My thoughts on the Obama era

[Kelly]

Sociologists call it "tribal voting"...you vote for the person that you feel is most "like" you...

I don't see it as racist, since being racist is...

1. the belief that races have distinctive cultural characteristics determined by hereditary factors and that this endows some races with an intrinsic superiority over others
2. abusive or aggressive behaviour towards members of another race on the basis of such a belief

I think most voted for Obama because he was the "new, cool, candidate" and his opponent was McCain.

I think there were more "ignorant" votes than what some are calling "racist" votes.

 

[MessiahDecoy123]

He's got a point. If these were their only reasons to vote, then it is racist and sexist, but not the obvious, malicious type of racism.

But I don't think Obama's color was the only reason he got 95% of the black vote. Alan Keyes would not have recieved 95% of the black vote.

Why is that? Because obviously other factors such as personality and stance on issues played a role too.

 

[SuperFerret]

It's racist in the way that anything that choses one thing over the other based off of cosmetic reasons is racist. Let's not bring dictionary definitions into this and argue semantics. Let's treat this like a real conversation with real people. ****in' internet, I swear...

Nobody here is stupid. We all know what chaseter is saying here. This "tribal voting" is a form of racism, and it's messed up. Arguing in circles about definitions isn't going to do anything but irritate everyone.

 

[SuperFerret]

But I don't think Obama's color was the only reason he got 95% of the black vote. Alan Keyes would not have recieved 95% of the black vote.

Why is that? Because obviously other factors such as personality and stance on issues played a role too.

I'm not disagreeing with you. But if even 1% of that 95% voted for Obama on the "I want a black president" platform, it's wrong. Hell, I'm sure there are white people who voted for him for that reason too. It's like people voting for George W. Bush because he seems like a cool guy to hang with. It's dumb and not how you pick a leader.

 

[chaseter]

If that comparison is apt then you would see whites voting in the 80s-90s because of 'tribal voting'. It's just interesting to see 95% of a group vote for the like skinned candidate while nobody in the media once suggests that race had implication in that election. An over 11% increase in poll numbers is huge.

I am not saying a blanket statement that all blacks are racist or all whites are racist, etc. I am tired of the race card being thrown around and politicians, media members, pundits, etc. using race as a means to prop up their own agenda. It's just interesting to see how certain elements are swept under the rug while others are nailed to the cross. Had whites gone out and voted 95% for McCain or had an 11% increase from the previous election you damn well bet I would think that had implications of bigotry.

Electing a black man as president was supposed to usher in a new age in this country. It meant we as a society are past race issues in this country by in large. But no. Apparently the Tea Party are racists and so are the Republican party. Racism is running rampant like the McCarthy era red scare and we have people like Sharpton and Jackson leading the charge.

I guarantee you that if Obama loses in 2012, they will use that in full force as a charge against whites in this country.

 

[Kelly]

"tribal voting" is not necessarily about "color", it is about who I think is most like me....

 

[Bat-Mite]

Sociologists call it "tribal voting"...you vote for the person that you feel is most "like" you...

If that comparison is apt then you would see whites voting in the 80s-90s because of 'tribal voting'.

No, no you wouldn't. Look at what Kel said. Pay special attention to the highlighted part. If I look at Obama vs. McCain, I start thinking "I'm young, I have more liberal tendencies, etc." My first thought in regards to how I'm like or not like one of them has nothing to do with race, but I guess with some people, race is the first thing they think of in such matters. With some people, religion is the big thing, sometimes it's positions on issues such as gay marriage. There are lots of ways you can consider someone to be "like" you that have nothing to do with race.

 

[Kelly]

BUT, let me be clear....the groups that tend to not fall into the tribal voting tendency ARE blacks and hispanics. They tend to be very conservative and very religious, so why wouldn't they vote for Republicans? These are questions that are coming up here...the democratic party has called itself for decades the party of the minorities...the party of the poor, the party of the underdog, etc....THAT IMO, is what blacks and hispanics see as "like them"...and why they vote democrat, even though the party they are voting for, doesn't necessarily stand for the conservative/religious platform they themselves say they believe.

