I think arguably Barack Obama benefitted from his status as a racial minority in all sorts of unexpected ways. There is at least anecdotal evidence that desperate white working class voters chose him because they felt that his race made him an outsider and the candidate more likely to challenge the status quo.
Labelling it as such at least frames it accurately. But it doesnтАЩt render it false either. To assume the assertion is insignificant or even false you have to account for the fact that he won against a couple of GOP establishment insiders and four years later a much less charismatic candidate with an inflated reputation lost on a technicality to the ultimate rogue outsider.
I feel like people forget what was happening in the fall of 2008 under a Republican president. The world economy was on the brink of collapse. Any Democrat would have won.
There is probably a significant number of voters who defected to Trump after voting for Obama and there is speculation that the significant common factor between the two is their perceived status as outsiders.
I think the biggest common factor between the two is their shared open opposition to illegal immigration from Mexico.
Barack Obama: тАЬWe simply cannot allow people to pour into the United States undetected, undocumented, unchecked, and circumventing the line of people who are waiting patiently, diligently, and lawfully to become immigrants in this country.тАЭ
America is a nation with a great deal of historical racism and sexism, and I think it would be odd not to assume that they play some role in elections.
The operative word here is "historical." The institutions of this country are in fact in a "flight from White." It is *advantageous* to be non-White in national politics. Gender, admittedly, isn't quite so tilted. But this idea that there's a cabal of racist voters out there who won't pick non-White candidates is pure fantasy. In this, the most 2022 of years, this electorate doesn't exist beyond maybe a low six figures nationwide; a number utterly and completely dwarfed by the electorate of all colors and stripes that would, all else being equal, prefer a non-White candidate.
Even without redress to polling and actual election results, you can run a very simple heuristic to determine that this is true. At the highest levels of politics, people tend to be more cut-throat and more ruthless. As such, you'd expect people who could conceivably gain an advantage by passing as White to do so. Yet there is not one political figure on the national stage - not a single, solitary one - who tries the kind of passing that was de rigeur to get into polite society well into the 20th century. That's because it would be completely counterproductive: it would make you *less* popular, *less* relevant, to deny your status of color. In fact national politics is an unseemly scramble to be more ethnic than thou, to the extent that you have Liz Warren *still* bizarrely claiming to be Indian (a scam that she began *decades* ago, if you don't recall), and Beto adopting Hispanic-face and calling himself a "child of the border."
People just think this is a nation of Archie Bunkers. They're flat-out, fundamentally, directionally wrong.
I agree he benefited from his race, but for a different reason. It meant that he got an automatic pass with most progressives so he didnтАЩt have to go too far left during the primary. Now de-criminalizing illegal immigration, an insanely unpopular view with the country at large is a purity test. Obama never had to face that kind of pressure.
I would agree with that to a point. Obama was an extremely adroit politican who carefully concealed his true nature (he was a dyed-in-the-wool Washington Consensus supporter) until he was in office. He was able to play Barbara Ehrenreich for a fool!
But Obama's polling lead was eroding up until mid-September when the 2008 Financial Collapse hit and the GOP was holding the bag. I think that - more than anything else - sealed the deal for him.
I don't think it's impossible, but I don't think there's much compelling evidence to suggest that Democrat candidates suffer as a result of being women or non-white. The US's sitting Vice President is a woman of mixed Indian and Jamaican descent. The US had an African-American President for two terms. Hillary Clinton was the Democratic candidate in 2016, and Elizabeth Warren came third in the 2020 primaries. Nancy Pelosi is Speaker of the House. Of members of Congress, 151 are women and 137 are non-white.
I think for sure they can pay a penalty for race and sex in a general election, but some of the excesses of their progressive politics are the bigger barrier.
Hmm. I think the excesses are definitely a problem (I mean, I have lost faith in the Squad/AOC and feel quite saddened by it honestly. But thereтАЩs a certain sometimes subtle sometimes not undertone to the AOC hatred though that I have a problem withтАж) but IтАЩm not sure it outweighs a deeply held discomfort many Americans feel towards women and people of colour in positions of political power. I think the discomfort is often voiced in well reasoned thoughts about these excesses but I often wonder if thatтАЩs really the true fixation - I just think thereтАЩs more complexity that we deny because itтАЩs easy, convenient and a way to reason with our own biases and issues.
