t liberal and never were. I especially noted the one lady who claimed to be liberal because she voted for Clinton… think about that - it means she voted against Obama, or she would have mentioned it. They are full of just like the fake moderates on MR.

 

[B S Magnet]

I don’t doubt that a lot of “moderates” and “liberals” intentionally uphold racist systems. Even on the MR forums, we had people who loudly insisted they were “independent” but somehow they always agreed with everything Trump did. However, I’m not sure that is the situation in Loudoun.

I cite Loudon in the context of it being recently in the news.

But whether it’s Loudon County or Los Angeles or Quillette or Hillary Clinton, I run across no dearth of cis people whose entire take is the invective: “I’m a liberal, a Democrat, but this transgenders [sic] thing is just one extreme too far for me… if your [sic] born with mAlE pLuMbInG you use the mens room… these transgenders [sic] are erasing females [sic] and confusing young girls into becoming men… and they want us normal people to indulge in their delusional fantasy and force us into cOmPeLlEd SpEeCh… and now, because Biden supports this delusion I’m never voting ‘D’ ever again…”

I have fielded and listened to every single permutation of these takes over the past thirty years. They are always predictable, always intellectually lazy by choice, always can be spotted from ten miles away, and when their softer takes get dismissed by their more enlightened, more compassionate peers, they always double-down by leaning hard into more overtly fascist rhetoric.

Loudon is but one example, but what social media and major newspapers of record see in that now is, chapter and verse, the same ugly performance which played out at the Anoka school board PTA meeting in November 1998, in Minnesota, months after the district hired a music teacher who was trans: the teacher was forced out of her job before she could even begin because whiteness and reactionary white cis people in the audience who angrily compared her existence to (in the deepest of historical ironies ever) “Hitler’s Germany”.