That is why you have things like Prop 8. I can assure you it wasn't the advertising of the Morman Church that turned the vote. It was the increase in the black vote that did it...they voted one way for Obama, and a more conservative/religious route for Prop 8.....

 

[chaseter]

How if a black candidate rallies the black voting base to historic levels then it must be because those people agree with the man's policies and personal morality more so than his skin color? Right. You also know that for a person to be most like you to get you to vote for them, tribal voting, that also includes skin color?

Lets look at the voting demographics from 2008. I think you both would agree that the elderly would have largely voted for McCain if tribal voting is indeed not about skin color and more about other issues like age. Well McCain only got 51% of the elderly vote. That means that the 30-44 demographic would have went out in huge numbers in support of Obama over McCain then if tribal voting isn't about race. Well Obama only got 52% of the 30-44 vote. So we know that age really wasn't a determining factor in tribal voting.

Both McCain and Obama share roughly the same religious views so we know it had nothing to do with religion.

There wasn't a woman in this race so sex is out of the formula.

Educated individuals roughly went 50/50 for McCain/Obama so we know that education is out of the formula.

The only other shocking demographic besides the black voting statistics was the youth vote and the not a high school graduate vote. 63% of people without a high school diploma voted for Obama. So, either they are uneducated or they were 18 and still in high school. I guess you could chalk up the 11% black vote increase on being young or uneducated. That then leads to the question as to why then would they vote for Obama if they were young and uneducated? If they were uninformed on policy, then what made them vote for Obama? Race is the only thing left.


Here is an interesting blog article:
http://storm-nemesis.blogspot.com/2011/01/tribal-voting.html

Kel, your previous post even mentions how you are perplexed how most African Americans and Hispanics vote Democrat yet they have more in common value wise with the Republican party. That also perplexes me, especially with the Hispanic vote. I think it would be interesting to see which politician we are most like value wise and policy wise and I would bet that it isn't who we wanted to win in 2008. I will see if I can find that litmus test on the net that the article above mentions.

 

[Kelly]

Bush changed the ballgame...

McCain was a very weak opponent...which makes it even less of a "historical election" for me. Obama won because McCain was a very weak candidate, I would put him in the ranks of a Dukakis...

 

[DACrowe]

It's racist in the way that anything that choses one thing over the other based off of cosmetic reasons is racist. Let's not bring dictionary definitions into this and argue semantics. Let's treat this like a real conversation with real people. ****in' internet, I swear...

Nobody here is stupid. We all know what chaseter is saying here. This "tribal voting" is a form of racism, and it's messed up. Arguing in circles about definitions isn't going to do anything but irritate everyone.

But isn't this discussion you're having entirely semantics? 95 percent of the black vote went to a black candidate (though Democratic candidates usually carry the black vote anyway by around 85 percent). You say that is racist because you want to generalize an entire ethnicity of people's vote as entirely based on race without any research to back it up. They say it isn't racist because it wasn't malicious or about one race dominating another, and you say it is.

That right there is semantics.

However, if you insist that since the majority of black people supported Obama because of race (without actual evidence), can I not suggest that the Tea Party movement which sprung up overnight in opposition of President OBama, made up of over 80 percent white people, is also because of racism? It's the same argument and it never leads anywhere constructive.

 

[TheVileOne]

Plus Obama used all the McBush slogans and McCain's tactic of trying to lump Obama in with terrorists backfired. Now it is more like Obam-Bush .

 

[chaseter]

But isn't this discussion you're having entirely semantics? 95 percent of the black vote went to a black candidate (though Democratic candidates usually carry the black vote anyway by around 85 percent). You say that is racist because you want to generalize an entire ethnicity of people's vote as entirely based on race without any research to back it up. They say it isn't racist because it wasn't malicious or about one race dominating another, and you say it is.

That right there is semantics.