I donтАЩt deny it. I think sexism has always worked against Hillary. But AOCтАЩs recent GQ interview in which she revealed that part of why she didnтАЩt report her rapist was because sheтАЩs a prison abolitionist isnтАЩt going to win any hearts and minds among feminists, never mind the wider population.
Not op, but I was coming to make this point anyway. I think they absolutely do pay such a penalty. But I think the argument as you put it in the piece seems to lead straightforwardly to something like тАЬto come to power, the left will need to be led or figureheaded by a white man.тАЭ
I DONтАЩT think thatтАЩs what you probably mean, but I also think itтАЩs a good faith extension of the argument as youтАЩve made it in this piece. IтАЩm also genuinely curious where you find the break in that logical chain*, or if it comes down to тАЬthe left just has to not be an asshole about it.тАЭ
*which tbf I should explicitly lay out: if by dint of their non-white-man qualities the squad are unelectable, and this is a general condition of relevant politics, it follows that the left would want a white man champion (if it wants to win => ~unelectable).
I think itтАЩs logically possible to think that those headwinds along with the specific and potentially amplified headwinds associated with a leftist candidate would be overwhelming in a way that they werenтАЩt for Obama. Articulated that way IтАЩm not sure I agree (but itтАЩs also a slightly different argument now), in particular because I think Obama got a fair amount of juice in тАШ08 by being perceived as more left wing than he was.
But of course he also had 3/4 of a billion in fundraising against a candidate who stuck with the public funding of about half that; thereтАЩs widely an idea that the sense of moment there was exhausted by it and the Obama presidency such that it canтАЩt be replicated, and so on and so on.
FWIW I think thereтАЩs a just-believable-enough not to laugh off path for AOC to the presidency IF she can win the primary AND keep the party from splitting off into a major centrist faction (Bloomberg spoiler campaign); but I also think thatтАЩs not worth doing because having a leftist president without a congress would be borderline useless, and certainly a poor use of her talent. But thatтАЩs now fully aside from my original q, too.
>it follows that the left would want a white man champion (if it wants to win => ~unelectable).
For the record I think this is basically correct. I think that being black or hispanic means getting more penalized for being more on the left, and I think there's just generally a being a lady penalty.
Not insurmountable, but they make things harder. I think gender-flipped Hillary Clinton pulls it out in 2016, for example.
All of which is to say, let's hope Fetterman hangs on in Pennsylvania. Fetterman 28 or 32 would be possible then, but he has to have a win before then.
Do they though? Republicans don't really seem to have a problem voting for women or minorities as long as they have sufficient reactionary politics. I mean Sarah Palin, Bobby Jindal. In the general election Hillary one the majority of the votes despite being not liked personally and Obama won twice.
I canтАЩt remember where, but thereтАЩs been some interesting research into how conservative/republican aligned women are viewed more favorably than liberal/democratic aligned women candidates.
It's almost certain that women and PoC candidates pay a price due to sexism and racism across some part of the voter demographic, and it's also almost certain that their race/gender work in their favor across another part of it. To my thinking, it's a question of which outweighs the other on net.
Perhaps they are also more likely to *be* radicals if theyтАЩre Dems. The SquadтАЩs social media presence certainly fuels that image, regardless of what their voting record may indicate.
The Obamas certainly endured this kind of ridiculous radicals-in-sheepтАЩs-clothing framing from a certain deranged segment of the population despite clearly being centrists in practice. But not enough people actually believed it to vote him out of office.
You think it's impossible that women candidates and candidates of color can pay an electoral penalty for that? In a general election?
I think arguably Barack Obama benefitted from his status as a racial minority in all sorts of unexpected ways. There is at least anecdotal evidence that desperate white working class voters chose him because they felt that his race made him an outsider and the candidate more likely to challenge the status quo.
And as we all know, anecdotal evidence is by definition, definitely evidence!
Labelling it as such at least frames it accurately. But it doesnтАЩt render it false either. To assume the assertion is insignificant or even false you have to account for the fact that he won against a couple of GOP establishment insiders and four years later a much less charismatic candidate with an inflated reputation lost on a technicality to the ultimate rogue outsider.
I feel like people forget what was happening in the fall of 2008 under a Republican president. The world economy was on the brink of collapse. Any Democrat would have won.
Bingo.
Well yeah but then thereтАЩs also the evidence that he won the presidency twice.
There is probably a significant number of voters who defected to Trump after voting for Obama and there is speculation that the significant common factor between the two is their perceived status as outsiders.