However, if you insist that since the majority of black people supported Obama because of race (without actual evidence), can I not suggest that the Tea Party movement which sprung up overnight in opposition of President OBama, made up of over 80 percent white people, is also because of racism? It's the same argument and it never leads anywhere constructive.

Nobody is referring to the entire black vote as being racist. We are talking about the 2008 election which had over an 11% increase in black voters from 2004. The only difference between 2004 and 2008 was the candidates skin color.

I already outlined all the factors that could be attributed to that rise in voting stats and race is the biggest factor. Even people in here have mentioned that race played a part but it wasn't racism because it wasn't malicious. Racism doesn't have to be malicious to meet the definition of racism. There are white people that voted for McCain because he was white. That's racist too. It doesn't mean they are all KKK members. It's a double standard in this country. Look at how the Tea Party have been branded. Look at how if you called Bush a chimp or a Nazi it's ok but if you call Obama a chimp or a Nazi you are racist. If you called Obama a Muslim you racist. If you don't agree with Obama's policies you are a racist. It's disgusting. The people that preached that by voting in a black President we usher in a new age in this country are now the ones leading the charge again against racism.

And again, I agree with the first post in this thread that the black community has been severely under represented in this country. Both the left and the right have really done nothing for the black community and they still have jaw dropping crime rates, school drop out rates, violence related deaths, etc. Nothing has really changed for that community in decades. All they get is empty promises from hollow politicians.

 

[DACrowe]

But you are saying that extra 11 percent is based on racism without any empirical evidence. And again, saying that an overwhelming majority of a certain group (black voters) voted a certain way because of race is as erroneous as saying that the largely white Tea Party exists entirely because of race. Race played a factor in the 2008 election for some, as it does for some in the Tea Party. However, you cannot generalize millions of people based on assumptions.

Lastly though, the people who are calling Obama a muslim (or a terrorist) are more than likely racist because they are first negatively stereotyping 1/6 of the world's population because they dislike the religion and then applying it someone they don't like as "different" or "other." That is a clear case of racism, in actuality.

 

[Kelly]

I think a good number of people voted for him because he was black. They might not even been black themselves, it was simply the historical implication.

Some voted for him because he seemed cool, new, exciting.

Some voted for him because he has a (D) next to his name....(that would have been my grandmother, the FDR generation tends to move that way).

Some voted for him because he wasn't Bush, or looked like Bush, or sounded like Bush.

Some voted for him because they agreed with what he said.

I am doubtful that many REALLY voted for him because of his record...so I'm not sure that "his policy" had anything to do with it....he just didn't have much of a record. He hadn't been a senator long enough to really have anything.

But, he did get the majority of the vote, and that is why he is President.

People have a number of reasons why they vote for someone, but I believe that had McCain's opponent been a young, hip, white guy, who had a campaign that could get out the vote, we would have seen an increase in black votes, white votes, green votes, blue votes....just the same. I think the biggest thing he had going for him was he was young, new, and people really didn't know much about him, therefore he had no baggage.

 

[chaseter]

What accounts for that 11% increase? Tell me. If I am wrong, tell me why. Why was there an 11% increase? Again, I am not calling the entire black voting public racist but you cannot deny that race played pretty big in the 2008 election. Was it the the entire pie? No. Was it a piece? Yes. If whites had an 11% increase in votes for McCain than in 2004 then Obama would have lost and the news story headlines would be about racism still being alive and well in this country.

Calling someone a Muslim isn't racist. Muslims aren't a race. It's wholly ignorant but it isn't racist.

 

[Kelly]

I'm not sure where you are getting 11%

90% voted for Gore in 2000, and 88% voted for Kerry.

Obama got 95% of the black vote in 2008...

So that is actually about a 5% to 7% increase...and the actual increase of black votes only went up 2% from 11% of the vote to 13% of the overall vote...

Just some statistics to put you to sleep...


66% of Hispanics voted for Obama, the best ever...

56% of women voted for Obama, which far exceeds the usual Democratic advantage...

Male vote was pretty much a tie...but increased by 4% from the best ever voting by males for the Dem....which was Jimmy Carter.

Under 30 vote was higher than ever before for the Democrat...but not surprising since McCain looked, acted and was old...

First time young voters voted 71% for Obama...that is huge.

54% Catholics voted for a Pro-abortion president...that is huge.

Only 4% more of married voters went with McCain, whereas Bush had a 15% leap on Kerry...that was a major loss of votes right there...

53% of voters who earned $200,000 or more in 2007 voted for Obama. That is an increase for dems...

McCain - who was expected to triumph amongst the wealthy, succeeded in polling only 45% of these voters.

73% of white evangelicals backed McCain and 25% backed Obama.
This was a boost of 4 points for the Democrats from 2004, who traditionally struggle in rural areas, where many of this category live.

 

[SuperFerret]

But isn't this discussion you're having entirely semantics? 95 percent of the black vote went to a black candidate (though Democratic candidates usually carry the black vote anyway by around 85 percent). You say that is racist because you want to generalize an entire ethnicity of people's vote as entirely based on race without any research to back it up. They say it isn't racist because it wasn't malicious or about one race dominating another, and you say it is.

That right there is semantics.

However, if you insist that since the majority of black people supported Obama because of race (without actual evidence), can I not suggest that the Tea Party movement which sprung up overnight in opposition of President OBama, made up of over 80 percent white people, is also because of racism? It's the same argument and it never leads anywhere constructive.

Try reading what I write please.

 

[MessiahDecoy123]

I'm not disagreeing with you. But if even 1% of that 95% voted for Obama on the "I want a black president" platform, it's wrong. Hell, I'm sure there are white people who voted for him for that reason too. It's like people voting for George W. Bush because he seems like a cool guy to hang with. It's dumb and not how you pick a leader.

I don't know how much attention this 1% deserves. Who knows how many whites voted for McCain simply because they didn't want a black president?

 

[DACrowe]

Try reading what I write please.

You argue it's racist, even though it is benevolent (though you cannot back up that they voted for him solely because he is black when over 85 percent of the black vote skews Democrat every presidential election) and they point out that because it was not based on a belief of superiority, aggression or abuse that it is not race. You say it still is.

That is semantics, right there.

 

[hippie_hunter]

Bush changed the ballgame...

McCain was a very weak opponent...which makes it even less of a "historical election" for me. Obama won because McCain was a very weak candidate, I would put him in the ranks of a Dukakis...

I think Obama would have won no matter who was the Republican candidate. 2008 wasn't just a choice for President, but it was also a chance for voters to punish the Republicans for the horrid second term of George W. Bush.

It's a big reason why the Democrats fumbled after the 2008 election, they interpreted the 2008 election as a validation for their policies when in the end, it was just voters punishing the Republicans.

 

[SuperFerret]

You argue it's racist, even though it is benevolent (though you cannot back up that they voted for him solely because he is black when over 85 percent of the black vote skews Democrat every presidential election) and they point out that because it was not based on a belief of superiority, aggression or abuse that it is not race. You say it still is.

That is semantics, right there.

I said that regardless of the arguing over how we're defining racism, we're not f**king stupid and we understand what chaseter is saying even if the words he's using may not fit exactly what the dictionary definition is. If I wanted to argue semantics, I would have.

 

[DACrowe]

I never said you were ****ing stupid. But what chase is describing he calls racist. Others first point out that he can't prove African-Americans mostly voted for Obama due to race. Then they said even what he describes as racist is not

You say it still is. That is arguing on how to label a preconceived assumption. It is a semantic argument and I"m not taking this further.

 

[SuperFerret]

Maybe I was wrong. Maybe nobody understands what he's saying. Not my problem then.

 

[Kelly]

I think Obama would have won no matter who was the Republican candidate. 2008 wasn't just a choice for President, but it was also a chance for voters to punish the Republicans for the horrid second term of George W. Bush.

It's a big reason why the Democrats fumbled after the 2008 election, they interpreted the 2008 election as a validation for their policies when in the end, it was just voters punishing the Republicans.

I agree...