I think the biggest common factor between the two is their shared open opposition to illegal immigration from Mexico.
Barack Obama: тАЬWe simply cannot allow people to pour into the United States undetected, undocumented, unchecked, and circumventing the line of people who are waiting patiently, diligently, and lawfully to become immigrants in this country.тАЭ
He wasn't all talk, deporting more illegal immigrants than any President in American history https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/obamas-mixed-legacy-immigration
You are also correct that there are numerous voters who voted for Obama for two terms and then for Trump in 2016 (https://www.npr.org/2016/11/15/502032052/lots-of-people-voted-for-obama-and-trump-heres-where-in-3-charts; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obama%E2%80%93Trump_voters), a data point which I think almost entirely undermines the claim that Trump was elected on a white supremacy/neo-Nazi platform.
My husband was one of these voters.
While not being a registered voter, I followed that exact trajectory, albeit for slightly different reasons.
As opposed to the teetering ziggurat of evidence you've presented for muh racism and muh sexism being factors in general elections.
I made no claims and therefore need not present any evidence.
Freddie did. He's wrong.
America is a nation with a great deal of historical racism and sexism, and I think it would be odd not to assume that they play some role in elections.
The operative word here is "historical." The institutions of this country are in fact in a "flight from White." It is *advantageous* to be non-White in national politics. Gender, admittedly, isn't quite so tilted. But this idea that there's a cabal of racist voters out there who won't pick non-White candidates is pure fantasy. In this, the most 2022 of years, this electorate doesn't exist beyond maybe a low six figures nationwide; a number utterly and completely dwarfed by the electorate of all colors and stripes that would, all else being equal, prefer a non-White candidate.
Even without redress to polling and actual election results, you can run a very simple heuristic to determine that this is true. At the highest levels of politics, people tend to be more cut-throat and more ruthless. As such, you'd expect people who could conceivably gain an advantage by passing as White to do so. Yet there is not one political figure on the national stage - not a single, solitary one - who tries the kind of passing that was de rigeur to get into polite society well into the 20th century. That's because it would be completely counterproductive: it would make you *less* popular, *less* relevant, to deny your status of color. In fact national politics is an unseemly scramble to be more ethnic than thou, to the extent that you have Liz Warren *still* bizarrely claiming to be Indian (a scam that she began *decades* ago, if you don't recall), and Beto adopting Hispanic-face and calling himself a "child of the border."
People just think this is a nation of Archie Bunkers. They're flat-out, fundamentally, directionally wrong.
I agree he benefited from his race, but for a different reason. It meant that he got an automatic pass with most progressives so he didnтАЩt have to go too far left during the primary. Now de-criminalizing illegal immigration, an insanely unpopular view with the country at large is a purity test. Obama never had to face that kind of pressure.
Very true.
I would agree with that to a point. Obama was an extremely adroit politican who carefully concealed his true nature (he was a dyed-in-the-wool Washington Consensus supporter) until he was in office. He was able to play Barbara Ehrenreich for a fool!
But Obama's polling lead was eroding up until mid-September when the 2008 Financial Collapse hit and the GOP was holding the bag. I think that - more than anything else - sealed the deal for him.
I don't think it's impossible, but I don't think there's much compelling evidence to suggest that Democrat candidates suffer as a result of being women or non-white. The US's sitting Vice President is a woman of mixed Indian and Jamaican descent. The US had an African-American President for two terms. Hillary Clinton was the Democratic candidate in 2016, and Elizabeth Warren came third in the 2020 primaries. Nancy Pelosi is Speaker of the House. Of members of Congress, 151 are women and 137 are non-white.
I think for sure they can pay a penalty for race and sex in a general election, but some of the excesses of their progressive politics are the bigger barrier.
Hmm. I think the excesses are definitely a problem (I mean, I have lost faith in the Squad/AOC and feel quite saddened by it honestly. But thereтАЩs a certain sometimes subtle sometimes not undertone to the AOC hatred though that I have a problem withтАж) but IтАЩm not sure it outweighs a deeply held discomfort many Americans feel towards women and people of colour in positions of political power. I think the discomfort is often voiced in well reasoned thoughts about these excesses but I often wonder if thatтАЩs really the true fixation - I just think thereтАЩs more complexity that we deny because itтАЩs easy, convenient and a way to reason with our own biases and issues.
I donтАЩt deny it. I think sexism has always worked against Hillary. But AOCтАЩs recent GQ interview in which she revealed that part of why she didnтАЩt report her rapist was because sheтАЩs a prison abolitionist isnтАЩt going to win any hearts and minds among feminists, never mind the wider population.
If you openly hate half the citizens in your country... Enuf sed.
Not op, but I was coming to make this point anyway. I think they absolutely do pay such a penalty. But I think the argument as you put it in the piece seems to lead straightforwardly to something like тАЬto come to power, the left will need to be led or figureheaded by a white man.тАЭ
I DONтАЩT think thatтАЩs what you probably mean, but I also think itтАЩs a good faith extension of the argument as youтАЩve made it in this piece. IтАЩm also genuinely curious where you find the break in that logical chain*, or if it comes down to тАЬthe left just has to not be an asshole about it.тАЭ
*which tbf I should explicitly lay out: if by dint of their non-white-man qualities the squad are unelectable, and this is a general condition of relevant politics, it follows that the left would want a white man champion (if it wants to win => ~unelectable).
I'm just baffled as to how anyone can seriously think that only a white man can lead the Democrats to victory. Obama was President SIX YEARS AGO.
That's a stinging criticism of something I didn't say.
I was directly responding to Samuel, not to you. Sorry for the confusion.
I think itтАЩs logically possible to think that those headwinds along with the specific and potentially amplified headwinds associated with a leftist candidate would be overwhelming in a way that they werenтАЩt for Obama. Articulated that way IтАЩm not sure I agree (but itтАЩs also a slightly different argument now), in particular because I think Obama got a fair amount of juice in тАШ08 by being perceived as more left wing than he was.
But of course he also had 3/4 of a billion in fundraising against a candidate who stuck with the public funding of about half that; thereтАЩs widely an idea that the sense of moment there was exhausted by it and the Obama presidency such that it canтАЩt be replicated, and so on and so on.
FWIW I think thereтАЩs a just-believable-enough not to laugh off path for AOC to the presidency IF she can win the primary AND keep the party from splitting off into a major centrist faction (Bloomberg spoiler campaign); but I also think thatтАЩs not worth doing because having a leftist president without a congress would be borderline useless, and certainly a poor use of her talent. But thatтАЩs now fully aside from my original q, too.
No edit button, so as well: nor do I think IтАЩm representing fdbтАЩs point of view here directly above. Damn would I like an edit button
There's an edit button under the three dots.
Must be an app vs website thing ┬п\_(уГД)_/┬п -- I have only share, hide, and delete in the iOS app.
Said app canтАЩt (well, wont) even route me to a specific comment from a notification about it, so itтАЩs probably in need of developer attn anyway...
>it follows that the left would want a white man champion (if it wants to win => ~unelectable).
For the record I think this is basically correct. I think that being black or hispanic means getting more penalized for being more on the left, and I think there's just generally a being a lady penalty.
Not insurmountable, but they make things harder. I think gender-flipped Hillary Clinton pulls it out in 2016, for example.
All of which is to say, let's hope Fetterman hangs on in Pennsylvania. Fetterman 28 or 32 would be possible then, but he has to have a win before then.
Do they though? Republicans don't really seem to have a problem voting for women or minorities as long as they have sufficient reactionary politics. I mean Sarah Palin, Bobby Jindal. In the general election Hillary one the majority of the votes despite being not liked personally and Obama won twice.
I canтАЩt remember where, but thereтАЩs been some interesting research into how conservative/republican aligned women are viewed more favorably than liberal/democratic aligned women candidates.
It's almost certain that women and PoC candidates pay a price due to sexism and racism across some part of the voter demographic, and it's also almost certain that their race/gender work in their favor across another part of it. To my thinking, it's a question of which outweighs the other on net.
There's truth to Freddie's point here. Black candidates and Women are easier to paint as radicals.
Perhaps they are also more likely to *be* radicals if theyтАЩre Dems. The SquadтАЩs social media presence certainly fuels that image, regardless of what their voting record may indicate.
The Obamas certainly endured this kind of ridiculous radicals-in-sheepтАЩs-clothing framing from a certain deranged segment of the population despite clearly being centrists in practice. But not enough people actually believed it to vote him out of office.
"The Squad" present themselves as radicals, rightly or wrongly. There's no "painting" involved on behalf of their Republican opposition.